Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Vince]

I have already stated my reasons for low power -> Not waste costly electricity + make it low noise/quiet + make it easier thermally to fit into the old Aptiva case I want to use. Dragon please don't reply or I will cut your tail. Unlike you, I did read your message carefully so I know what you actually think, I took note of it, believe it or not. Don't need more of it though.

Bitcoin mining  ? No, not at all, I am not into bitcoin or crypto mining at all, never will.  I keep the computer running 24/7 purely for availability. I want it ot be ready to go instantly no matter what time of the day or night I might want to. Just like I do'nt want to have to wait if I have an urgent need to go to the loo.. last thing I want is to have to boot and set up a computer and type a password and start an app before the loo will let me unload my stuff.
Just like you expect a light switch to be immediately available. I did try 15 years ago to compromise and gave the "sleep" or "hibernate" modes a chance...but it at least in Linux it does not "just work" on my Desktop, no matter what the H/W. Either does not work or works unreliably or sometime freezes or what not. It's just not reliable enough that I can contemplate using it, far from it. No, even 15 years later I I doubt it works today, Linux rarely solves problems, it only pretends they are working on it.. or sometimes they just say you are doing it wrong, it's a feature not a bug ! 
Last week I got a notification about a bug report I filed on Ubuntu... 15 years ago. 

The computer I'm using right now, boots to Ubuntu 20.04LTS from cold in 30 seconds. 
 

Yes that's what I said, I don't want to wait 30 seconds for the light to turn on every time I flick a light switch ! 
30 seconds is  also not the wole story, then I have to restart all the apps and the web browser and reopen its 50 tabs and reload them which takes an hour on my dodgy 4G modem, when it works at all.. or use hibernate but again it's not reliable so no use to me.

"We" (not you personaly I mean) have already had this conversation a few months ago, not wanting to go there again and face the same remarks again and again and have to reply again the same things...

EDIT : that's a lot of "again" eh ?!

[Specmaster]

OK, got it heated up and ready to go although it is damn early in the morning. 

And it doesn't go well with coffee. 

, You clearly don't think that your giant pack is not sufficient to last this time then, did you remember to get in plenty of corn, not much point in going to the expense of a machine if you only got free demo pack that they come with 

[Andrew_Debbie]

Yes that's what I said, I don't want to wait 30 seconds for the light to turn on every time I flick a light switch ! 
"We" (not you personaly I mean) have already had this conversation a few months ago,

Not a problem. 


I don't use sleep either.  This computer is on when I'm using it and off when I'm not.



There were some statements about Ubuntu / linux somewhere up thread I felt a need to correct.  I'm not sure who said them anymore.  At 61 I'm luckey If I can remember my wife's name...

[Vince]

I have 2 HP Spectrum analyzer: 8568a, 3562a
They are in mint condition and working well but they are definitely taking too much room in my small space.

So I thinking to get rid of them and maybe buy some  more modern and more compact SA, what would be your advice?
My only concern is that no modern  SA is working under 9khz like the 3562A

It's nothing to do with "modern" SA. Modern ones are exactly like your old HP 8568s... they don't go down to DC.

Your 3562a is not a SA it's a DSA. DSA go down to DC but only go up to 100kHz....
So what you need if a modern SA plus a modern DSA.

Problem is... do DSA still exist today... I can't find any on Keysight's website.... maybe these things don't exist anymore ? People ?
Given the extremely low bandwidth, 100kHz, maybe today the DSA functionalities are merely some feature one can add as an option to a scope...
Maybe you can get one with a computer based user interface ? Just a small USB box for the analog front-end, and the software running on a computer ?

At any rate there is nothing wrong with modern SA,  they are just like the old ones frequency range-wise, no more no less.

That's fighting talk 
Most modern SAs are "Real Time"  FFT designs while older ones are swept superhetrodyne designs. There is a lot of difference.
See https://rfmw.em.keysight.com/wireless/helpfiles/89600b/webhelp/subsystems/concepts/Content/concepts_types_spec_an.htm
While the results look the same, both types can be set to give different or "incorrect" measurements of a signal. This has led to issues with FFTs being used for EMC compliance measurments for example. More up-todate standards give guidance on use of real time analysers. They should be better for EMC measurements but the standards were written around the swept instruments.

Eh ? What fighting talk ?!   I am all about peace and love 

You misread me, I was nowhere talking about the internal design of a modern SA versus old ones.

Concern of the OP was that modern SA didn't go to DC so only stated that well, old ones did not either !
Only his DSA did because well, it's a DSA not a general purpose SA. But his old HP SA does not go to DC neither do modern ones... internal construction was not a topic here 

[mansaxel]

There were some statements about Ubuntu / linux somewhere up thread I felt a need to correct.

The only statement on Ubuntu that is necessary to remember, for it is true, is: "Ubuntu is zulu for 'I can't install Devuan'"

[Vince]

Yes that's what I said, I don't want to wait 30 seconds for the light to turn on every time I flick a light switch ! 
"We" (not you personaly I mean) have already had this conversation a few months ago,

Not a problem.
I don't use sleep either.  This computer is on when I'm using it and off when I'm not.

Yes every body is different, that's why I stated my personal use case. How others use their computer is irrelevant to me, just like how I use my computer is irrelevant to everybody else. I want mine to be always on so I can use it instantly any time, it's a given I have to work with, not something I am will to change just because other people don't use their computers like I do... I am not going to tell people what colour LED they should use in their transparent case, they can do what ever they like it's their computer not mine.

There were some statements about Ubuntu / linux somewhere up thread I felt a need to correct.  I'm not sure who said them anymore.  At 61 I'm luckey If I can remember my wife's name...

Yes I forgive you, you are soooo old I can forgive you anything !     No... I don't even know how old you are ! 

Anyway I don't know what you might have seen said about Ubuntu.. I think I was the only one mentioning it but only to say good things about it, mostly.
Only negative thing I said maybe was that Hibernate or Suspend in my experience can't be relied on, so I don't use these features, but that's not really a Ubuntu specific problem so I don't blame them...  There are lots of stuff that sucks in Linux in general, and lots of good stuff too of course otherwise I wouldn't be using it for 20 years now... Every OS is mixed bag of nice and horrible things. Linux merely happens to be a particular mix I happen to be most happy with, so I stick with it despite the bad stuff. It's a compromise... no OS is perfect...



EDIT : oops yes I know how old you are, you stated it, sorry ! Going to hide in the corner...
61 is not old ! My dad is 76 and even he does not look that old to me... OK he can never remember my name, keeps calling me with my brother's name, but he has been doing that for all my life so nothing to do with age ! 

EDIT #2 :  now I think of it, there would be another reason to keep my computer running 24/7 : even though one might argue I could turn it off when I am at work (I don't because I want e-mails to be already downloaded/ready to read when I get back home), I would like to play / experiment with remote file access. Say I am at work or away on hols or whatever, and I want to access a file... I could use some app on teh smartphone or something, to log into my computer and browse my HDD and download some file.

[Vince]

There were some statements about Ubuntu / linux somewhere up thread I felt a need to correct.

The only statement on Ubuntu that is necessary to remember, for it is true, is: "Ubuntu is zulu for 'I can't install Devuan'"

So what is a " devuan " then ?! 

[Specmaster]

@Vince
I understand that you are between a rock and a hard place with your particular computing / internet setup that you have, and I can see your argument about the time it would take to reload all 50 of the tabs on your 4G modem, but it also strikes me as a massive waste of power for the hours that you are actually asleep for, and let's be honest here, that power is going to go one way on price, that's up.

Surely it must be possible to write a script that will boot your PC and then load all of your 50 tabs  (50  ) automatically for you so that by the normal time of day when you would normally be at the PC, it was already running for you without all of that wasted power?

I also have to be completely honest here and tell you that your experiences with Linux is not really convincing me to break camp from Microsoft and Windows. I mean, yes they have problems at times, but they also work very hard to fix them quickly.

I also have 2 NAS drives on my network, giving me a total of 5 TB of online storage, but that storage is only active when I need it to be. I leave nothing running when I go to bed that is not absolutely essential, for example, fridges, freezers, central heating and clocks etc even ensuring that no tablets or phones etc are left on charge overnight. I minimise the potential equipment failures and possible fires occurring while my family are sleeping and at their most vulnerable should a problem arise.

[Robert763]

I have 2 HP Spectrum analyzer: 8568a, 3562a
They are in mint condition and working well but they are definitely taking too much room in my small space.

So I thinking to get rid of them and maybe buy some  more modern and more compact SA, what would be your advice?
My only concern is that no modern  SA is working under 9khz like the 3562A

It's nothing to do with "modern" SA. Modern ones are exactly like your old HP 8568s... they don't go down to DC.

Your 3562a is not a SA it's a DSA. DSA go down to DC but only go up to 100kHz....
So what you need if a modern SA plus a modern DSA.

Problem is... do DSA still exist today... I can't find any on Keysight's website.... maybe these things don't exist anymore ? People ?
Given the extremely low bandwidth, 100kHz, maybe today the DSA functionalities are merely some feature one can add as an option to a scope...
Maybe you can get one with a computer based user interface ? Just a small USB box for the analog front-end, and the software running on a computer ?

At any rate there is nothing wrong with modern SA,  they are just like the old ones frequency range-wise, no more no less.

That's fighting talk 
Most modern SAs are "Real Time"  FFT designs while older ones are swept superhetrodyne designs. There is a lot of difference.
See https://rfmw.em.keysight.com/wireless/helpfiles/89600b/webhelp/subsystems/concepts/Content/concepts_types_spec_an.htm
While the results look the same, both types can be set to give different or "incorrect" measurements of a signal. This has led to issues with FFTs being used for EMC compliance measurments for example. More up-todate standards give guidance on use of real time analysers. They should be better for EMC measurements but the standards were written around the swept instruments.

Eh ? What fighting talk ?!   I am all about peace and love 

You misread me, I was nowhere talking about the internal design of a modern SA versus old ones.

Concern of the OP was that modern SA didn't go to DC so only stated that well, old ones did not either !
Only his DSA did because well, it's a DSA not a general purpose SA. But his old HP SA does not go to DC neither do modern ones... internal construction was not a topic here 

9kHz is not DC 
Even the OP's 8568A is specified to 100Hz and it's a microwave swept analyser. I don't think the OP ever mentioned DC......

Edit: Just checked and it looks like the 9kHz comes from the specification of the Siglent and similar SAs
A Siglent SSA3021X Plus with free TG and a Pico 4000 20MHz  16 bit 'scope would do most of what the boa anchors will at a fraction of the space and power.

[mnementh]

Oh boy... just woke up, first thing I see is Dragon fire again, so much of it I am completely roasted.

Who needs coffee anyway, nothing beats the smell of Dragon fire in the morning eh ?! 

Dear Dragon, so much drama again, so much fire, you just can't help can you.

You once again clearly demonstrated that :

1) You 100% missed my point, probably did not really read me. Or maybe my English is so bad I don't know.

2) You are even putting words in my mouth that I did not say nor even mean at all.. which certainly did not help your comprehension.

3) Said words though, have been said... but by others, not by me, which again highlights the fact that you don't really care about what I say, you just read at the speed of light, mix every thing up and just build a scenario that fits your purpose... throwing fire, as always.

If you were really trying to help you would actually take the time to read and understand what people say and mean, rather than immediately jumping on your keyboard to write a full page of fire with lots of drama to imply I am stupid and that because of me the earth will probably stop rotating and we will all die.

Now shall I be surprised by all of this ? Of course not, not in the slightest 

Next time you want to "help".. just picture your wife instead of me, and that will lead you to doing the right thing.

Vince -

You're the only one making drama here. This was just IT people talking shop; you are the one who insists on making it personal.

Cheers!

mnem

[Vince]

OK, got it heated up and ready to go although it is damn early in the morning. 

And it doesn't go well with coffee. 

No need to heat it up Med ! Dragon fire will be plenty enough to make that corn pop in an eye blink even from dead cold ! 

[Vince]

I have 2 HP Spectrum analyzer: 8568a, 3562a
They are in mint condition and working well but they are definitely taking too much room in my small space.

So I thinking to get rid of them and maybe buy some  more modern and more compact SA, what would be your advice?
My only concern is that no modern  SA is working under 9khz like the 3562A

It's nothing to do with "modern" SA. Modern ones are exactly like your old HP 8568s... they don't go down to DC.

Your 3562a is not a SA it's a DSA. DSA go down to DC but only go up to 100kHz....
So what you need if a modern SA plus a modern DSA.

Problem is... do DSA still exist today... I can't find any on Keysight's website.... maybe these things don't exist anymore ? People ?
Given the extremely low bandwidth, 100kHz, maybe today the DSA functionalities are merely some feature one can add as an option to a scope...
Maybe you can get one with a computer based user interface ? Just a small USB box for the analog front-end, and the software running on a computer ?

At any rate there is nothing wrong with modern SA,  they are just like the old ones frequency range-wise, no more no less.

That's fighting talk 
Most modern SAs are "Real Time"  FFT designs while older ones are swept superhetrodyne designs. There is a lot of difference.
See https://rfmw.em.keysight.com/wireless/helpfiles/89600b/webhelp/subsystems/concepts/Content/concepts_types_spec_an.htm
While the results look the same, both types can be set to give different or "incorrect" measurements of a signal. This has led to issues with FFTs being used for EMC compliance measurments for example. More up-todate standards give guidance on use of real time analysers. They should be better for EMC measurements but the standards were written around the swept instruments.

Eh ? What fighting talk ?!   I am all about peace and love 

You misread me, I was nowhere talking about the internal design of a modern SA versus old ones.

Concern of the OP was that modern SA didn't go to DC so only stated that well, old ones did not either !
Only his DSA did because well, it's a DSA not a general purpose SA. But his old HP SA does not go to DC neither do modern ones... internal construction was not a topic here 

9kHz is not DC 
Even the OP's 8568A is specified to 100Hz and it's a microwave swept analyser. I don't think the OP ever mentioned DC......

He did not but he did compare modern SA that typically go down to a few kHz, with his DSA which does go to DC. So that implies he expected modern SA to go to DC, so I simply wanted to point out to him that even his old SA did not go to DC, that general purpose SA don't go to DC, that his DSA could do it only because... well it's a DSA not a general purpose SA ! 

It looks like this morning no matter what I say people misread me so I think it must be something wrong with me, so will just turn off the computer and go do something else instead ! 

Concrete for the garage foundation is due to be delivered today 15H30, 6.8m3 of it.  Need to go out buy some beer to thank the few friends who will come to help me spread it evenly every where.

[mnementh]

I have already stated my reasons for low power -> Not waste costly electricity + make it low noise/quiet + make it easier thermally to fit into the old Aptiva case I want to use. Dragon please don't reply or I will cut your tail. Unlike you, I did read your message carefully so I know what you actually think, I took note of it, believe it or not. Don't need more of it though.

Bitcoin mining  ? No, not at all, I am not into bitcoin or crypto mining at all, never will.  I keep the computer running 24/7 purely for availability. I want it ot be ready to go instantly no matter what time of the day or night I might want to. Just like I do'nt want to have to wait if I have an urgent need to go to the loo.. last thing I want is to have to boot and set up a computer and type a password and start an app before the loo will let me unload my stuff.
Just like you expect a light switch to be immediately available. I did try 15 years ago to compromise and gave the "sleep" or "hibernate" modes a chance...but it at least in Linux it does not "just work" on my Desktop, no matter what the H/W. Either does not work or works unreliably or sometime freezes or what not. It's just not reliable enough that I can contemplate using it, far from it. No, even 15 years later I I doubt it works today, Linux rarely solves problems, it only pretends they are working on it.. or sometimes they just say you are doing it wrong, it's a feature not a bug ! 
Last week I got a notification about a bug report I filed on Ubuntu... 15 years ago. 


Personally, I'd rather run at far higher speeds and get more done, mine runs at 4 Ghz 125W TDP and will accept an overclock to 4.2 Ghz, but I'm happy to prolong its life, so I leave it at its native speed.

The computer I'm using right now, boots to Ubuntu 20.04LTS from cold in 30 seconds. 



Ubuntu isn't for everyone, but it does work on modern hardware.   Most of the software  I use is  available native on Ubuntu:   MATLAB, MS Teams, Remmina, fsl*, psychtoolbox, various development environments, Kicad  X-Plane 11.  There is browser  based Office for Outlook,  One Drive, Word.  This computer is set up dual boot with Win10 for Photoshop, Illustator, games and TE firmware updates.

On this hardware, X-Plane 11 has a slightly higher frame rate on Ubuntu 20.04 then it does on Win10.    Not enough to matter TBH and I usually use X-Plane on the Windows side to keep games and work seperate.


Here is the hardware:


Asus Q370M-C Micro ATX LGA 1151 v2 Socket DDR4 x4 2666MHz VGA HDMI 2x DisplayPort   --   Typical modern buisness motherboard.
Intel Core i7-8700
16GB 2400MHz DDR4 PC4-19200 CL17 Dual Ranked x8 based Unbuffered NON-ECC 1.2V 1024Meg x 64
WD Green 240GB M.2 2280 SSD 3D Nand  (Ubuntu)
WD Blue 512GB SSD for Windows.   

Ubuntu ran on this hardware in January 2020 with zero issues.   By then the Q370 chipset had been out for about a year.

May 2020 I added:
Palet GTX 1650Super  graphics card and a 500W power supply.     The  open source drivers that come with Ubuntu are not very good.   Installing the nvidia driver was a minor annoyance

Before the graphics card, the power consumption was quite low.  Even with the card in it isn't bad unless I'm using the GPU.

* fsl is a collection of tools for analysis of MRI, fMRI and DTI data -- > https://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslwiki

My old MacPro 3.1/20GB RAM/4x 750GB-7200RPM spinning rust:

Processor Speed:    2.8 GHz    Processor Type:    Q. Core Xeon E5462 x2
Details:    Each of two 45-nm Xeon E5462 (Harpertown/Penryn) processors has four independent processor "cores" with 12 MB of level 2 cache per processor (each pair of cores shares 6 MB). It also features a 128-bit SSE4 SIMD vector engine, and 1.6 GHz "64-bit dual independent frontside buses."

Turbo Boost:    N/A    Custom Speeds:    2.8, 3, 3.2 GHz*
Processor Upgrade:    LGA 771 Sockets    FPU:    Integrated
System Bus Speed:    1.6 GHz    Cache Bus Speed:    2.8 GHz (Built-in)
ROM/Firmware Type:    EFI    EFI Architecture:    64-Bit
L1 Cache:    N/A    L2/L3 Cache:    12 MB*
RAM Type:    PC6400 DDR2 ECC    Min. RAM Speed:    800 MHz
Details:    Uses "800 MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory" and has a "256-bit wide memory architecture".

Standard RAM:    2 GB    Maximum RAM:    64 GB*

Boots Linux Mint 20.1/Cinnamon in ~70 seconds from single non-RAID OS disc. Sleep/wake work as reliably as OSX (which is VERY well). It installed in approx 20 minutes to spinning rust, and drivers for upgraded Geforce GTX670 seem to work right out of the box.

I tried the same install disk on my i7 Lenovo Flex 3 1580 with a old HDD I had lying around; it installed in a little less time, and the only thing that didn't work out of the box was touchscreen and default screen res was wrong.

I especially liked that on both installs, it didn't    me even once. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

I have 2 HP Spectrum analyzer: 8568a, 3562a
They are in mint condition and working well but they are definitely taking too much room in my small space.

So I thinking to get rid of them and maybe buy some  more modern and more compact SA, what would be your advice?
My only concern is that no modern  SA is working under 9khz like the 3562A

It's nothing to do with "modern" SA. Modern ones are exactly like your old HP 8568s... they don't go down to DC.

Your 3562a is not a SA it's a DSA. DSA go down to DC but only go up to 100kHz....
So what you need if a modern SA plus a modern DSA.

Problem is... do DSA still exist today... I can't find any on Keysight's website.... maybe these things don't exist anymore ? People ?
Given the extremely low bandwidth, 100kHz, maybe today the DSA functionalities are merely some feature one can add as an option to a scope...
Maybe you can get one with a computer based user interface ? Just a small USB box for the analog front-end, and the software running on a computer ?

At any rate there is nothing wrong with modern SA,  they are just like the old ones frequency range-wise, no more no less.

That's fighting talk 
Most modern SAs are "Real Time"  FFT designs while older ones are swept superhetrodyne designs. There is a lot of difference.
See https://rfmw.em.keysight.com/wireless/helpfiles/89600b/webhelp/subsystems/concepts/Content/concepts_types_spec_an.htm
While the results look the same, both types can be set to give different or "incorrect" measurements of a signal. This has led to issues with FFTs being used for EMC compliance measurments for example. More up-todate standards give guidance on use of real time analysers. They should be better for EMC measurements but the standards were written around the swept instruments.

Eh ? What fighting talk ?!   I am all about peace and love 

You misread me, I was nowhere talking about the internal design of a modern SA versus old ones.

Concern of the OP was that modern SA didn't go to DC so only stated that well, old ones did not either !
Only his DSA did because well, it's a DSA not a general purpose SA. But his old HP SA does not go to DC neither do modern ones... internal construction was not a topic here 

9kHz is not DC 
Even the OP's 8568A is specified to 100Hz and it's a microwave swept analyser. I don't think the OP ever mentioned DC......

Edit: Just checked and it looks like the 9kHz comes from the specification of the Siglent and similar SAs
A Siglent SSA3021X Plus with free TG and a Pico 4000 20MHz  16 bit 'scope would do most of what the boa anchors will at a fraction of the space and power.

I think it was JoeQSmith who said (plagiarizing one of our great old ones humorously, I believe) in another thread something to the effect that "anything less than GHz is essentially DC"...? 

I know I'm misremembering horribly... but something aboot that particular conceit still makes me snicker inside.

mnem
*nibbling on a celery stick cuz I can't have  *

[psykok]

I have 2 HP Spectrum analyzer: 8568a, 3562a
They are in mint condition and working well but they are definitely taking too much room in my small space.

So I thinking to get rid of them and maybe buy some  more modern and more compact SA, what would be your advice?
My only concern is that no modern  SA is working under 9khz like the 3562A

It's nothing to do with "modern" SA. Modern ones are exactly like your old HP 8568s... they don't go down to DC.

Your 3562a is not a SA it's a DSA. DSA go down to DC but only go up to 100kHz....
So what you need if a modern SA plus a modern DSA.

Problem is... do DSA still exist today... I can't find any on Keysight's website.... maybe these things don't exist anymore ? People ?
Given the extremely low bandwidth, 100kHz, maybe today the DSA functionalities are merely some feature one can add as an option to a scope...
Maybe you can get one with a computer based user interface ? Just a small USB box for the analog front-end, and the software running on a computer ?

At any rate there is nothing wrong with modern SA,  they are just like the old ones frequency range-wise, no more no less.

That's fighting talk 
Most modern SAs are "Real Time"  FFT designs while older ones are swept superhetrodyne designs. There is a lot of difference.
See https://rfmw.em.keysight.com/wireless/helpfiles/89600b/webhelp/subsystems/concepts/Content/concepts_types_spec_an.htm
While the results look the same, both types can be set to give different or "incorrect" measurements of a signal. This has led to issues with FFTs being used for EMC compliance measurments for example. More up-todate standards give guidance on use of real time analysers. They should be better for EMC measurements but the standards were written around the swept instruments.

Eh ? What fighting talk ?!   I am all about peace and love 

You misread me, I was nowhere talking about the internal design of a modern SA versus old ones.

Concern of the OP was that modern SA didn't go to DC so only stated that well, old ones did not either !
Only his DSA did because well, it's a DSA not a general purpose SA. But his old HP SA does not go to DC neither do modern ones... internal construction was not a topic here 

9kHz is not DC 
Even the OP's 8568A is specified to 100Hz and it's a microwave swept analyser. I don't think the OP ever mentioned DC......

He did not but he did compare modern SA that typically go down to a few kHz, with his DSA which does go to DC. So that implies he expected modern SA to go to DC, so I simply wanted to point out to him that even his old SA did not go to DC, that general purpose SA don't go to DC, that his DSA could do it only because... well it's a DSA not a general purpose SA ! 

It looks like this morning no matter what I say people misread me so I think it must be something wrong with me, so will just turn off the computer and go do something else instead ! 

Concrete for the garage foundation is due to be delivered today 15H30, 6.8m3 of it.  Need to go out buy some beer to thank the few friends who will come to help me spread it evenly every where.

I have the feeling I just started the unwanted discussion 

Actually I own these two instruments to serve two different needs.
The 3562 will be used for low bandwidth /audio purposes  and the 8568A for everything else (instrument repair, radio oscillator debugging ...)

In my case I do mainly audio things and some instrument repair for which I need high bandwidth instruments.

Today the 3562 can probably be easily replaced with some PC+sound card solution or an Audio Precision if you have deep pockets.
I forgot to say that I also have a much smaller Ono Sokki CF-350Z, which goes from DC to 40Kz. It’s definitely not as good as the HP and offer less functionalities but it should be ok.

At the end I'm probably just looking for a modern and compact SA to replace the huge 8568A.
The 8568A has no special or fancy advanced functions but it work just great and it’s supper easy to use and reliable.
I'm just wondering if a Siglent, Rigol or other equivalent would be a valid alternative.


Alex

[Kosmic]

Fluke 80K-40 High Voltage probe on ebay this morning.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185059901414



Don't mind the burned and melted spot on the tip of the probe. It's sold as used. The seller added "In good condition, guarantee working." Probably works fine 

[mnementh]

There were some statements about Ubuntu / linux somewhere up thread I felt a need to correct.

The only statement on Ubuntu that is necessary to remember, for it is true, is: "Ubuntu is zulu for 'I can't install Devuan'"

Interesting mission statement:  https://www.devuan.org/os/announce/

But sadly, it is precisely the kind of techno-drama described in this missive that keeps most users from adopting *NIX on the desktop. The technology itself is bundled up in layer upon layer of different people's work, each with different and in many cases incompatible visions for the end result of their work.

At the core of this problem is something which appears to be fundamental to the *NIX-nerd genepool; a congenital inability to understand that most computer users want to be users, not sysadmins. We want a desktop OS that knows how to install itself on most common desktop hardware, because we all know this has been possible for decades. We want it to be able to handle most common hardware on the market transparently and with a minimum of user tinkering because we also know that has been possible for decades.

And most of all, we want to use our computers to do other things, not start every morning before our first cup of coffee having to open the hood and fix something.

Because we also know that has been possible (if not always well-realized due to politics and capitalism) for decades.

mnem

[Saskia]

Actually this was possible to some extent in Iris like 25 years ago.

[med6753]

Fluke 80K-40 High Voltage probe on ebay this morning.





Don't mind the burned and melted spot on the tip of the probe. It's sold as used. The seller added "In good condition, guarantee working." Probably works fine 

Some idiot used it in a high energy HV circuit which is a no-no and lucky if they are still alive. And no way would I trust that probe now. It's toast. 

Edit....or perhaps that's a burn from a soldering iron. Either way it's no way for that probe.

[Specmaster]

Med, my thoughts exactly, its fit for the bin only. 

[ch_scr]

Fluke 80K-40 High Voltage probe on ebay this morning.





Don't mind the burned and melted spot on the tip of the probe. It's sold as used. The seller added "In good condition, guarantee working." Probably works fine 

Some idiot used it in a high energy HV circuit which is a no-no and lucky if they are still alive. And no way would I trust that probe now. It's toast. 

Edit....or perhaps that's a burn from a soldering iron. Either way it's no way for that probe.

It looks to me like it was the first... and pretty sure there was not only a spot on the probe after that incident, but also in his/her pants 
But to sell it as working/used is questionable....

[Cerebus]

... and that because of me the earth will probably stop rotating and we will all die.

Oh, all this climate change stuff is your fault it it? I've got a bone to pick with you... 

[mnementh]

Fluke 80K-40 High Voltage probe on ebay this morning.      
Don't mind the burned and melted spot on the tip of the probe. It's sold as used. The seller added "In good condition, guarantee working." Probably works fine 

Some idiot used it in a high energy HV circuit which is a no-no and lucky if they are still alive. And no way would I trust that probe now. It's toast. 

Edit....or perhaps that's a burn from a soldering iron. Either way it's no way for that probe.

Looks like a job for 3DP to me.

I bid... ummm... I have 27 cents Canadian, a purple gumband and a pistachio shell in my pocket. 

mnem

[McBryce]

Fluke 80K-40 High Voltage probe on ebay this morning.      
Don't mind the burned and melted spot on the tip of the probe. It's sold as used. The seller added "In good condition, guarantee working." Probably works fine 

Some idiot used it in a high energy HV circuit which is a no-no and lucky if they are still alive. And no way would I trust that probe now. It's toast. 

Edit....or perhaps that's a burn from a soldering iron. Either way it's no way for that probe.

Looks like a job for 3DP to me.

I bid... ummm... I have 27 cents Canadian, a purple gumband and a pistachio shell in my pocket. 

mnem

And.... I've just been outbid by mnementh! That's 27 cents and a purple gumband more than I was willing to pay.

McBryce.

[Andrew_Debbie]

Some idiot used it in a high energy HV circuit which is a no-no and lucky if they are still alive. And no way would I trust that probe now. It's toast. 

Edit....or perhaps that's a burn from a soldering iron. Either way it's no way for that probe.

I think it would be perfect for the HP linear power supply I posted a few days ago.   -->   https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194468003842


I'm strangely drawn to the challenge of repairing / restoring that HP 6264B.     It is such a disaster.  The PCB is burned.  The transformer looks like it got a bit warm.