Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Robert763]

A few ebay picks, hopefully relevant:



These are not bad, if you like quirky old LED DMMs:

Yup.   On my watch list.   Will bid if the price stays sane.

Watch out for failed membrane keypads. I've got at least one with that. Not bad meters though I used them when they were a current model.

I wonder if they are always genuine membrane failures, or if some are PEBKAC issues.

istr when I took mine apart (for scientific purposes), when I put it back together I misaligned a connector and the keyboard then failed to work. Fortunately no damage was done.

The ones I've seen had corroded contacts in the pad. They were ilver print with no carbon top coat. Trying to fix it resulted in multiple cracks too. It was very well stuck to the front panel.

[med6753]

Ooooooh 577 curve tracer 20 miles from me. Broken. Buyer collects. Starts at £50 

But will it fit in the French POS of yours? 

Plenty of room  . 7603 for size:

OK, then what's stopping you? 

[bd139]

It’s auction so no idea what end price will be.

[Robert763]

The 577 is also 

[Neomys Sapiens]

Last time I did only some very basic tests with the Peak Electronics DCA75+ component tester. Some weeks ago, I wrote that I bought some special transistors along with other stuff. I took this as a good occasion to see what this thing can really do.
I used the BFX81 'high speed complementary amplifier' as test specimen. As I got two of those, I ran some tests comparing 1 vs. 2 as well as npn vs. pnp. As can be seen from the examples, the problem with the crowded diagram areas intensifies for some graphs. The procedure using the PC software is straightforward and quite flexible. If you save the diagram data for each graph (and remember to give them a properly identifiable name), you can call up saved data into a newly measured graph or even recreate the graphical display from two sets of saved data.
There is one difference although. When subsequently measuring two sets of parameters into one graph window, the two curve sets are assigned different colours. When you measure them independently, they will have the same colours. The colour as well as the label of any individual curve can be set in advance or changed later - also for curves resulting from saved data. The overlapping of the labels is unfortunately something that can't be corrected. 
For these tests, I did not modify the parameters yet. This could help a bit, as noted earlier. Next, I'm going to try that and I also want to try what Excel can acieve with the data sets. Until now, I have only checked that they can be inserted from the curve display as shown in the manual. Importing the stored data directly is more complicated, as they are stored in a .txt file with ancillary information so that defining an import conversion will take some work.
See the examples:
(NPN 1vs2 hfe over Vce produces crowded, almost unreadable graph. NPN 1vs2 Ic over Vce is quite readable. NPN vs. PNP 1 hfe over Ic had me wondering a bit - I expected the NPN to come out better. Graph is usable and it was no measurement error. NPN vs. PNP Ic over Vce is interesting when compared with the NPN 1 vs. 2 graph. In the NPN vs. PNP Ic over Vbe it is not even possible to see all 10 curves, as they are partially overlapping each other. Also here the selection of the parameter range makes no sense. If I were interested in what happens below Vbe = 0.6V, I would not want it together with the 'working segment' in one diagram. For the normal part of this diagram, this could be cut off.)
Will be continued...
(part 1 found here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3530794/#msg3530794)

[Neomys Sapiens]

Worth the money ?

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/tektronix-dpo4104-4-channel-oszilloskop-1-ghz-4ch/1844704650-168-4283

If I was not so much fixated on getting the last and most capable of Tek scopes with the TekProbe 2 interface because of my investments in probes etc.
AND
if I would not have such a painful experience with ebay-Kleinanzeigen recently

I would have gone for it straight away. The price is indeed JAMMY GIT for that scope.

[Neomys Sapiens]

What about this one, LA and scope in one package:

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/logic-scope-tektronix-tls-216-mit-oder-ohne-probes-p6240-/1834869414-168-5604

Tempting, I've had an eye on this model some time ago. But - I remember this has limitations on the usage of the inputs as scope inputs - it's not that useful as a 16ch scope as it appears on the first glance. Cannot remember the details.

This makes me hope that TekWiki will be gradually extended to cover those newer scopes that are no more supported by Tektronix. Unfortunately that guy is not very cooperative. I sent him the info on the Tek alignment tools (which he does not have anything on) long ago and they do not show up.
And my only try at editing that frigging Wiki ended up in a call for backup - literally.

[Saskia]

Worth the money ?

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/tektronix-dpo4104-4-channel-oszilloskop-1-ghz-4ch/1844704650-168-4283

If I was not so much fixated on getting the last and most capable of Tek scopes with the TekProbe 2 interface because of my investments in probes etc.
AND
if I would not have such a painful experience with ebay-Kleinanzeigen recently

I would have gone for it straight away. The price is indeed JAMMY GIT for that scope.

If I had not gotten that Keysight scope I would have fallen for this.



In other news, received feedback from my boss who has spoken to my department head about my permanent telework.
Department head approved and cautioned that I should not get lost and forgotten due to being so far away from the site ...

My boss will tawk to HR to check what kind of paperwork is required. Once that is done I can move up north and toss the flat near campus which costs me 1200 quid/month.
Actually that's about the same as the house is going to cost me ...
Once we are in we will look for autonomous energy. Apparently Germany had a partial blackout on August 14. And with those smart meters it may be very easy to ration energy or cut people off. Can't have that ...

Need to tawk to Robert regarding a decent APU ...

[tggzzz]

Btw the forum software sucks on a phone...

I've experience of reading Usenet using GUI readers and curses readers (FreeAgent, slrn), both capable of understanding
In-Reply-To:
and
References:
headers.  Compared to that, all forums suck. Regardless of platform.

Yes indeed.

But anything more subtle or complex than farcebook or twatter on a phone sucks even more!

[Neomys Sapiens]

Worth the money ?

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/tektronix-dpo4104-4-channel-oszilloskop-1-ghz-4ch/1844704650-168-4283

If I was not so much fixated on getting the last and most capable of Tek scopes with the TekProbe 2 interface because of my investments in probes etc.
AND
if I would not have such a painful experience with ebay-Kleinanzeigen recently

I would have gone for it straight away. The price is indeed JAMMY GIT for that scope.

If I had not gotten that Keysight scope I would have fallen for this.



In other news, received feedback from my boss who has spoken to my department head about my permanent telework.
Department head approved and cautioned that I should not get lost and forgotten due to being so far away from the site ...

My boss will tawk to HR to check what kind of paperwork is required. Once that is done I can move up north and toss the flat near campus which costs me 1200 quid/month.
Actually that's about the same as the house is going to cost me ...
Once we are in we will look for autonomous energy. Apparently Germany had a partial blackout on August 14. And with those smart meters it may be very easy to ration energy or cut people off. Can't have that ...

Need to tawk to Robert regarding a decent APU ...

Found one!
Cat Model No. 350 (320Kva - 256 Kw Rating) @ ramco

[tggzzz]

"Möglicherweise kein Versand nach Großbritannien" translates to "may not post to...." acoording to ePay. If I see that and it's something I'm interested in and the seller has more than +10 feedback, I contact them and enquire about shipping & costs. Not very useful if you only see the listing near the end & there isn't time for them to reply, the worst they can say is "no" or ignore you.

I thought the idea of fleabay's GSP was that the seller didn't have to worry about cross-border transportation. Is that too naive?

[Saskia]

thou art a joke cookie.

I have a cunning plan. It is so cunning that if you attached a tail you could call it a weasel ...

[factory]

"Möglicherweise kein Versand nach Großbritannien" translates to "may not post to...." according to ePay. If I see that and it's something I'm interested in and the seller has more than +10 feedback, I contact them and enquire about shipping & costs. Not very useful if you only see the listing near the end & there isn't time for them to reply, the worst they can say is "no" or ignore you.

I thought the idea of fleabay's GSP was that the seller didn't have to worry about cross-border transportation. Is that too naive?

Yes they might add GSP if it's in the US and no bids have been placed.
As for Europe, I thought someone on here said GSP wasn't available for German sellers.

David

[Specmaster]

"Möglicherweise kein Versand nach Großbritannien" translates to "may not post to...." acoording to ePay. If I see that and it's something I'm interested in and the seller has more than +10 feedback, I contact them and enquire about shipping & costs. Not very useful if you only see the listing near the end & there isn't time for them to reply, the worst they can say is "no" or ignore you.

I thought the idea of fleabay's GSP was that the seller didn't have to worry about cross-border transportation. Is that too naive?

The seller has to be registered in the GSP scheme, otherwise the shipping and handling and customs paperworks all falls on the sellers shoulders, hence why you will sometimes see shipping exclusions mentioned.

[Cerebus]

thou art a joke cookie.

I have a cunning plan. It is so cunning that if you attached a tail you could call it a weasel ...

That could weasily go wrong. Be stoatally sure what you're doing before you go ahead or you could end up with a lot of regimental goats named after you.

[Specmaster]

This evening got to hear a whisper that an Antonov 124 was going to be landing at Stanstead Airport, these planes are pretty rare beasts on these shores and so my son and I went to try and grab some photos of the beast. Then just as we were about to leave, a last minute check on Flight Radar revealed that another fairly rare beast of a plane, queen of the sky, 747, was on its way and was due to touch down a couple of minutes before sunset, so we decided to try our luck, even though the light would be bad at that time and any sunshine would be murdered by the pollution in the air due to the very low angle of the sun.

Just as we could see the 747 on the approach, the sun went completely, so I cranked the ISO upto 640 and took a gamble and the result is here, a bit grainy as you would expect, but not that bad.

In other news, I took advantage of a low price on Amazon for some multiway test meter leads that come with various extras and adaptors to suit most types of meter inputs, so I grabbed 2, they were supposed to be with me by 10PM today, nah, they failed to show, so will looking for a reason in the morning.

[bitseeker]

Thanks, that was what I remembered as well and posted about as I'm reading chronological order to catch up after being out yesterday.

My process for catching up:

- start reading in chronological order
- if I'm coming to a posting which I'd like to respond --> right click on the "Quote" link and open a new tab
- reading further
- if I see a posting which has the same answer as I would give --> close the tab
- repeat, until I've reached the newest posting
- answering the remaining postings in the opened tabs

 

Similar. The only drawback is when you reply too quickly, since they're all queued up in the browser. Then, the dreaded, "your last post was only X seconds ago," type of error pops up.

[bitseeker]

Several of the final large piston engine aircraft had an on-board engine analyser.  This is an oscillscope connected to the ignition system.   I've seen one or two walking though aircraft at airshows, but this is the first time I've seen one in use.  I doubt there are many left that still work.   Someone able to read the display can diagnose all sorts of engine problems both on the ground and in flight.

(They turn it on a few minutes earlier.  I'm sure it takes time to warm up)

https://youtu.be/-Xg5Uchhy4U?t=612

First time I've seen one of those. Very cool. I like how the sample screenshots are all stuck on the column beside the analyzer.

[bitseeker]

I suppose that's possible, but it'd be odd that a serifed font would have so much better coverage, especially for computer use, since sans serifed ones are legible in more sizes.

Since we're just speculating, I'll propose that it's as simple as someone liked the font and started the production run. Everyone else saw it, thought it was the thing to do, et voilà, serifs everywhere.

At least RD did find a suitable sans serif one. 

If you as a gweilo could read Mandarin, and you were to look at two stylistically different Chinese fonts would you spot which was easier to read for a native Chinese reader? Probably not.

Given that the majority of valued written Mandarin is brushwork (it can be art in and of itself), I suspect that Chinese aesthetic sensibilities would tend toward a serif font as having more worth, as indicating more valued written content and when looking at the gobbledegook that is latin script would choose serif over sans-serif as more dignified, more professional looking. If I'm right, we should count ourselves lucky that they don't opt for "Brush Script" every time they need a western font.

It'd be nice to know how it happened. I like your theory, too.

[bitseeker]

Yes, the 100,000th post did go through several changes of occupancy and when things started settling down, it was my post that was found there.  To help reduce the tendency for rewriting history and because the collective desire for bitseeker to occupy that post had become rather remote, I sought to make a celebratory statement - hence this:

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



  !

I trust there were some who appreciated that second image...

Indeed! Anyone who doesn't appreciate the resistor-based "encoding" might be on the wrong forum.

As for my occupying that spot, I'll readily take the blame for getting us all started, but keeping it going all this time is definitely a group effort. Cheers to all who have made the TEA House the crazy, fun, highly expensive place it has become.

[bitseeker]

Yes, the 100,000th post did go through several changes of occupancy and when things started settling down, it was my post that was found there.  To help reduce the tendency for rewriting history and because the collective desire for bitseeker to occupy that post had become rather remote, I sought to make a celebratory statement - hence this:

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


  !

I trust there were some who appreciated that second image...

I did, but given the gold tolerance band, it could have been referring to any reply between 95,000 and (yes ok, most of these haven't been written yet) 105,000.

I will add oil on to the fire at this stage by pointing out that reply number 100,000 is post number 100,001 since the OP is un-numbered (0), and so technically the 100,000th post is reply number 99,999...
 

Tolerance band. Zero- vs one-based counting. Oh, my! You've made the nerdy even nerdier.

[bitseeker]

If you want to extend TM500 plug-ins for repair, you can get a pre-made extender cable for cheap. I've used then to repair many TM-500 modules. They are listed on Ebay as JAMMA extender cables, for troubleshooting video game boards, but they use the same connector. They extend most pins. The only thing is you need to cut the trace between p1/p2 and p3/p4 on both sides, their boards require that configuration but it's a bad thing for these Tektronix chassis. 

https://www.ebay.com/c/16016014996

The TM503 can be disassembled and used so the the plugin is accessible from all sides, the mighty internet said. Haven't tried yet that myself. Afair, one can remove the transformer / backplane assembly from the casing and it's still operable then.

https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/TM503

Hey, that's a great idea for buying a TM503. Makes for a nice service "dock".

[bitseeker]

In other news, received feedback from my boss who has spoken to my department head about my permanent telework.
Department head approved and cautioned that I should not get lost and forgotten due to being so far away from the site ...

That's great news, Saskia! I hope for a similar result. So far, no one has made returning to an office a requirement, and I ain't askin'.

[Neper]

In other news, I took advantage of a low price on Amazon for some multiway test meter leads that come with various extras and adaptors to suit most types of meter inputs...

I've bought one of these sets on ebay a while ago. Maybe I'm spoilt by being used to Hirschmann for decades, but these leads are fine if you want to practice the Indian rope trick and it takes some scratching and rubbing of the tips to get the continuity tester of my DMM to respond. A classical case of you get what...

Ralf

[med6753]

In other news, I took advantage of a low price on Amazon for some multiway test meter leads that come with various extras and adaptors to suit most types of meter inputs...

I've bought one of these sets on ebay a while ago. Maybe I'm spoilt by being used to Hirschmann for decades, but these leads are fine if you want to practice the Indian rope trick and it takes some scratching and rubbing of the tips to get the continuity tester of my DMM to respond. A classical case of you get what...

Ralf

Spec's post got my curiosity up so I checked that set out myself and after reading some of the reviews I was less than impressed.