Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

packed around 20 boxes today, at least 10 more to follow.
while packing the missing pcb set for the scopetrex has resurfaced. It's still new in paper wrap.

@McBryce address please.

You have my sympathies. It's so long since I had to move en masse that I've probably forgotten quite how much I hate it, and I remember hating it a lot.

*has PTSD flashback to... LAST WEEK, when I was trying to pack down everything important in the house over a period of just 2 days*

Oh, no, C... it's perfectly fine... don't mention it. *~please!~*

Also, d33p3st sympathies @Saskia. I'm probably going to be going back to finish the job sometime in the next month or so...

mnem
*twitch... twitch... twitcha-twitch...*

[mnementh]

And here's the Type W plug-in. It's going to need the same cleaning as the Type 1A4. Also, going to have to read the manual and figure out it's uses. I currently have no clue... 

If any of the stuff I've read or made up is true, the Type W plugin is used to characterize F-rays. 

mnem


"...and for the love of God, don't let it fall into the wrong hands."

[BU508A]

Well nice score but now that you have bought half of the worldwide stock of these, the price of the few remaining ones will now sky rocket ! So thank you  !   

That stuff isn't necessarily bought - as i'd suggest for Roberts avionics stuff too. Sometimes, if you keep your eyes open and know about the official and inofficial rules, or know some people that know about your TEA syndrome, stuff lands in your lab out just of the blue

Oh no, and he didn't even pay for them at that ! 

No, I did not pay money for them and I wish, they would still belong to the previous owner.

[khs]

And here's the Type W plug-in. It's going to need the same cleaning as the Type 1A4. Also, going to have to read the manual and figure out it's uses. I currently have no clue. 

The W plugin is the same as the 7A13 and 11A33.

You can magnify and observe with 1mV/div DC(!) variations in a 10 V signal.

Just set Display to A-VC,
A input to DC.
Input Atten to 1 or more,
Vc range do +11 or less
and center the beam with the comparison voltage.

One of the most valuable plug in ever...

[BU508A]

I found some asset tags and this stuff was owned by General Electric in Johnson City, NY. I thought for sure they would have been owned by IBM Endicott but apparently not. The thrift shop got these pieces from a Ham who is now an SK.

Nice one.
But what is a "SK"?

[mnementh]

First one of these that I can remember seeing: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175031008598   

I thought it was a poorly described curve tracer at first, but no, it's a new (to me) plug-in.

Feeling a bit like Indiana Jones right now, aren'cha? 

mnem
*probulator-ily*

[Wolfgang]

I found some asset tags and this stuff was owned by General Electric in Johnson City, NY. I thought for sure they would have been owned by IBM Endicott but apparently not. The thrift shop got these pieces from a Ham who is now an SK.

Nice one.
But what is a "SK"?

SK = Silent Key = Dead.

[Vince]

Well nice score but now that you have bought half of the worldwide stock of these, the price of the few remaining ones will now sky rocket ! So thank you  !   

That stuff isn't necessarily bought - as i'd suggest for Roberts avionics stuff too. Sometimes, if you keep your eyes open and know about the official and inofficial rules, or know some people that know about your TEA syndrome, stuff lands in your lab out just of the blue

Oh no, and he didn't even pay for them at that ! 

No, I did not pay money for them and I wish, they would still belong to the previous owner.

Oops, sorry for your friend, 40's is way too soon to go... I am 44 

[med6753]

I found some asset tags and this stuff was owned by General Electric in Johnson City, NY. I thought for sure they would have been owned by IBM Endicott but apparently not. The thrift shop got these pieces from a Ham who is now an SK.

Nice one.
But what is a "SK"?

Silent Key. No longer with us.

Edit....Wolfgang beat me to it.

[Robert763]

Found one instrument at the back of the garage that I had forgotten about. A Wavetek 191 20 MHz pulse / Function generator. Good all round instrument if you don't need digital setting accuracy.
This will be coming back into the workshop

[med6753]

My last entry for today. The Type W all cleaned up. Resoldered the broken wires. It doesn't have any electrolytic capacitors so no re-cap required. Can't test it until I get a 8416 vacuum tube.

[mnementh]

   Well f-me. I won it. 5500yen, plus shipping.

With the price of front panels and stuff for these units, this one is a parts mule. Fingers crossed it has something interesting inside....

Just a little TEAnonymous PSA reminder:

I turned this:     into this:       with just a little of this:      a while back.

You'd be amazed at how good you can make something horrible look with a little heated air and patient dollying with a plastic spudger/putty knife. It is definitely a skill worth developing for any TEA-er. 

mnem

[Saskia]

about done for the day. started dismantling the TEA shelf. However this was also my reload equipment stock shelf.
about 50% done, however I just cannot let the stocked equipment sit anywhere where it is not properly supervised.
Also it does come with a certain inherent weight (FFS ...)

my f***ing back hurts.

[mnementh]

Wow, what a difference that made, good job.

I often remove all the knobs on gear that I pickup and place them in a bath of hot soapy suds for a soak and a light scrub with a toothbrush.

Yeah, just be extra careful pulling up on the drain-pull lest you open it far enough for little knobs to escape under the stopper.   

I lost 3 of those little gawddammitt Tek knobs (the ones that always crack out at the set-screw) once and actually tore the S-trap apart to recover them because they were good ones and fully intact.

The likelihood of this happening is directly proportional to just how precious a commodity a particular knob or button cap is; the one where you have oodles is never the one that goes down the drain, unless you have exactly one less than you need.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

about done for the day. started dismantling the TEA shelf. However this was also my reload equipment stock shelf. about 50% done, however I just cannot let the stocked equipment sit anywhere where it is not properly supervised. Also it does come with a certain inherent weight (FFS ...)

my f***ing back hurts.

Amen. 

Go get you a nice long hot bath/shower... you need it and you deserve it.

mnem
*toddles off to nuke a laptop*

[mnementh]

Oh, Ifni save me... I fuxxoring hate spinning rust now; it is so mind-numbingly slooooooowwwwwww...

I'm currently downloading the latest Win10 updater to my wife's dead-SSD laptop; all I had lying around was a old HDD that came in my son's laptop. Over hotel WiFi which obviously has BW-capping to keep you from watching streaming TV... *blerk and a half*

Fuck! does anybody know if the Win10 updater will still do a clean install? I haven't done a "not from media" install in like years...

mnem
STEP 1 of 3: DOWNLOADING...

Download percent:

14%...



meh. I gave up and nuked my MOVIES USB to have installation media.

How is it that waiting for 40GB to copy off the USB so to nuke it, and then DLing the ISO is STILL faster than waiting for the damned UPDATER to DL...?

[dl6lr]

Wow, what a difference that made, good job.

I often remove all the knobs on gear that I pickup and place them in a bath of hot soapy suds for a soak and a light scrub with a toothbrush.

Agree. I did this on my Tek 475A just to find out that the markins were mostly gone after a wash with a mild soapy water and the help of a cloth
As I remember (most of) the markings (and there are photos of the front), I had not find myself in much pressure to replace them with home made decals and coating.

[Saskia]

if I need to clean electronics I just throw them into the ultrasonic.
May be bad for crystals tho ...

(will do that for the WPC89 pinball cpu board too. Remove the solder stop stuff, put into 25% vinegar acid and throw into the ultrasonic with a pcb cleaning bath.
then start rework - remove bad components (preheat/ hot air/hand desolder pump, flux), clean again. Then reconstruct vias. will be a shit amount of work, but doable.

[Specmaster]

about done for the day. started dismantling the TEA shelf. However this was also my reload equipment stock shelf.
about 50% done, however I just cannot let the stocked equipment sit anywhere where it is not properly supervised.
Also it does come with a certain inherent weight (FFS ...)

my f***ing back hurts.

I feel sorry for you with backache, I did my back in 2 days ago carrying 30 pints of milk at the same time, still suffering today.

[Saskia]

my sympathies

good thing is that I seem to be burning off calories. even though the weight loss was stagnating I already lost the 2 kg that I put on during cheat week.

Also, if I had not done a rather rude regimen with my walking I would not have been able to do the physical moving part. Also I was actually able to lift that bloody logic analyzer. A feast that was most strenuous for me before. (laugh all you want, it's an Agilent Mainframe 16702B fully loaded ... blooody hell ...)

[Saskia]

now for an English flat-joke ...
what do you call a dog with a surround-system ?

a sub-woofer ...

[Specmaster]

Oh, Ifni save me... I fuxxoring hate spinning rust now; it is so mind-numbingly slooooooowwwwwww...

I'm currently downloading the latest Win10 updater to my wife's dead-SSD laptop; all I had lying around was a old HDD that came in my son's laptop. Over hotel WiFi which obviously has BW-capping to keep you from watching streaming TV... *blerk and a half*

Fuck! does anybody know if the Win10 updater will still do a clean install? I haven't done a "not from media" install in like years...

mnem
STEP 1 of 3: DOWNLOADING...

Download percent:

14%...



meh. I gave up and nuked my MOVIES USB to have installation media.

How is it that waiting for 40GB to copy off the USB so to nuke it, and then DLing the ISO is STILL faster than waiting for the damned UPDATER to DL...?

Yep, slow is the word but seeing as I have been able to remove some spinning rust drives from old Sky TV boxes for nothing, I use them for archiving files. These Sky drives are really slow, 8Mb cache and spin at 5900RPM, but when they are free well, it would be rude not to wouldn't it.

[ch_scr]

now for an English flat-joke ...
what do you call a dog with a surround-system ?

a sub-woofer ...

And I thought that were those really small dogs 

[Specmaster]

my sympathies

good thing is that I seem to be burning off calories. even though the weight loss was stagnating I already lost the 2 kg that I put on during cheat week.

Also, if I had not done a rather rude regimen with my walking I would not have been able to do the physical moving part. Also I was actually able to lift that bloody logic analyzer. A feast that was most strenuous for me before. (laugh all you want, it's an Agilent Mainframe 16702B fully loaded ... blooody hell ...)

Nope not laughing at all, however I do admit being a little curious about your "rather rude regimen walking", might have been interesting to observe 

[Saskia]

effing word order. did up to 20 km/day to build up my fitness. best week so far was 104 km walking distance and 25000 kcal burnt.
Did that for about 5 months.
weight loss currently at 33 kg, tummy circumference reduced by at least 8 inches.
This certainly helps when lugging the stuff up and down staircases.
Biggest single box todate: Roadshow pinball
PINBALL GAME ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS
ROAD SHOW IS A FOUR BALL GAME
Domestic 120V @ 60Hz
Foreign 230V @ 50Hz
Japan 1 OOV @ 50HZ
32°F to 100° F, (0°C to 38°C)
Not to exceed 95% relative.
Dimensions: Width: 22" approx.
Depth: 52" approx.
Height: 75" approx.
Weight: 325 lbs approx. (crated)