Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tautech]

An ordinary IR security cam connected to a DVR with an external night/day inhibit alarm output driving a spotlight will both nab her and startle her.

[capt bullshot]

??

https://fingers-welt.de/gallerie/eigen/impro/essen/essen.htm

No associations with the cook.

[mansaxel]

To put that in perspective... our Rav4, with a mid-tier options package (AC, AT, power windows, cruise, etc but no stoopit shit like butt warmers and the like) cost equivalent of ~22000€ new a few years ago.

mnem
needs more cowbell.

Butt warmer is never optional in Sweden. Our new V70 even has diesel heater. I've never tried it, since it was the first time yesterday morning that I noticed ice slush on the front windscreen (and we bought it in May, so no winter season yet). It wasn't serious; it could be squished away with a squirt of the washers (I'm running washer alcohol / water mix in the washer tank all year) and some sweeps of the wipers. But there's more where that came from...

[vk6zgo]

I discovered this open circuit in my outdoor lighting in the back yard yesterday.  No test equipment necessary, visual inspection was perfectly adequate for locating the cuts and two inches of missing cable.  I’m not happy about this being vandalized again.

Weird, do your neighbours hate you THAT much ? What the hell did you do to them ?! 

Or do you have a flight of black cockatoos which have escaped from a zoo?

In Oz, they, & others of their ilk are very fond of cables, which they cut with very much the appearance of sidecutters, due to the shape of their beaks.

[med6753]

To put that in perspective... our Rav4, with a mid-tier options package (AC, AT, power windows, cruise, etc but no stoopit shit like butt warmers and the like) cost equivalent of ~22000€ new a few years ago.

mnem
needs more cowbell.

Butt warmer is never optional in Sweden. Our new V70 even has diesel heater. I've never tried it, since it was the first time yesterday morning that I noticed ice slush on the front windscreen (and we bought it in May, so no winter season yet). It wasn't serious; it could be squished away with a squirt of the washers (I'm running washer alcohol / water mix in the washer tank all year) and some sweeps of the wipers. But there's more where that came from...

Have not had our first frost here yet. Typically not until the end of October. Lowest observed overnight temperature so far has been 9 C.

Several years ago we had a 10 inch snowfall on Halloween. 

[med6753]

The Type 547 continues to operate trouble free. For now I'm declaring the sweep issue as fixed. Hopefully Murphy agrees with that assessment. Next week I'm going to use it as a test bed to troubleshoot the Type 1A1 plug-in that originally came with it. It has gain and distorted response issues.

The hp 3456A is powered up, and has been since last night, to stabilize. If all goes as planned later today the reason will be very apparent.

   

[med6753]

Has anyone heard from Chris (bd) lately? 

I miss the (insert British term of endearment) cunt. 

[tautech]

Has anyone heard from Chris (bd) lately? 

I miss the (insert British term of endearment) cunt. 

Not a squeak ! Normally pops into Discord for a chat but didn't even do that so I'm guessing he may have found some new redhead to use all his spare time. 

I'll pop him mail and see if he's still sucking air.

[BU508A]

Has anyone heard from Chris (bd) lately? 

I miss the (insert British term of endearment) cunt. 

Yes. Me.

He is lurking in the background watching us from a distance. 

[med6753]

Has anyone heard from Chris (bd) lately? 

I miss the (insert British term of endearment) cunt. 

Not a squeak ! Normally pops into Discord for a chat but didn't even do that so I'm guessing he may have found some new redhead to use all his spare time. 

I'll pop him mail and see if he's still sucking air.

He did say he would not be on Discord last weekend.

[med6753]

Has anyone heard from Chris (bd) lately? 

I miss the (insert British term of endearment) cunt. 

Yes. Me.

He is lurking in the background watching us from a distance. 

OK, at least we know he's alive and kicking. 

[tautech]

Has anyone heard from Chris (bd) lately? 

I miss the (insert British term of endearment) cunt. 

Yes. Me.

He is lurking in the background watching us from a distance. 

Just like the sly bugger he is.
Popped him mail just now.

[Specmaster]

Has anyone heard from Chris (bd) lately? 

I miss the (insert British term of endearment) cunt. 

Yes, he is very busy workwise at the moment and also of course as so often happens, real life gets in the way, he'll be back when he's ready no doubt about that.

[tonyalbus]

 
Do you need more PSU?
Can you even have to much PSU?
just in case i was one short... and a very nice deal..

And the PM6685 i allway wanted sens i saw it the first time. (proper money for proper counter, that happens when you want it.) 

[mnementh]

To put that in perspective... our Rav4, with a mid-tier options package (AC, AT, power windows, cruise, etc but no stoopit shit like butt warmers and the like) cost equivalent of ~22000€ new a few years ago.

mnem
needs more cowbell.

Butt warmer is never optional in Sweden. Our new V70 even has diesel heater. I've never tried it, since it was the first time yesterday morning that I noticed ice slush on the front windscreen (and we bought it in May, so no winter season yet). It wasn't serious; it could be squished away with a squirt of the washers (I'm running washer alcohol / water mix in the washer tank all year) and some sweeps of the wipers. But there's more where that came from...

Have not had our first frost here yet. Typically not until the end of October. Lowest observed overnight temperature so far has been 9 C.

Several years ago we had a 10 inch snowfall on Halloween.

Similar happened to me when I was like 13... but I went as a demonic scarecrow (modeled after The Scarecrow from Batman comics) and I was very well insulated with half a bale of straw stuffed inside my costume. Itchy as all Hell, but I didn't care; all I could think aboot was the candy bowls they kept emptying into my bag cuz I was one of like 6 kids out Trick-or-Treating in the whole neighborhood. 

mnem
*toddles off to nuke the digital photo frame I blew up last night*

[mnementh]

Has anyone heard from Chris (bd) lately?     I miss the (insert British term of endearment) cunt. 

Yes. Me.

He is lurking in the background watching us from a distance. 

Just like the sly bugger he is. Popped him mail just now.

Can confirm. His "new hat" has saddled him with large responsibilities; he's doing a major... ummm... something at work. As BU says; he's mostly lurrrrking here on & off.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

To put that in perspective... our Rav4, with a mid-tier options package (AC, AT, power windows, cruise, etc but no stoopit shit like butt warmers and the like) cost equivalent of ~22000€ new a few years ago.

mnem
needs more cowbell.

Butt warmer is never optional in Sweden. Our new V70 even has diesel heater. I've never tried it, since it was the first time yesterday morning that I noticed ice slush on the front windscreen (and we bought it in May, so no winter season yet). It wasn't serious; it could be squished away with a squirt of the washers (I'm running washer alcohol / water mix in the washer tank all year) and some sweeps of the wipers. But there's more where that came from...

Yeah, I can get having a block heater; Central NY winters are no less brutal than Canada. I put one in ol' Bertha (F150 w/Cadd 500 and diamond-plate welder's bed) when it was my livelihood cuz I could not afford to miss a morning's work.

Butt-warmers tho... especially considering the inherently flammable nature of the surrounding materials they're putting a heating element into... Hell no. Of course, I've always had "Polock Butt" with at least adequate blubber back there.

mnem
*prepping the snow blower for the new season even as we speak*

[mansaxel]

Do you need more PSU?
Can you even have to much PSU?
just in case i was one short... and a very nice deal..

Niiice! I'm a bit interested in getting myself a  -hp- of that type; I could do with more amps in low voltage short circuits. I'm certain the TTi one is a nice unit, my TTi counter is very nice, and I've read nice things about their supplies too. But I've got a 6237b, so short of a current limiter, I'm set. (I do have a Uni-T dual voltage supply too, with CC. It usually gets first shot on things I want to test cautionary first... )

And the PM6685 i allway wanted sens i saw it the first time. (proper money for proper counter, that happens when you want it.) 

Just to tease the Dutch pride: If you turn the counter around, you'll see a small sticker saying "Made in Sweden" 

[mansaxel]

Butt-warmers tho... especially considering the inherently flammable nature of the surrounding materials they're putting a heating element into... Hell no. Of course, I've always had "Polock Butt" with at least adequate blubber back there.

The butt-warmer is never run unless one monitors it closely (ahem) -- our old car did have some issues with the structural integrity of the driver seat, and it would burn my left thigh (always in the same spot) so I usually just ran the warmer for perhaps 1 minute, to take the edge of the chill.

I'd love a block heater, but they're an expensive butt-pain to retrofit.

[tonyalbus]

Do you need more PSU?
Can you even have to much PSU?
just in case i was one short... and a very nice deal..

Niiice! I'm a bit interested in getting myself a  -hp- of that type; I could do with more amps in low voltage short circuits. I'm certain the TTi one is a nice unit, my TTi counter is very nice, and I've read nice things about their supplies too. But I've got a 6237b, so short of a current limiter, I'm set. (I do have a Uni-T dual voltage supply too, with CC. It usually gets first shot on things I want to test cautionary first... )

And the PM6685 i allway wanted sens i saw it the first time. (proper money for proper counter, that happens when you want it.) 

Just to tease the Dutch pride: If you turn the counter around, you'll see a small sticker saying "Made in Sweden" 

OMG it IS made in Sweden...LOL 
This unit got an aftermarket 8 GHz prescaler for channel C ....sweet

Yes those TTi counter are nice, that TF930 was spot-on compared to my GPSDO

[TERRA Operative]

So I'm looking at a faster scope at the moment. I have my eye on a 1GHz 4GS/s TDS784C with 4x P6245 probes and accessories, pouch, front cover and also the floppy disk drive, GPIB/RS232, Advanced DSP Math, and 4Meg memory options. the seller is asking roughly US$600 (67500yen).
It looks like it probably needs the usual relays replaced on the acquisition board, but that's simple enough to fix.

Does this sound like an alright deal?

[mansaxel]

I bit the bullet a week ago and ordered a 5-pack of these. My use case is various small consumers in the machine room, like fiber converter, SIP ATA boxes, and environment monitor Raspberry π. I have a 24V battery backed supply, called "Main Bus B" (of course) that I'm thinking of supplying these from, and to do that I need switching buck converters.

I connected one up, powering it with 28V from the 6209, and loaded it with a 120Ω power resistor at 5V. Current is predictably low at ~42mA (or so says the 428b, once warmed up) and started poking at the input and output with a scope in AC-coupled mode. (watched first.)

They seem to be running the converter at about 100KHz, and I measure some 50mV of ripple on the input, and slightly less, both in waveform nastyness and amplitude, on the output. The input ripple is full of transients, while the output is a pretty well-formed sawtooth. I'll poke at it at higher voltage and current too, but I'm pretty certain it'll get worse as I crank things up.

[Cerebus]

??

https://fingers-welt.de/gallerie/eigen/impro/essen/essen.htm

No associations with the cook.

I was looking at that and going "Marzipan Ritter Sport, so what?" Then I spotted the "Aioli". Yuck!

On a vaguely related note. Ritter used to do a "Kaffee und Sahne" variety of Ritter Sport that was sold in the UK. It disappeared and I have been forlornly hunting for it ever since, including in Germany, with no success at all. It was my favourite by quite a long way of all the flavours of Ritter Sport.

[psykok]

But yes, a UHF RF signal generator should be on your shopping list. As it is on mine.

There's one of these: http://wunderkis.de/mg3633a/ waiting for a new owner. It's #3 from the repair reports, with the attenuator waiting for a cleaning, just like #1.
It's in not so nice optical shape, but working. It was intended as a reserve unit, but I never need it.
It doesn't reach full output level in the lower frequency range (up to 1.3 or so GHz), and the output level is about 1dB off in this range.
If you're pedantic, let it pass by.

And I can't be bothered to ship it outside EU.

what is the price of this nice boat anchor ?

[25 CPS]

I discovered this open circuit in my outdoor lighting in the back yard yesterday.  No test equipment necessary, visual inspection was perfectly adequate for locating the cuts and two inches of missing cable.  I’m not happy about this being vandalized again.

Weird, do your neighbours hate you THAT much ? What the hell did you do to them ?! 

Or do you have a flight of black cockatoos which have escaped from a zoo?

In Oz, they, & others of their ilk are very fond of cables, which they cut with very much the appearance of sidecutters, due to the shape of their beaks.

No, no problems like that.

Since you mentioned birds though, I do have a pair of bird feeders in the back yard and the one near the fence between our houses kept mysteriously getting knocked over until I moved the pole it's on out of arm's reach of the fence.

The three times the lights have been vandalized started last fall when the cable got cut closer to the house and I had to replace that string which lasted the rest of the season fine.  But the first time I went to use them in the spring of this year, I found each string unplugged from the next.  Birds don't do that.  Then there was this incident.  Each of them has been on the same side of the back yard; the lights on all three other sides of the yard have been left alone except for some squirrel damage (broken clips near the other bird feeder where the squirrels launch themselves off the fence) and storm damage (a lot of broken clips everywhere) and the other bird feeder hasn't been uprooted and thrown anywhere.  The bird feeder and it's pole being thrown over always landing pointing away from the fence and the cut up/unplugged Christmas lights have only happened on that one side of the yard.

What I'm thinking of doing is a combination of a camera setup and the shorting plug idea.  If the impedance of the light string rises above a dead short, just have it quietly log a time stamp and turn on an indicator that something happened so I can check the photos/video from the relevant time instead of scrolling through hunting for something.