Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

Now THIS is a scope for minimalists:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/185046543160

That’s “interesting” 

[med6753]

Back on the Type 547.

These are the parts required to rebuild/upgrade the vertical amplifier. In trying to eliminate all possible variables every one of these parts has received some sort of static test before they will be installed. And now that I understand how my scope was originally wired the installation and conversion SHOULD go smoothly. But so far nothing has gone smoothly with this restoration but I'm hopeful.



The bastard is back up on bench 2. I have to do some other things this afternoon so I won't start the actual upgrade until tomorrow. And after I pull the knackered components going to do some extensive resistance checks to make sure there's no hidden surprises.

[med6753]

Now THIS is a scope for minimalists:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/185046543160

That’s “interesting” 

It's actually kinda cool. 

[xrunner]

Beware! We had quite a few of these "always on" - after only a year a considerable number had gone bust; not only faded but missing lines and various glitches 
In general, blue OLED have the shortest lifetime of the "phosphor", yellow has AFAIK the longest.

I was counting on that year but how about a few days?

[ch_scr]

Beware! We had quite a few of these "always on" - after only a year a considerable number had gone bust; not only faded but missing lines and various glitches 
In general, blue OLED have the shortest lifetime of the "phosphor", yellow has AFAIK the longest.

I was counting on that year but how about a few days?

I think this specific OLED tech is not ready for prime time yet :/

[Robert763]

Nope,
Inside there is just a rod soldered to the center of the SMS and a nickel foil lining the inside of the brass body.
The kicker is the surface of the foil is nickel 63 10mCi worth. This one is missing the foil as it needs a licence.
It's aan electron capture detector ECD most commonly found in gas chromatographs. HP/Agilent's lab equipment arm made a lot of similar devices. This one came from a british explosives detector.  There is a tiny current caused by the Beta radiation (electrons) Moleclues in the gas flowing through can capture these resulting in reduced current.
The Ni63 foils tend to corrode and "leak". It's quite nasty. Very low energy so hard to detect but if it gets into the body all the energy is dumped into cells.
You coud take this apart and nver know.

So is this used in the aviation industry to perhaps sniff out explosives in some way?

Not this one, came from a military device. Similar ones are used in some of the aiport detectors.

[Specmaster]

https://www.newark.com/metcal/mx-ds1/desolder-hand-piece/dp/41B5513



Oh... yeah. And tweezers too. And custom heads for DIP8/14/20, etc... and all the cleaners and... and... 

mnem
 

Yeah I understand and one day, if I can afford one, I'll get a Metcal, in the meantime, I have to use what I have and I have seen the method I describe used by others. I'm not talking about massively higher temperatures, but as you know, the T12 system does incorporate a quick boost function for those larger joints and that is what I use and it works fine. I have delaminated pads before with my old Hakko clone, same as this one, but I have not had that problem with the T12 and boost function and I have made good joints onto solid ground planes of 200 x 260 mm with no problems.

Yeah, but now we come full circle to the original conversation... which was entirely aboot window shopping & drooling over the good stuff.

I don't have any of the special DIP tips or tweezers or solder sucker either for the same reason... they rarely come across my RADAR at a sane (read: not Defense Contractors/Cost Plus pricing) price.

But I damn sure do not regret the $150 (and some considerable eBay assache) tied up in what I do have, even compared to the ~$75 for my T12 system.

mnem
*tsssssssssst...* makes me 

Oh I see, I took it as anything but window shopping. Yeah if money was not such an issue, I'd love to have some Metcal gear after hearing how everyone who has it, talk about it in such glowing terms. But that said, half the fun is making do with what we have and doing more with less. And I have always been told that the secret is, not to dwell too long on any solder joint, either making it or desoldering it and one of the best ways of achieving that is to wet the iron or desolder gun with fresh solder to aid greater transfer of heat, and adding more solder as required to do the job. Since switching over to the T12 approx 3 years ago now (where did that time go?) I have not had issues with lifting any pads etc. so something is working right.

[Specmaster]

Nope,
Inside there is just a rod soldered to the center of the SMS and a nickel foil lining the inside of the brass body.
The kicker is the surface of the foil is nickel 63 10mCi worth. This one is missing the foil as it needs a licence.
It's aan electron capture detector ECD most commonly found in gas chromatographs. HP/Agilent's lab equipment arm made a lot of similar devices. This one came from a british explosives detector.  There is a tiny current caused by the Beta radiation (electrons) Moleclues in the gas flowing through can capture these resulting in reduced current.
The Ni63 foils tend to corrode and "leak". It's quite nasty. Very low energy so hard to detect but if it gets into the body all the energy is dumped into cells.
You coud take this apart and nver know.

So is this used in the aviation industry to perhaps sniff out explosives in some way?

Not this one, came from a military device. Similar ones are used in some of the aiport detectors.

So its primary function is to detect the presence of explosives by sampling the air?

[mnementh]

The dwagon and med6753 do have more in common than one might think.   

I don't know whether to take that as a insult or compliment...   

mnem
"I'm only a asshole on Thursdays. Rest of the time I'm a whole ass." ~me, immediately after the line-dancing incident

Ditto. 

*hands med a hatchet, while slinging a shovel over his own shoulder*

"Walk with me..."

mnem
Life's too short for grudges...

Being told as above would make me extremely suspicious (and I am well aware that you tried to invoke 'burying the hatchet' here)
Am I given the supposedly more dangerous hatchet to carry in order to lull me in a false sense of security? Or so that he has both hands free to whack me with the shovel from behind?
One can't be careful enough those days - the enemy is always one paranoia level ahead!

Well... if I were going to do that, I'd give him the shovel so he could dig his own hole before I whack him widda hatchet. Of course, maybe I had in mind to start the hole to ease suspicion, then feign exhaustion so he finishes the hole and...

Awww, who am I kidding. If I were that evil, I'd just FWOOOOOOM!!! and have done with it. 

mnem

[Robert763]

Talking of SMU's this is one, sort of
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294396208213

They are used by biologists and electrochemists. It has a feedback amplifirer too. Unfortunatly the external differential amplifier is not with this one. Ouput is +_100V up to 1A reolution is 12/14 bit. Manual or computer control.
Could be used for a low/medium power curve tracer. They hve two. Manuals are available form OEM online. 

[med6753]

Of course the weather turned hot again so this boy is much grouchier than normal because it's hot and uncomfortable in here. So just for giggles I plugged in and turned on the window A/C. It has been running now for several hours with NO funny business. The control board is behaving and responding to commands. So apparently there is a very intermittent issue. When I pull it out in a few weeks I'm going to put it in the garage rather than in here in the closet so I have room to rip it down and see if I can get to the control board. Maybe I'll get lucky and it is nothing more than a leaky cap or perhaps a spider or two got in there. 

[mnementh]

Now THIS is a scope for minimalists:   

https://www.ebay.de/itm/185046543160

That’s “interesting” 

It's actually kinda cool. 

It just screams to be made into a CRT clock... or connected to some looped Jerobeam Fenderson MP3 in the corner of the living room.

mnem
we could do both...

[Neper]

Back in the day, Radidio Shank (and pretty much all of the Dalbani, etc type catalogs) had a tuner contact spray (as in old-fashioned slug/sector turret VHF tuners) that was amazing.

And, best of all, it could be sprayed into a running unit without blowing yourself up.

[Neper]

I don't watch yootoob vids as a rule, so I'll merely note that RF spectrum analysers traditionally start at 9kHz, presumably because of EMI/EMC regs.

Could this also be because 9 kHz is the lower end of the regulated radio spectrum?

[ch_scr]

Talking of SMU's this is one, sort of
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294396208213

They are used by biologists and electrochemists. It has a feedback amplifirer too. Unfortunatly the external differential amplifier is not with this one. Ouput is +_100V up to 1A reolution is 12/14 bit. Manual or computer control.
Could be used for a low/medium power curve tracer. They hve two. Manuals are available form OEM online.

Without the external high impedance diff amp, they are just a boat anchor door stop. Buddy got one on auction for basically postage. Sat around for years, taking up lots of space. And heavy, these are built like a tank! Ended up ripping it to parts, hand full of precision resistors, Harris precision opamps (basically OP07 but faster), a few dac and an adc the size a pack of cigs from hybrid times. If you want to properly break in your desoldering gun and like to tinker in precision analog they might be worth the money. If you can spend a weekend dismanteling & desoldering 

[Robert763]

Nope,
Inside there is just a rod soldered to the center of the SMS and a nickel foil lining the inside of the brass body.
The kicker is the surface of the foil is nickel 63 10mCi worth. This one is missing the foil as it needs a licence.
It's aan electron capture detector ECD most commonly found in gas chromatographs. HP/Agilent's lab equipment arm made a lot of similar devices. This one came from a british explosives detector.  There is a tiny current caused by the Beta radiation (electrons) Moleclues in the gas flowing through can capture these resulting in reduced current.
The Ni63 foils tend to corrode and "leak". It's quite nasty. Very low energy so hard to detect but if it gets into the body all the energy is dumped into cells.
You coud take this apart and nver know.

So is this used in the aviation industry to perhaps sniff out explosives in some way?

Not this one, came from a military device. Similar ones are used in some of the aiport detectors.

So its primary function is to detect the presence of explosives by sampling the air?

They can detect various molecules. For best discrimination they need a carrier gas normally nitrogen. Graseby made a gasless handheld one in the early 80's but it had poor discrimination.
Ooh tidy one on US ebay,
/www.ebay.com/itm/184485787786
Technically illegal to sell or give away in the USA though.

[mnementh]

Back on the Type 547.

These are the parts required to rebuild/upgrade the vertical amplifier. In trying to eliminate all possible variables every one of these parts has received some sort of static test before they will be installed. And now that I understand how my scope was originally wired the installation and conversion SHOULD go smoothly. But so far nothing has gone smoothly with this restoration but I'm hopeful.

      The bastard is back up on bench 2.

I have to do some other things this afternoon so I won't start the actual upgrade until tomorrow. And after I pull the knackered components going to do some extensive resistance checks to make sure there's no hidden surprises.

Demons tremble when a good uhhh... smurf... goes to war!

mnem
Ehhhh... you'll get it. All you have to do is be more patient than some electronics that were made before I was born... 

[AVGresponding]

The 34401A arrived today, in barely adequate packing (1 layer medium bubble wrap, 1 layer screwed up newspaper, cardboard box, packing tape), nevertheless it seems in good order.
It has focused my attention on the fact that I really should move forward with my v-ref project; the HP and Siglent psus are good, but not 6.5 digit meter good, something I'd noticed but tolerated with the Keithleys so far.

The 34401, 2000, 2015, and 8840 all agree there is noise in the microvolt range on the outputs of these psus. Even the Agilent 1401B has a few uV of noise... I suppose I could go beyond the current twisted leads to coax to see if that helps, but I suspect not. But just for thoroughness, can anyone recommend a decent source of male 4mm banana to bnc or sma adapters?

[tautech]

P# just because. 


 

[AVGresponding]

Just because. 

Just to be clear, I'm not criticising the psus; after all they aren't intended to be used in this way, and the Agilent calibrator isn't intended to be that precise either, it's 4.5 digit, 0.03% + 3 count in voltage source mode.

Also just an FYI, the Siglent has the lowest noise of all of them... (Siglent 3303X, HP 66311B, HP 6633B, Agilent U1401B)

[tautech]

Just to be clear, I'm not criticising the psus; after all they aren't intended to be used in this way, and the Agilent calibrator isn't intended to be that precise either, it's 4.5 digit, 0.03% + 3 count in voltage source mode.

Also just an FYI, the Siglent has the lowest noise of all of them... (Siglent 3303X, HP 66311B, HP 6633B, Agilent U1401B)

4077 IC was nothing to do with your previous post, nothing at all.

SPD1000X series have same 350uV ripple and noise and damn hard to easily measure way down there at those levels as I've tried. 
We sell just a few of them and I believe the attraction are the Sense inputs but for SPD1168X the 8A output. 

[AVGresponding]

Just to be clear, I'm not criticising the psus; after all they aren't intended to be used in this way, and the Agilent calibrator isn't intended to be that precise either, it's 4.5 digit, 0.03% + 3 count in voltage source mode.

Also just an FYI, the Siglent has the lowest noise of all of them... (Siglent 3303X, HP 66311B, HP 6633B, Agilent U1401B)

4077 IC was nothing to do with your previous post, nothing at all.

SPD1000X series have same 350uV ripple and noise and damn hard to easily measure way down there at those levels as I've tried. 
We sell just a few of them and I believe the attraction are the Sense inputs but for SPD1168X the 8A output. 

Ah, well, if you'd actually posted a picture of a 4077 instead of just imagining one, I would have realised...

[tautech]

Ah, well, if you'd actually posted a picture of a 4077 instead of just imagining one, I would have realised...

Better: ?
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=81471.msg3690430#msg3690430

[AVGresponding]

Ah, well, if you'd actually posted a picture of a 4077 instead of just imagining one, I would have realised...

Better: ?
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=81471.msg3690430#msg3690430

Nope, no image visible here. I guess there's a problem with the forum displaying them again.

[tggzzz]

The 34401, 2000, 2015, and 8840 all agree there is noise in the microvolt range on the outputs of these psus. Even the Agilent 1401B has a few uV of noise... I suppose I could go beyond the current twisted leads to coax to see if that helps, but I suspect not. But just for thoroughness, can anyone recommend a decent source of male 4mm banana to bnc or sma adapters?

Chop the end off a coax lead and put these on: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/banana-connectors/0531453

Be aware of triboelectric "noise" and thermal effects, and welcome to the rathole