Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

Somebody in Germany interested in a Yokogawa scope for free?

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/yokogawa-dl7100-4-kanal-oszilloskop-zu-verschenken/1858430774-168-8188

[tautech]

Time for some MemTest burn-in.

mnem
not mnemTest... that's something else altogether.

Actually it seems it wasn't what I expected although the hint you gave about rolling back W10 updates got me tinking............
After much shagging around in which it got close to Bob Pease flying lessons a couple of times I stopped the boot in Bios and let everything cook for a while yet after some time it went into reboots again  so ripped the Data drive out and took it to our family PC to ensure the last days work was saved and safe  and then threw it all back together after eraser and IPA work on the RAM pads and let it cook while stopped in Bios where it now ran for an hour without issue. 
Then let it full boot into W10 and another hours cooking where it seem just fine. 
So now it's back in its normal spot allowing me to type this reply. 

The only thing I can put this down to is last evening when putting it into Sleep mode noticed the HD light was showing some activity which has never worried me or it for that matter before but it may have been working on one of them silent W10 updates and sending it to sleep in the middle of it may have forked something. 

Anyways my head hurts now from all these carry on's not to mention all the oogling at new $ PC's and $ PC bits and $ bobs while waiting for GB backups to finish.

[bd139]

I’ve got to the point where I’m just going to buy a second hand Lenovo crate from now on. If it goes wrong I’ll just buy another one. I’m done with pissing around with hardware after that shitty Asus B560M board!

[AVGresponding]

I saw someone in a 7 on the M25 on Friday. Stuck in traffic. Looked like something you don’t want to be on the M25 in traffic 

Same with an Elise over here. It even makes my Civic look big. 

The crazy thing is that the Ford GT-40 makes the Elise look tall!  Saw both when visiting Hillbank Motorsports in Irvine, CA a few years ago with a coworker who wanted to drool on Cobras.  They had a GT-40 (gorgeous car!!) parked near an Elise; IIRC the roof of the  GT-40 was about 5" lower than  that of the Elise which is already not much more than waist high.

-Pat

As you probably know, "GT-40" is a bit of a misnomer, for a couple of reasons.

Ford never called it the GT-40, it was just the GT. The 40 was allegedly added by a journo who was astonished at how low the car was, for a road vehicle. It comes from the height regulation from the FIA mandating a minimum height to the top of the windscreen of 40 inches. In point of fact, the car sits 40.5 inches high...

[mansaxel]

And Mike, that's a nice Chapman set with way more bits than mine - I still have the one I used when I worked at National Semi back in the mid-late 80s.  Doesn't look like mine still exists on their site - it had the two sizes of flat and Phillips bits, Allens from .050 to 5/16", 1/4" square drive adapter, screwdriver handle, extension and ratchet.  VERY handy little kits - used it constantly at National!

-Pat

I've got the French variant of that:



insanely cute. much expensive. very desirable.

[Robert763]

And Mike, that's a nice Chapman set with way more bits than mine - I still have the one I used when I worked at National Semi back in the mid-late 80s.  Doesn't look like mine still exists on their site - it had the two sizes of flat and Phillips bits, Allens from .050 to 5/16", 1/4" square drive adapter, screwdriver handle, extension and ratchet.  VERY handy little kits - used it constantly at National!

-Pat

I've got the French variant of that:



insanely cute. much expensive. very desirable.

That just went on my xmas list.

[AVGresponding]

I have the Bahco version, one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153567454485 and also a Britool tricky access set: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153711630267

Britool was once a high class British brand, sadly now owned by Facom. My favourite small flat driver is a Facom, my favourite small Philips is a Beta...

[beanflying]

Got one of these a while back, very handy for tight spots and very cheap too at $16 aud https://www.kincrome.com.au/1-4-mini-ratchet-bit-set-10pce

[VK5RC]

Arguably the Caterham 7 is the most Lotus of any still available; Colin Chapman was a pioneer of performance through weight reduction, and the 7 weighs in at a little over half a ton, making it lighter even than a Mk1 Elise, and probably half the weight of current Lotus offerings.

They bought the design rights to the 7 in the early 1970s and have evolved the design without losing the original looks or light-weight philosophy. The one with a GSX-R engine is going to be terrifyingly fast round a track.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Colin Chapman said something along the lines of "A car needs to do three things - accelerate, stop, and change direction.  Adding horsepower helps one.  Making it lighter helps all three."  The '05 Elise has a curb weight of 1975 lbs/896 kg.  The brakes will about rip your eyeballs out - a friend of mine drove it and commented "When you step on the brake pedal, it's like the hand of God reaches down and grabs the car!"

The 7 must REALLY be a blast to drive!

-Pat

Some years ago a group of guys hired out the local raceway for an afternoon, with an 'advanced driving instructor' basically it was about braking, avoidance, not locking brakes, getting used to ABS etc. One of the company sponsors got the local Lotus agent to turn up with an Elise (this was very early on) . We did wet bitumen all out stops from 60km/hr, the E class Benz did the best, followed by my Volvo V70, the Lotus came in about 2m further on. We tried different drivers - didn't change results - we were quite surprised with the results. Watching the Benz braking was quite amusing - you would expect a 'whale' of a car like that to wallow but it looked like it was glued onto the road. 😂

[tautech]

I’ve got to the point where I’m just going to buy a second hand Lenovo crate from now on. If it goes wrong I’ll just buy another one. I’m done with pissing around with hardware after that shitty Asus B560M board!

Yeah well I'm the other way inclined after getting burnt with propriety brand PC's and TBH I've rather build one with the bits I wanna put in it.
OTOH quite liked the look of this compact:
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/WKSPB52512/PB-Jupiter-52512-Windows-10-Pro-Mini-Business-PC-I

[Vince]

Price tag implies it's for a pack of 10 units though !  I assume you only need one ?!

[Specmaster]

I have the Bahco version, one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153567454485 and also a Britool tricky access set: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153711630267

Britool was once a high class British brand, sadly now owned by Facom. My favourite small flat driver is a Facom, my favourite small Philips is a Beta...

My family laugh at me because I frequently come back yet another tool, be it a set of driver bits, sockets, cutters etc, because they say haven't you got enough already, but I often get the last laugh when they bring something to fix when I say, you remember when I brought that xyz thing you laughed at me getting? Well I just used to fix this for you, without that tool I couldn't have done it. That silences them for a bit then. 

[Specmaster]

I’ve got to the point where I’m just going to buy a second hand Lenovo crate from now on. If it goes wrong I’ll just buy another one. I’m done with pissing around with hardware after that shitty Asus B560M board!

Yeah well I'm the other way inclined after getting burnt with propriety brand PC's and TBH I've rather build one with the bits I wanna put in it.
OTOH quite liked the look of this compact:
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/WKSPB52512/PB-Jupiter-52512-Windows-10-Pro-Mini-Business-PC-I

This all day long, buying a ready-made one just gets you whatever the manufacturer makes the best profit margin on, and I've seen and read about some real horror stories with those.

[Specmaster]

Arguably the Caterham 7 is the most Lotus of any still available; Colin Chapman was a pioneer of performance through weight reduction, and the 7 weighs in at a little over half a ton, making it lighter even than a Mk1 Elise, and probably half the weight of current Lotus offerings.

They bought the design rights to the 7 in the early 1970s and have evolved the design without losing the original looks or light-weight philosophy. The one with a GSX-R engine is going to be terrifyingly fast round a track.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Colin Chapman said something along the lines of "A car needs to do three things - accelerate, stop, and change direction.  Adding horsepower helps one.  Making it lighter helps all three."  The '05 Elise has a curb weight of 1975 lbs/896 kg.  The brakes will about rip your eyeballs out - a friend of mine drove it and commented "When you step on the brake pedal, it's like the hand of God reaches down and grabs the car!"

The 7 must REALLY be a blast to drive!

-Pat

Some years ago a group of guys hired out the local raceway for an afternoon, with an 'advanced driving instructor' basically it was about braking, avoidance, not locking brakes, getting used to ABS etc. One of the company sponsors got the local Lotus agent to turn up with an Elise (this was very early on) . We did wet bitumen all out stops from 60km/hr, the E class Benz did the best, followed by my Volvo V70, the Lotus came in about 2m further on. We tried different drivers - didn't change results - we were quite surprised with the results. Watching the Benz braking was quite amusing - you would expect a 'whale' of a car like that to wallow but it looked like it was glued onto the road. 😂

Yeah, sometimes having a bit of heft to a car is a good thing as it tends to hold the car in contact with the road surface, whereas a car that is lightweight can often catch air over bumps and that will cause total braking distances to increase.

[tautech]

Price tag implies it's for a pack of 10 units though !  I assume you only need one ?!

You can easy run up that kinda coin building one though with just the cost of a reasonable CPU one third the cost of that compact then add a SSD, RAM, MB plus the cost of of an OS too.
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/category/components/cpus/intel-desktop-cpu

[bd139]

I’ve got to the point where I’m just going to buy a second hand Lenovo crate from now on. If it goes wrong I’ll just buy another one. I’m done with pissing around with hardware after that shitty Asus B560M board!

Yeah well I'm the other way inclined after getting burnt with propriety brand PC's and TBH I've rather build one with the bits I wanna put in it.
OTOH quite liked the look of this compact:
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/WKSPB52512/PB-Jupiter-52512-Windows-10-Pro-Mini-Business-PC-I

This all day long, buying a ready-made one just gets you whatever the manufacturer makes the best profit margin on, and I've seen and read about some real horror stories with those.

Not if you buy corporate desktops and workstations. You get a stable well specified hardware platform and a future of spare parts that are going to make it work until the sun explodes.

Lenovo ThinkCentre and ThinkStation are good examples. Very well engineered and easy to service. And you can get service manuals and spec sheets for them.

[xrunner]

My family laugh at me because I frequently come back yet another tool, be it a set of driver bits, sockets, cutters etc, because they say haven't you got enough already, but I often get the last laugh when they bring something to fix when I say, you remember when I brought that xyz thing you laughed at me getting? Well I just used to fix this for you, without that tool I couldn't have done it. That silences them for a bit then. 

[factory]

has anyone ever seen one of these in the wild?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184978771720?hash=item2b11980f08:g:zywAAOSwGO1hCKf2

cub?  factory?  508? ...........  bueller? bueller?



why would anyone have bought one?

Never seen one, but it has been on my watch list for a while, just out of curiosity, I noted someone is searching for documentation on another site.
Picture added as ePay links are useless for here, as they eventually disappear.

Why only one picture in the listing? Far too many sellers can't be bothered to show more than the front these days and hide damage this way. 

why would anyone have bought one?

Cheaper than a customer buying another complete counter at the time? it will almost certainly be for remote programmed operation, with one of those hp/Dymec automated test systems and there was a need for more than one plug-in.
For us it would much be better to rescue another variant of 524xL counter, than the K37 option with just a PSU & plug-in holder.

I can't understand why these didn't have three slots for plug-ins, as per the hp 8707A holder for the 8690 based sweeper plug-ins (a few of those have appeared on ePay.de this year).


David

[Specmaster]

I’ve got to the point where I’m just going to buy a second hand Lenovo crate from now on. If it goes wrong I’ll just buy another one. I’m done with pissing around with hardware after that shitty Asus B560M board!

Yeah well I'm the other way inclined after getting burnt with propriety brand PC's and TBH I've rather build one with the bits I wanna put in it.
OTOH quite liked the look of this compact:
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/WKSPB52512/PB-Jupiter-52512-Windows-10-Pro-Mini-Business-PC-I

This all day long, buying a ready-made one just gets you whatever the manufacturer makes the best profit margin on, and I've seen and read about some real horror stories with those.

Not if you buy corporate desktops and workstations. You get a stable well specified hardware platform and a future of spare parts that are going to make it work until the sun explodes.

Lenovo ThinkCentre and ThinkStation are good examples. Very well engineered and easy to service. And you can get service manuals and spec sheets for them.

That may well be true, but they are also not the fastest or a good all-rounder that could be used as a gaming machine as well, but will sit there all day long crunching spreadsheets or word processing.

[bd139]

I’ve got to the point where I’m just going to buy a second hand Lenovo crate from now on. If it goes wrong I’ll just buy another one. I’m done with pissing around with hardware after that shitty Asus B560M board!

Yeah well I'm the other way inclined after getting burnt with propriety brand PC's and TBH I've rather build one with the bits I wanna put in it.
OTOH quite liked the look of this compact:
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/WKSPB52512/PB-Jupiter-52512-Windows-10-Pro-Mini-Business-PC-I

This all day long, buying a ready-made one just gets you whatever the manufacturer makes the best profit margin on, and I've seen and read about some real horror stories with those.

Not if you buy corporate desktops and workstations. You get a stable well specified hardware platform and a future of spare parts that are going to make it work until the sun explodes.

Lenovo ThinkCentre and ThinkStation are good examples. Very well engineered and easy to service. And you can get service manuals and spec sheets for them.

That may well be true, but they are also not the fastest or a good all-rounder that could be used as a gaming machine as well, but will sit there all day long crunching spreadsheets or word processing.

You’re going to lose what 5-10% at most. Can’t be arsed with arguing over that 

[Specmaster]

I’ve got to the point where I’m just going to buy a second hand Lenovo crate from now on. If it goes wrong I’ll just buy another one. I’m done with pissing around with hardware after that shitty Asus B560M board!

Yeah well I'm the other way inclined after getting burnt with propriety brand PC's and TBH I've rather build one with the bits I wanna put in it.
OTOH quite liked the look of this compact:
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/WKSPB52512/PB-Jupiter-52512-Windows-10-Pro-Mini-Business-PC-I

This all day long, buying a ready-made one just gets you whatever the manufacturer makes the best profit margin on, and I've seen and read about some real horror stories with those.

Not if you buy corporate desktops and workstations. You get a stable well specified hardware platform and a future of spare parts that are going to make it work until the sun explodes.

Lenovo ThinkCentre and ThinkStation are good examples. Very well engineered and easy to service. And you can get service manuals and spec sheets for them.

That may well be true, but they are also not the fastest or a good all-rounder that could be used as a gaming machine as well, but will sit there all day long crunching spreadsheets or word processing.

You’re going to lose what 5-10% at most. Can’t be arsed with arguing over that 

Graphics also very often take a massive hit as business machines don't need to much in the way of graphics, but games or a machine for AutoCAD work do.

[bd139]

AutoCAD certainly doesn’t. If you’re using commercial CAD software, buy commercial workstation with a Quadro card in it  .

About the only thing it makes sense for is if you want to squeeze an extra 10fps out of Cyberpunk 2077 or have specific compute requirements which require memory bandwidth.

The computers we have, even the ass end ones, are absolutely shit hot boxes of lightning these days.

[tautech]

Yeah well once upon a time we stuck graphic cards in PC's but in recent times can't be shagged as onboard are not too bad these days. For 3D CAD maybe but onboard graphics has run my Altium fine for years but it is an older version.

Anyways had quite enough  of PC's today so into the scratcher time. 

[McBryce]

Price tag implies it's for a pack of 10 units though !  I assume you only need one ?!

That's the subtle difference between "10 Pieces" and "10 Piece". 10 Piece means you get 10 bits with it, not 10 rachets.

McBryce.

[Cerebus]

Price tag implies it's for a pack of 10 units though !  I assume you only need one ?!

That's the subtle difference between "10 Pieces" and "10 Piece". 10 Piece means you get 10 bits with it, not 10 rachets.

McBryce.

The French have always had a problem with plurals. 

English: Man, men.
German: Mann, Männer.
French: Homme, hommes.

In only one of those languages is one of those pairs of words pronounced the same, despite being written differently. You can't tell if the Frenchman is talking singular or plural unless you also get the define article as well: l'homme, les hommes (or "les hommes, eh" if it's Canadian French).

When I was initially learning French we were being taught to read, write and speak at the same time. I was constantly tripping up over the fact that the written plural was, for the most part, formed just like an English one but not pronounced.