Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Neper]

Said "Société Momentanée pour le Démantèlement" might be something like that, but also might be a company to handle the physical teardown ("Démantèlement" would point to this).

That's exactly what it is. Arcelor have closed their steel mill in Liège, mainly consisting of two blast furnace plants, a coking plant, an oxygen steel plant and a hot rolling mill. The Société Momentanée ... is a joint venture to deconstruct and depollute these sites, a job of a miserly 600 million euros.

[mnementh]

NM... just read the post above.

[med6753]

Spotted this puppy Tek DPO 7254 in a corner at work collecting dust, wih a label "do not use need service".
Asked around:  "Don't know, needs repair and Tek support do not reply anymore..."

Me: "When you will scrap it?"
reply: "will see"

May the luck be with you!

Here (my department @work) such a thing would be sitting in the corner forever, because one cannot decide to scrap it, even if it's unserviceable. Maybe in some 10yrs you'd get a lucky moment. Other departments would have thrown it into the scrap box once it's finally written off, just be there at the right moment.

That's how I got the 2465 DMS. It had a boot fail and the company wrote it off. My Brother was able to take it and he gave it to me. And that was my first Tek scope and look at where I am now. 

[tggzzz]

A swept function generator and a scope (triggered by sweep start) was the usual way to take frequency response plots. Engineer 2 knows how to do that. Once I did this here (@work), others were just baffled ...

The trick with such scalar network analysers is to get the familiar double-log Bode plot with good dynamic range.

No doubt "the others" would be equally baffled by the noise-source plus inverse FFT technique

[Robert763]

In other news...

The control board in my window A/C unit took a giant shit.  It keeps cycling between modes all by itself and beeping. And won't respond to any inputs. It's 10 years old and been driven hard so I guess I can't be surprised. And luckily this happen at the end of the cooling season. I'm tempted to try to figure out how to pull the control board but it probably won't be worth the effort. I guess it's headed for re-cycle and I'll purchase a new one come next Spring.   

I bet that is because of failing caps, go on open it up and take a squiz inside, it really could be that simple.

Yep, could be. The biggest issue is figuring out how to get it apart without destroying it. It's NOT like the unit in Dave's video.

Yeah, another consumer gadget designed to be assembled with the fewest human hands possible, and if that means you can't get it apart to fix it then BONUS!!!: Built-in turnover!!!

mnem
 

Well I looked it over and it appears the only way to gain access to the electronics board is to pull the entire cooling unit out of the cabinet. Under normal circumstances that would be no issue. But it's heavy, very heavy. I won't risk it and injure myself.

That consumer gadget as you call it lasted 10 years under a harsh environment of heat, cool, and excess moisture. An environment where you wouldn't last 5 minutes. It owes me nothing. It more than paid for itself.

Get a modern one with a variable speed compressor, AKA "Inverter" and it will pay for itself in power savings. Als less insrusve becaue it runs aall the time at the power required rather than baning on and off at full power.

[Cerebus]

Usually rebranding is red flag that an organisation has lost its way and the canopy management doesn't know how to fix that.

Or the management are incapable of knowing if the organisation are headed the right way, when handed a map hold it upside down, and then tell different parts of the company to head off in random directions. If one accidentally heads in the right direction the management are roundly rewarded, if all parties are lost they get a golden handshake and go off and do the same thing somewhere else. You'd be better off with a bag of dice!

[bd139]

A swept function generator and a scope (triggered by sweep start) was the usual way to take frequency response plots. Engineer 2 knows how to do that. Once I did this here (@work), others were just baffled ...

The trick with such scalar network analysers is to get the familiar double-log Bode plot with good dynamic range.

No doubt "the others" would be equally baffled by the noise-source plus inverse FFT technique

Actually that’s a lin/log plot on the example I did. The power sensor is an AD8307 log sensor. The FG will do a log sweep which gives that nice roll off response from textbooks but isn’t so good for making measurements further up the spectrum where the harmonics are.

As for noise and FFT, that’s an excellent point. I did that with the 7L12 here which is not an FFT 



If you’re not trying new things it’s not fun

[mnementh]

In other news...

The control board in my window A/C unit took a giant shit.  It keeps cycling between modes all by itself and beeping. And won't respond to any inputs. It's 10 years old and been driven hard so I guess I can't be surprised. And luckily this happen at the end of the cooling season. I'm tempted to try to figure out how to pull the control board but it probably won't be worth the effort. I guess it's headed for re-cycle and I'll purchase a new one come next Spring.   

I bet that is because of failing caps, go on open it up and take a squiz inside, it really could be that simple.

Yep, could be. The biggest issue is figuring out how to get it apart without destroying it. It's NOT like the unit in Dave's video.

Yeah, another consumer gadget designed to be assembled with the fewest human hands possible, and if that means you can't get it apart to fix it then BONUS!!!: Built-in turnover!!!

mnem
 

Well I looked it over and it appears the only way to gain access to the electronics board is to pull the entire cooling unit out of the cabinet. Under normal circumstances that would be no issue. But it's heavy, very heavy. I won't risk it and injure myself.

That consumer gadget as you call it lasted 10 years under a harsh environment of heat, cool, and excess moisture. An environment where you wouldn't last 5 minutes. It owes me nothing. It more than paid for itself.

[soapbox mode]

Yeah, you see.... that's how they get you; that's how they propagate the disposable everything mindset. They make it so inconvenient to fix and so cheap that it's not worth your time to do even the most minimal troubleshooting so you just chunk it and buy new; and eventually this mindset becomes so ingrained it even feels normal to apply that disposable attitude towards people.

There's a big difference between a simple bit of refrigeration which can easily be made to screw together for servicing, vs a high-tech device like an iPwn or iPud which simply cannot be made as small, convenient or full of features without the level of integration they use.

[/soapbox mode]

I'm not passing judgement on this particular case and this particular choice which you've made. It was just a perfect example dropped right at my feet; they make the balance so uneven that even a natural-born fixer like yourself gives in.

mnem

[Cerebus]

While we're on the subject of management trashing companies - a (true) story:

I used to work with a salesman by the name of Nick who in a previous job had worked for a company that made custom carpets. Custom in the sense that they could and would weave anything you wanted into it. They were used by people doing short runs of designer carpet, high end interior designers and the like. One of their other lines was making carpets with company names or logos in for exhibitions or reception areas.

One day the accountants hauled Nick in to complain that a certain subset of his accounts were murder to get money out of. Turns out that more than half of the companies that ordered a new logo bearing reception area carpet went bust before getting around to paying for them. So, if you ever go anywhere where's a brand new carpet in reception with the company's logo - think twice before doing business with them and ask some penetrating questions becuase that carpet may well be "Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic".

A couple of years after Nick and I parted ways he passed us (at a new company) a lead which panned out nicely and I and another colleague agreed to meet him for a thank you beer. Our office was in Cannon Street in the City and his office was in Heddon Street smack in the middle of the West End where all the entertainment is. So we agreed to pick him up from his office in Heddon Street at knocking off time and did so. When we turned up Dave says to me "Have we been here before? This looks familiar.". "Yes, it does.", I replied but neither of us could figure out why . We go in, get Nick and go for beer and food.

Later we explained the "feels familiar" thing to Nick and he said, "No, you havem't been here before - at least not to meet me. It probably feels familiar because our office doorway is the doorway on the cover of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust". And that was what the deja vu feeling had indeed been about, we'd both known the location over half our lives despite never having been there before.

[med6753]

In other news...

The control board in my window A/C unit took a giant shit.  It keeps cycling between modes all by itself and beeping. And won't respond to any inputs. It's 10 years old and been driven hard so I guess I can't be surprised. And luckily this happen at the end of the cooling season. I'm tempted to try to figure out how to pull the control board but it probably won't be worth the effort. I guess it's headed for re-cycle and I'll purchase a new one come next Spring.   

I bet that is because of failing caps, go on open it up and take a squiz inside, it really could be that simple.

Yep, could be. The biggest issue is figuring out how to get it apart without destroying it. It's NOT like the unit in Dave's video.

Yeah, another consumer gadget designed to be assembled with the fewest human hands possible, and if that means you can't get it apart to fix it then BONUS!!!: Built-in turnover!!!

mnem
 

Well I looked it over and it appears the only way to gain access to the electronics board is to pull the entire cooling unit out of the cabinet. Under normal circumstances that would be no issue. But it's heavy, very heavy. I won't risk it and injure myself.

That consumer gadget as you call it lasted 10 years under a harsh environment of heat, cool, and excess moisture. An environment where you wouldn't last 5 minutes. It owes me nothing. It more than paid for itself.

Get a modern one with a variable speed compressor, AKA "Inverter" and it will pay for itself in power savings. Als less insrusve becaue it runs aall the time at the power required rather than baning on and off at full power.

I don't know if window units are available in that configuration but it is something worth investigating.

[Cerebus]

I don't know if window units are available in that configuration but it is something worth investigating.

I'd be surprised if they weren't because last time I looked at fridges every other one had an "inverter drive" sticker on it, and the energy savings on air-con are going to be appreciably more than on just a fridge.

[shakalnokturn]

I have a surplus TDS 210 with the comms module... it's in nice condition apart from having a replacement 3DP power button and comes in a hard carry case. PM me if you are interested.

The TDS2CM can be upgraded with small modification to a TDS2MM which adds significantly more value to a TDS200 than the 5€ investment it requires.
There's a topic around from "Scopeman".

[25 CPS]

Said "Société Momentanée pour le Démantèlement" might be something like that, but also might be a company to handle the physical teardown ("Démantèlement" would point to this).

That's exactly what it is. Arcelor have closed their steel mill in Liège, mainly consisting of two blast furnace plants, a coking plant, an oxygen steel plant and a hot rolling mill. The Société Momentanée ... is a joint venture to deconstruct and depollute these sites, a job of a miserly 600 million euros.

Dofasco, pardon me, Arcelor Mittal is still a going concern nearby me in Hamilton, Ontario.  I think they just got Trudeau money to move to electric arc furnaces so they might continue for a while if that comes through.  If they or Stelco shut down steelmaking, all of their lab equipment'll become surplus and places like my workshop in the basement will be the beneficiary of that but it's extremely bitter sweet.  When I look around downstairs and see the equipment that's come from places that have shut down and stop to think about what it represents in terms of the amount of good jobs that have been lost in southwestern Ontario, it's brutal.

[Cubdriver]

This thread diversion is quite funny.

I buy stuff to play with it. Play is an essential part of life and the generation of culture.

Tautech has mastered the art of getting to play with stuff and make a living out of it. I salute him 

I buy old stuff simply because I cannot afford anything else. I seriously doubt there is anyone here who, if money was not a problem, would not prefer to have a beautiful array of nice shiny new gear as their goto equipment when repairing / building / forward engineering something. But even then, that new equipment would still contain far more sophisticated capabilities than most of us would ever need or even know how to use. Someone like Shahriar from The Signal Path would be more likely to make far better use of those capabilities, but he is in the minority. 

Stealing tggzz's sig line on the forum, it's sometimes more fun to do stuff with less.

If I was a professional and doing forward engineering I wouldn't go balls deep on kit either. It's mostly not necessary. I've seen a fine example of this before. Engineer 1 goes on strike until his PO is approved for a £3k bit of gear. Engineer 2 works out how to cobble something together in a Hammond box to make a good enough measurement for now. I am engineer 2

Spot the test gear floating inside the Saturn V IU under test. We can do better than that with a junk scope these days.



Incidentally if I could manipulate space and time I'd be in that photo 

I recognize that meter and its plug-in; just don't have a picture handy with that plug in in that particular meter, but in its sibling above it:


Use both of them frequently.

-Pat

[bd139]

Now I'm not brave enough to own one of them these days

[mnementh]

But I bet you'll take all of those butt-uglee little hp 621xA power supplies you can get. 

mnem
*recovery mode*

[Cerebus]

I know that it isn't, but it faintly amuses me that those umbilical connections look like they have the marking for a USB port on then when viewed at that scale.

[cyclin_al]

*sigh*

Shaving lessons for my son tonight. No way in hell I am old enough to have a kid that age. 

mnem
"It's not the years, baby. It's the mileage." ~mom

Shocking, is it not? 

For me, it was the realization that he was halfway between being a baby and being old enough to drive 
So, why did I finally buy a super nice car?    The super nice sporty car is going to be the old beater by the time he is old enough to drive ... guess what he is likely to learn to drive on ... oops

[Cubdriver]

But I bet you'll take all of those butt-uglee little hp 621xA power supplies you can get. 

mnem
*recovery mode*

How dare you disparage my cute little power supplies!  Them's fightin' words!!!!   





-Pat

[cyclin_al]

In other news...

The control board in my window A/C unit took a giant shit.  It keeps cycling between modes all by itself and beeping. And won't respond to any inputs. It's 10 years old and been driven hard so I guess I can't be surprised. And luckily this happen at the end of the cooling season. I'm tempted to try to figure out how to pull the control board but it probably won't be worth the effort. I guess it's headed for re-cycle and I'll purchase a new one come next Spring.   

Might be just one stuck button - IMO worth a quick check.

It sounds vaguely similar to the dwagon's story with the Samsung TV symptoms ... which was a pushbutton causing the mystery control signals ...

[xrunner]

How dare you disparage my cute little power supplies!  Them's fightin' words!!!!   

Yea cute - but where's the color screen? 

Where's the digital input keypad? 

What about firmware updates. 

No I'm afraid those are useless these days.

 

[med6753]

But I bet you'll take all of those butt-uglee little hp 621xA power supplies you can get. 

mnem
*recovery mode*

How dare you disparage my cute little power supplies!  Them's fightin' words!!!!   





-Pat

Agreed. What's up with that noise? 

[Cubdriver]

How dare you disparage my cute little power supplies!  Them's fightin' words!!!!   

Yea cute - but where's the color screen? 

The needles are red   

Where's the digital input keypad? 

You use the digits on your hands to grasp those round fluted things poking out of the front panel and turn them to change the settings.   

What about firmware updates. 

It might on very rare occasions require a new fuse, but mine haven't needed such upgrades thus far.   

No I'm afraid those are useless these days.

 

I'll be happy to 'discard' any someone wants to dispose of.   

-Pat

[Cerebus]

Our heroes have had statues of them unveiled in Nick Park's native Preston:



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-58516735

[Peter_O]

What is a world without a pulse generator with a straight UI?
When designing the HP8015A Pulse Generator in the late 70s the HP guys in Boeblingen were inspired by aircraft cockpit design principles.
This one seem to have the TTL Output Option at least.

OK, I will need to do some debugging as channel A is dead and there seem to be some more flaws. But in priciple there is a pulse signal on channel B and some reaction to frequency settings etc. Hope I can manage.

I mean. ...  But it was 100 Euro only.  And it is in very good shape. It needed to get rescued, did'nt it?   :-)