Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Probably not, these scopes are too recent for that I think !

... have never taken mine apart (2 of them) though... because they " just work " ! ... which means they probably do NOT contains said blue caps ! 

What do you mean you've never taken them apart? Might I remind you that this is TEA and that is a requirement. 

My experience with Philips capacitors in Fluke DMM's has been less than stellar and when one is found it is automatic replacement.

Yup. Replacement with extreme prejudice followed by remote-location explosive decontamination.

mnem

[Cerebus]

New PCBs arrived, 10 off. Ordered 24th August, delivered today 4th Sept, 11 days order to delivery, £14.45 total cost. This was with all the defaults for a 2 layer board, plus v-cutting, delivered with the cheapest option. JLC have them handing the boards over to shipping on the 26th, so 9 days in transit for the cheapskate version, not bad.



Click to embiggen. Sorry about the distracting background - an experiment in lighting boards for easy photography which is a ongoing effort. Next time I'll do something about it, but I can't be arsed to go and re-shoot at the moment.

So, what did we learn this time, aside from the fact that panellising in KiCad is a pain in the posterior?

JLC seem to have no problem putting a V-cut right on a routed board edge, and I can confirm that, obviously apart from where a V-cut has been snapped through, the edges of the sub-boards are nice and smooth. It was definately worth the effort doing the routing and V-cutting. The V-cuts themselves are very crisp and clean. The remaining V-cut nubs come off with a few (single digits) seconds work with the file on my Leatherman and leave a nice smooth board with rounded corners.

I cocked up on one V-cut, putting it slightly out of line with the routed edge. JLC's review didn't catch this. I downloaded the 'production file' and the V-cut was in the wrong place there too. BUT their machine operator did catch the error, the actual cut line was perfectly aligned.

[mnementh]

Still getting to it but a quick Helmet check and bearing in mind it is not spattering MIG or Stick most of the bushy bits are covered. There is more double and triple packaging than Welder in the box...

So... going out as a normal person for 'alloween then...? 

mnem
*agitating-ily*

[Cerebus]

Still getting to it but a quick Helmet check and bearing in mind it is not spattering MIG or Stick most of the bushy bits are covered. There is more double and triple packaging than Welder in the box.....

Is it just me, or does that look like Shaun the Sheep has just got himself set up for some welding?

[Robert763]

It's clearly been modified, for sure. You can see the current limiting pot now has a flat-blade screwdriver slot for adjustment.
Whether this was done because the pot shaft broke, or just to make it tamper resistant, is just guesswork.

That doesn't mean it doesn't work. That current reading is what you'd expect for an 8 ohm load at 10VDC. I'd guess for a low cost item like this he just hasn't the time for more testing, or just has no knowledge of what the original appearance/functionality should be.

Maybe he can tell us himself?



@Ice-Tea, come and defend your honour!   

What about the damping button then? I also know who it is but other viewers and or buyers might not, and surely if the current limiting control had been modified to be a form anti-tamper device, then why not do the same to voltage controls and then make mention of it in the description 

This could have come from a production line test station. A semi-skilled worker could set a couple of voltages and mke sure the item works and the decimal points don't come on (current limit). you would not want them knocking the current control or setting the damping off.

[mnementh]

OK now for some more TEA. Maybe the grey beard will have a clue and give me some info on this little gizmo I just did a quick tear down of for you people.

The guy I bought one of my two Metrix nixie counters (not the one picture earlier, another one with only 6 digits, 10Mhz not 160Mhz), also gave me this little artifact as a bonus. Said it was so crap he didn't even find it worth the effort putting it up for sale as for sure nobody would want it.

I always wondered what it was for !  Seller had no clue either !

Looks old, looks military looking maybe... it's tiny, fits in the hand !

If I believe the scale on the galvanometer, it's an ohm-meter, with two ranges. There as switch on the side of the case to let you select that.
Also on the side there is a handle that you can crank to energize it.

So far so good, looks like your typical ancient mega-ohmmeter to measure earth resistance.

Problem is... the scale should read in the tens of Mohms..... whereas here, it's the opposite : it measures very LOW values : one scale for 0 - 50 ohms, other scale is 0 - 150 ohms !!!

Big Clive had a video about an exploder (these things that have a hand crank and are used to fire explosives). The one he had show had two functions: detonating and measuring the loop resistance of the actual initiators. He also explained some of the basic stuff around this application. Maybe your device is the loop resistance measurement function only.

BWAHAHAHAHA...!!!

That works very well at making cats explode. 

mnem
*goes back and watches again...* rowwwr-rowwwwr-rowwwwr-POOOOT!!! *cat explodes* BWAHAHAHAHA...!!!

[mnementh]

Get yourself a Caterpillar S62 for less than £500, and you've got a waterproof, mil-spec phone with a decent FLIR camera built in.

Worth it

At last!------A legitimate reason for thermal cameras!

Well it would be if only that video was not faked 

I'll argue that it's an even more legitimate reason for thermal cameras... to find and capture REAL footage of the same.  They should be made cheap as chips so EVERYBODY has one; that way we can finally all get to the bottom of the ages old question: "WHAT is that SMELL...?   

mnem

[mnementh]

I have not had the pleasure of sampling goat and not sure I want to.

It is fine, but doesn't taste like the apocryphal chicken. Chicken used to be a nice treat, but modern farming practices have changed that.

Goat has a good flavour, more like beef or venison, and since it isn't intensively farmed it needs appropriate cooking to ensure it isn't too tough.

Not necessarily.
In another life I had 100's of them and for a local goat people doo we put a good sized kid (young goat) on the rotisserie spit and served it up to them not telling what it was where most presumed it was good old spit roast lamb. It was a little more bland than lamb and beautifully tender however.....when the real goat lovers got the word it WAS goat some left the party in horror ! 
Funny as hell it all was too as the old chap down the road where this doo was held was one of the most highly regarded in the local goat fraternity and no one was more in on the deceit than he was ! 
Miss him heaps and named our youngest in his honor. 

Young animals are normally more bland and tender than older ones that have had time to strengthen their muscles; veal springs to mind.

And that's a bit of a mean trick! I'd only play that kind of game on people that I thought were grossly hypocritical or deliberately and determinedly ignorant.

Uhhh-huh... so the mean trick is to feed roasted kid to people who think lamb is food but goats are pets...?

mnem
"Humans are unique in one thing: They are able to invent things to be bothered by, and then keep themselves incredibly busy being bothered by those things." ~mom

[tggzzz]

I have not had the pleasure of sampling goat and not sure I want to.

It is fine, but doesn't taste like the apocryphal chicken. Chicken used to be a nice treat, but modern farming practices have changed that.

Goat has a good flavour, more like beef or venison, and since it isn't intensively farmed it needs appropriate cooking to ensure it isn't too tough.

Not necessarily.
In another life I had 100's of them and for a local goat people doo we put a good sized kid (young goat) on the rotisserie spit and served it up to them not telling what it was where most presumed it was good old spit roast lamb. It was a little more bland than lamb and beautifully tender however.....when the real goat lovers got the word it WAS goat some left the party in horror ! 
Funny as hell it all was too as the old chap down the road where this doo was held was one of the most highly regarded in the local goat fraternity and no one was more in on the deceit than he was ! 
Miss him heaps and named our youngest in his honor. 

Young animals are normally more bland and tender than older ones that have had time to strengthen their muscles; veal springs to mind.

And that's a bit of a mean trick! I'd only play that kind of game on people that I thought were grossly hypocritical or deliberately and determinedly ignorant.

Uhhh-huh... so the mean trick is to feed roasted kid to people who think lamb is food but goats are pets...?

mnem
"Humans are unique in one thing: They are able to invent things to be bothered by, and then keep themselves incredibly busy being bothered by those things." ~mom

Ditto not tell people who keep sheep as pets that they are eating lamb.

[mnementh]

Yeah I did know who it is. “Used” and “working” is a generous description for something missing major functional pieces.

Ditto; I was just takin' the piss. I regularly look at T's listings just to drool. 

In all honesty, I was expecting him to come kick us both in the shin by now...

mnem

    *stirring the TEA*

[mnementh]

It's clearly been modified, for sure. You can see the current limiting pot now has a flat-blade screwdriver slot for adjustment.
Whether this was done because the pot shaft broke, or just to make it tamper resistant, is just guesswork.

That doesn't mean it doesn't work. That current reading is what you'd expect for an 8 ohm load at 10VDC. I'd guess for a low cost item like this he just hasn't the time for more testing, or just has no knowledge of what the original appearance/functionality should be.

Maybe he can tell us himself?

@Ice-Tea, come and defend your honour!   

Thanks for defending me I've been away for a bit, hardly have time to even lurk these days 

I saw the slotted turnpot and assumed that was how it was supposed to be. Never occured to me there was supposed to be a knob there, there are plenty of supplies out there that have a less accesible current limiter. Saw pictures of complete units and now it's obvious off course. So in general, you're spot on: I didn't have time to do more testing and I didn't have the knowledge what it should be.

Not sure what the commotion about the 8 ohm load is, though. That's obviously about the other picture (the one you linked to as well...)

Ahhh.... there 'e is!

mnem
*stands at attention, awaiting discipline*

[Cerebus]

great woe is me. Hubby spent his monthly allowance on Puukkos ...

Any recommendations for an INEXPENSIVE 10 gbit switch ? should have at least 4 usable 10 gbit ports for NAS and some experiments plus 8 additional gbit ports. Stackability or downlink port to 1 gbit switch would be a welcome plus ...
Use case: in house home office cabling. VLAN capability would be a plus (to separate work part from at home part)

I've got a Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 16XG which was about the cheapest new, small 10G switch that I could find when I needed one. (I could find slightly cheaper used enterprise switches but my box room doesn't have the power or cooling budgets for what I could find at the time). Hasn't caused any problems in the two years it's been operational. 12 SFP+ ports, 4 10G capable copper ports. It plays nicely with the Juniper EX4200-48T which was the existing 'house' switch to which it is connected with 10Gb fibre. VLANs no problem, will do aggregates to various standards - which I have used server <=> switch but not switch <=> switch yet (It was originally hooked up to do some highish bandwidth vmware->vmware traffic and anyone who's worked with vmware will tell you that keeping your network simple is a great aid to diagnosis when you're trying to figure out why vmware's bloody virtual distributed switches are not doing what you want.)

Is it the best? Probably not. Does it do the job? Yes. Is it cheap? It's probably as cheap as you'll get and also want to use.

I haven't looked in the last two years, so it's quite possible that there's something new out there at a better price/performance point now, but perhaps there isn't.

[Vince]

I guess it must be some nice instrument for a very specific application... but what application ? Civil ? Military ?

Could be a continuity tester.

Ask the manufacturer they're still around:
https://www.pagesjaunes.fr/pros/52120546
They might even send you a free service manual.

We used something similar, although not in appearance, to measure continuity of the earth mat of a MF
Broadcasting Station back in the day.

It was battery operated, not by a hand generator, but it had a very similar scale range.
There were other devices which had similar ranges, but didn't like high levels of RF, so it was the default instrument.

It was called a a "GecOhm" or "GeoOhm", not sure which------too long ago.

Thanks for that, seems to be it !

Checked for " Geohm "on Google, still made today ! Albeit with fancy display and push buttons to make it look more modern and extract more money from the customers, but still the same basic tiny handheld form factor design and same 0 -50 ohms range !

Robert and Captain_ Bullshot thanks for the additionnal suggestions as well !

So it's sussed out then, I can at last sleep at night ! 


@Dwagon : no use for such a device and it's toast anyway. As I already said the tiny coil spring in the meter movement is wrecked, I am not a clock artisan I can't fix that... and even if I were, I have no use for such a device...

But maybe I can do like everybody does over here, and just sell it broken for 100 Euros, and putting all the usual buzz words in the title and description : " RARE, VINTAGE, FOR COLLECTORS " !! 

Now you are making me feel guilty and I might consider keeping it taking up space for nothing 

[Cerebus]

I have not had the pleasure of sampling goat and not sure I want to.

It is fine, but doesn't taste like the apocryphal chicken. Chicken used to be a nice treat, but modern farming practices have changed that.

Goat has a good flavour, more like beef or venison, and since it isn't intensively farmed it needs appropriate cooking to ensure it isn't too tough.

Not necessarily.
In another life I had 100's of them and for a local goat people doo we put a good sized kid (young goat) on the rotisserie spit and served it up to them not telling what it was where most presumed it was good old spit roast lamb. It was a little more bland than lamb and beautifully tender however.....when the real goat lovers got the word it WAS goat some left the party in horror ! 
Funny as hell it all was too as the old chap down the road where this doo was held was one of the most highly regarded in the local goat fraternity and no one was more in on the deceit than he was ! 
Miss him heaps and named our youngest in his honor. 

Must be a bit rough on a youngster going to school with a name like "Old Goaty". 

[mnementh]

All these page counts and not one budget mulitmeter. I would have turned on the speakers for the photo but they are really terrible.

Well, in our defense... I brought that to the thread like 2 years ago as a  ; the consensus was that it was indeed more of a people-checker than actual TE.

So yes, in that aspect, mullet-meter is probably dead-on... 

mnem

[mnementh]

great woe is me. Hubby spent his monthly allowance on Puukkos ...

Any recommendations for an INEXPENSIVE 10 gbit switch ? should have at least 4 usable 10 gbit ports for NAS and some experiments plus 8 additional gbit ports. Stackability or downlink port to 1 gbit switch would be a welcome plus ...
Use case: in house home office cabling. VLAN capability would be a plus (to separate work part from at home part)

I've got a Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 16XG which was about the cheapest new, small 10G switch that I could find when I needed one. (I could find slightly cheaper used enterprise switches but my box room doesn't have the power or cooling budgets for what I could find at the time). Hasn't caused any problems in the two years it's been operational. 12 SFP+ ports, 4 10G capable copper ports. It plays nicely with the Juniper EX4200-48T which was the existing 'house' switch to which it is connected with 10Gb fibre. VLANs no problem, will do aggregates to various standards - which I have used server <=> switch but not switch <=> switch yet (It was originally hooked up to do some highish bandwidth vmware->vmware traffic and anyone who's worked with vmware will tell you that keeping your network simple is a great aid to diagnosis when you're trying to figure out why vmware's bloody virtual distributed switches are not doing what you want.)

Is it the best? Probably not. Does it do the job? Yes. Is it cheap? It's probably as cheap as you'll get and also want to use.

I haven't looked in the last two years, so it's quite possible that there's something new out there at a better price/performance point now, but perhaps there isn't.

Still useful as a starting point in the search. I'm uber-lame in that I've only gone 1Gb end-to-end since I got to the GWN. Just wasn't a priority, as long as I can keep my PC off the subnet we use for the TVs & kids' tablets.

mnem
 

[bd139]

Oh man found a Tek 7000 series plugin I really want on ebay but don't have a chassis to stuff it in.

Do I or don't I 

[AVGresponding]

They don't take up a huge amount of space

[bd139]

I know I have owned a 7603 and used a few of them a long time ago 

[mnementh]

...As I already said the tiny coil spring in the meter movement is wrecked, I am not a clock artisan I can't fix that... and even if I were, I have no use for such a device...

But maybe I can do like everybody does over here, and just sell it broken for 100 Euros, and putting all the usual buzz words in the title and description : " RARE, VINTAGE, FOR COLLECTORS " !! 

Now you are making me feel guilty and I might consider keeping it taking up space for nothing 

Looking at your pics, it doesn't look terribly fooked. Nothing broken, just bent a bit. If the movement responds correctly to testing with the DIODE CHECK function of your DMM, prolly not as bad as you think. Maybe the spring is just a bit bent, and easily straightened with a fine pair of tweezers, like the ceramic ones I recommended to you. Often as not, a little rubbing makes little difference to the overall accuracy anyways.

After that, then you can do some trial/error to re-cal; not exactly a high level of precision required, by the looks of it.

You know how you get good at fixing delicate little fiddly-bits...? By trying and failing and trying again until you figure out what actually works.

This piece  looks like it would be a good start; not like there's a lot to lose by trying. Plus you might learn something.

Think of it the way you would practice-soldering/desoldering on a scrap PCB. Time spent learning a new skill. 

mnem
"Any day you don't learn something is a day wasted." ~grand-dad

[DH7DN]

Fresh Tek stuff... Need to characterize the Tek 012-0482-00 coax cable...

I admit, I am very bad at trolling... just ignore some of the photos 

[Robert763]

Oh man found a Tek 7000 series plugin I really want on ebay but don't have a chassis to stuff it in.

Do I or don't I 

I have a 7603 I'd part with.

[BU508A]

Fresh Tek stuff... Need to characterize the Tek 012-0482-00 coax cable...

I admit, I am very bad at trolling... just ignore some of the photos 

The comrade on the right looks a bit worn out. 

[mnementh]

Oh man found a Tek 7000 series plugin I really want on ebay but don't have a chassis to stuff it in.

Do I or don't I 

I have a 7603 I'd part with.

MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

mnem
i didn't say that.

[Vince]

Oh man found a Tek 7000 series plugin I really want on ebay but don't have a chassis to stuff it in.

Do I or don't I 

What kind of advise do you think you are going to get from this place ?!

Buy first, think second... worse case if you regret buying it you can always sell it and mitigate the loss or, since you are good at it : even make a profit !