Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Brumby]

To celebrate this significant milestone - we direct our thanks (and all the blame) to the founder of this thread...



  !


(Post modified to reflect something a little more appropriate.)








Brain bleach ... STAT!  << You don't want to know.

[bd139]

[Cerebus]

The nearest that I'm going to get to 1 with a lot of zeroes after it today (without a lot of messing about):

Hey, what's 9 parts per trillion between friends?

[med6753]

Think of it this way....you'll never have to pay child support.

 

[Cerebus]

Lucky I took that picture when I did and posted it. I'd never manage it now, what with the tears streaming from my stinging eyes and having to touch type this blind...

[mansaxel]

Yeah don’t ever play that game.

If you’re in the UK buy the phones direct from giffgaff or Apple without contract and get a pay as you go or capped monthly contract.

We pay around 30€ per contract per month, with unlimited (national) talk minutes and SMS, and 20GiB data. The kids sometimes run out, I've never.

Always separate the phone from the contract. We bought used iPhones for the children. I've got a replacement Sony Android. It works.

[Cerebus]

Today's deliveries.

Ten off 5 metres silicone insulated 60/0.08mm cable (aka 22 AWG or 0.3 mm²) in ten different colours (China via eBay UK here). Seems OK, you can see the stripped bit where I took the micrometer to the 79±2 micron strands and counted them - all there. £23 odd all in. Intended for small (i.e. grabbers and the like) test leads.

Also five 1m RG316 BNC-BNC cables for £2.17 each (from here on Aliexpress if anyone wants any). The fifth, not pictured, went straight in the front of the frequency counter in pursuit of a 1 and lots of zeroes and it seems fine.



Also, not pictured, a cheap isolated USB adaptor of the ADUM3160 variety, (£8.50 here on eBay). Plugged in, works talking to the inbuilt ST-Link adaptor on the ST dev board in the GPSDO. What can you say, works as intended, end of.

[Vince]

you bastard! 

You're welcome, any time. 

[Vince]

100K goes to Bd taking a shit. 

NOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!    

[Vince]

Good point about deleting posts. Very sneaky 



Now where's 80 year old stripper?

Don't Celebrate too early, It's BeenFlying now, take that !!!! 

[med6753]

100K goes to Bd taking a shit. 

NOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!    

Too late. It was already officially recognized and entered into public record. You can delete all the posts you want. 

[beanflying]

So if we remove 8 more posts the Stripper gets the 'new' 100k 

[mnementh]

OK, here is finished meter with new jacks installed and working. Also are the photos of the old and new jacks and the arrows point to clear signs that these are not new as claimed and even have slight damage via chips etc, thankfully none of these are really visible once installed.

I installed them as these are now like hens teeth and currently there are none available on the evil bay. I do feel peeved as once the shipping and import duty has been paid they nearly cost as much as the entire meter cost me. So, should I just suck it up and get on with it, or should I raise a claim for not as described via eBay?

Tricky... it's clearly not as described, but what if the seller wants you to return it, for a refund..?

Return the one you took out. I'm sick of fuckwits selling used and fucked-up shit on eBay as new or "new other". That part is clearly used; you have no way of knowing how long it will last before it cracks out just like the one it's replacing.

Call it the "asshole tax".

mnem
fuck fleaBay.

No, I couldn't do that, I'm too honest, thats my problem. Besides, I have sent him, through the eBay dispute service, the same photos so lets see what he comes with. With the shipping and the import tax, it cost me $63, almost as much as the complete meter cost me, £57. I only ordered the block because they were the very last ones on the bay and the chances of another 80 series meter popping for sale at a similar price again seems to be very unlikely, even beaten up ones are around double that money. I also managed to flip some audio gear so that almost covered the cost for me, so it was a case of grab it quick before they all disappear.

What makes it worse for me is that at the time, there was also a seller in the states that second hand ones for less money, I went for this seller because it was supposed to be a brand-new item.

Yup... in your claim, make sure you make the point that you paid more for new, and you feel it's reasonable to get new.

I fully understand; with all the trans-border BS, my $50 digitizer cost close to $90... which seller sent direct via USPS Priority mail (and no export paperwork) for $4.88 rather than via eBay GSP which I paid for. I'd have been really snorting mad if I'd had to pay import/duty after the fact as well.

I'll be honest.... over the last couple years, my success rate with fleaBay is definitely on the tailspin side of the bell curve...  even my "good score" 54645A came back to bite me in the arse after the fact.

mnem
@tggzzz: can you pass on any of yer sailplane experience might help with this...?

[med6753]

So if we remove 8 more posts the Stripper gets the 'new' 100k 

If you feel the need then go for it. 

[mnementh]

As for the switches... why resist...? I bought them cuz I needed 6 of the metal ones to fix that curb-score Samsuck TV; and we both know there's no way in hell the rest of the kit will go unused in any of our labs. For 10 bux, a total no-brainer.

EDIT: I'm bringing this to a new post as it really just made a dog's breakfast of the "cheap switches" conversation, and is actually something that's ON-TOPIC for a change.

That reminds me... this TV had the weirdest failure mode; I actually meant to post aboot this when it happened, but IRL (and the fact I lost the pics from when I was working on it) got in the way.
...On three of the switches, the silvering on the contacts had migrated ( I assume from electrolysis) such that it formed a very visible spiderweb of metallic tendrils across the surface of the plastic body (these appear to be made of some filled nylon or resin plastic) of the switch between the contacts. This didn't actually appear to have continuity on the one I removed for testing, but it did have measurable resistance and capacitance if I put the silver-plated dome cup back in place.

Having figured this out, I carefully scraped/cleaned all the switches with alcohol to remove the silver deposits and reassembled the TV with the PCB installed; the noise was gone on both data/signal lines, and it worked flawlessly until aboot a month or two ago, when I bought those switches and just replaced them all.

My best surmise is that moisture in the air promoted the electrolysis/silver deposition due to the constant 5VDC applied; once it got to a certain point the physical structure of the switch became a LC and/or RC oscillator. Now have 2 or 3 of them doing that at the same time and... batshit crazy TV.

mnem
 

I had the very same fault in my Samsung, although it originally manifested itself iin a different way.
After working well for years (I bought it new), for some forgotten reason, I wanted to feed it with the VGA & sound outputs of my laptop.

Just my luck, ----the remote croaked!
"No wuckers muther----------" *   I'll just use the switches on the side of the TV!
I set the switch to "computer" & away I went.

After much happy watching on the big screen (although it showed up how cruddy the VGA resolution was!), I returned the TV to normal service, & initially, all was well, but a problem arose, in that, after a while the bloody thing would return to "computer" input.

Over time, it got worse, & would randomly switch to other modes.
Digging around in the back with the 'scope was inconclusive, but eventually we obtained another remote, so I just unplugged the connection to the side switch, & used that.

*The derivation of this term is probably self explanatory, but if not, I'm not going to explain it on a family friendly forum.

Hmmm... did you find the silver deposition inside the switches too, or just stop when you determined the keypad as the culprit?

mnem
did I guess right?

[Vince]

100K goes to Bd taking a shit. 

NOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!    

Too late. It was already officially recognized and entered into public record. You can delete all the posts you want. 

Not even close !!! 

Any 10 year old can photoshop this screenshot to make it say whatever you want it to say, so it proves NOTHING !   

[mnementh]

Good point about deleting posts. Very sneaky 

   

Now where's 80 year old stripper?

   You rang? Here's your prize. 

That's it. I warned you, mutherfucker.   

*presses [BIG RED BUTTON] *



mnem

[Brumby]

Relocated from prior 100k...

Got a hankering for some TM500 at the moment. Damn enablers! 

Yea man get your fix ...

You lot are incorrigible....  but I support you!   





Bugger .... BD is back in the 100K spot.


Random image...

[Vince]

Bugger .... BD is back in the 100K spot.

What ?! Lemme fix that right now !! 

[Cerebus]

So if we remove 8 more posts the Stripper gets the 'new' 100k 

I think one would do that at the risk of being 'blackballed'. And I'm not talking here about the entrance election to a club involving dropping billiard balls into a pretty velvet bag, I'm talking about the exit procedure involving boot polish and a scrubbing brush.

[mnementh]

   Hopefully your results are better than this. 

Holy fucking asscrackers... that's almost as *blerk* as my retaliatory strike a few posts back. 

But gotta give booty-fab props here... summitch actually made a working header from a torch-cut flange and EMT with (looks like) 6013 on a AC buzzbox... and looks like he even included a air-cleaner preheat stovepipe. 

I'll be fooked. As long as the seams don't split from the heat, might actually work; and if you grind/paint it then plop the tin heat-shield back over it...

Nope, still gonna be ugly as a bag of smashed assholes. Just a cover'd-up bag of smashed assholes.   

mnem
*tips hat to the booty-fab*

[mnementh]

Leaning towards this. Nokia C5 Endi. My Nokia 925 lasted nearly 8 years with no issues, even has original battery. Only $80 USD plus their stupid $35 "activation" (Bend over, here it comes) fee. My needs are modest and I think it will be more than adequate,

If it’s like the Nokia 5 my daughter had it’ll be garbage. The first one didn’t work when it turned up. The second one lasted about 7 months. I gave her my old 6s in the end. I still have that after 6 years and it still looks new and is still supported by Apple!  She has an iPhone SE now.

The real no-go is the SP it's locked to. The only service I ever had that was almost as bad as TracFone; constant drop-outs and disconnects even with 4 or 5 bars because they contract with other carriers on a "last-priority" basis. This means that if little Tommy whose mom has her primary carrier line with hotspot on wants to watch BabyShark videos on yoobToob and "needs" the BW, your in-process phone call gets dropped to give it to him. It's like volunteering to be sodomized with a shovel on a daily basis; never again.

And when your contract lapses the phone is landfill; they lock them out and will not reactivate for another user, so literally eWaste the day it was made.

mnem
"Like beating on your knee with a monkey wrench, cuz it feels so good when you stop..." ~grand-dad

[mnementh]

It isn't a phone. It is a computer, fashion statement, surveillance device, status symbol and lifestyle (with a phone buried somewhere in there).

I like the German borrowed word   "Handy"  -- It describes the thing so much better than "Phone" "Cell"  or "Mobile"


iPhone 12 is still too expensive, even if I call it a Handy.

I don't think the Germans were the first to "borrow" that word to describe a mobile phone. I heard people calling them "Handy's" in Hungary long before the word ever caught on in Germany.

McBryce.

That's just an evolution of the term "handset" which was the trade designation for them when the first handhelds were released; this was to differentiate them from bagphones which were still far more common.

The meaning for "Handy" that I grew up was uhhh... slightly dirtier. 

mnem
although probably no more unhygienic.

[TERRA Operative]

Did someone say TM500?

I should sell some of the AM503's.... Maybe someone will trade for a scope module...

(SG503 present in faceplate only, it's on the operating table.)
Also absent is two Metrotex modules MP215 Ultrasonic Pulser and MR106 Receiver, and a Metec 5267 Voltage Tuneable Filter. If anyone has info on these 3 units, please share!

Ignore the gaping hole in the centre bottom of the photo, my 34461A is out for warranty repair. 

[Zucca]

this deserve full screen!!!