Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[vk6zgo]

Another Solartron 7081 from UK.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284541597525

Look like crap and it's already more than what I would be willing to pay. Too bad, shipping to Canada was actually acceptable 

It looks the way I feel!

[tautech]

MY old Philips has three 20dB attenuators, so up to 60dB, which I do find very practical.

So does mine although I wouldn't even dream of using the old POS these days.
They are not just yesterdays technology but mid last century.

Was very temped to pop it the inorganic recycling a couple of weeks back.

Even back in the old days, the name "Philips" often made many of us think of that option!

They were like "the little girl with the little curl, right down the middle of her forehead"----when they were good, they were very, very, good, but when they were bad, they were horrid!

Nailed it !

A buddy has a Philips PM5771 100 MHz pulse gen that I borrowed a couple of times years back to check scope timebases and it was a pretty cool instrument that I used to keep one CRO as a reference and set others to but along came DSO's into my life and I never needed it again as the little Tek I had at that time was spot on.

Stumbled on this one on EvilBay but it's at a cost I'd much rather have an AWG.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/194373499134

[mnementh]

So I can't give away a TF2730 SA on here but PP auction one for £51 plus mark up plus VAT =£70   

This one sold for 22 quid delivered (plus 10 quid packing?) 5 years ago...

https://spheremusic.com/Bargaindtl.asp?Item=15409

Not sure if that makes it better or worse... 

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

[TERRA Operative]

So I saw this video, and it got me thinking...
The module used in the video supports ISA, so probably wouldn't be too hard to use the CPU module to make a chunky tablet like device with a GPIB card to connect directly to devices for logging/service/calibration etc.

Maybe something like a 'cyberdeck' about the size of an iPad but an inch or so thick to run DOS and Windows98 etc. Would be a good way to connect to legacy equipment with legacy software without having to get a whole tower PC out and on the bench.

[mansaxel]

Even back in the old days, the name "Philips" often made many of us think of that option!

They were like "the little girl with the little curl, right down the middle of her forehead"----when they were good, they were very, very, good, but when they were bad, they were horrid!

The counters from the age of Philips Elektronikindustrier AB in Järfälla, Sweden, are excellent. Unless an idiot in Poland (TDM Electronics) packed them and they arrive with a broken LCD. 

But it is the counters that -- for me -- are the exception to your rule.

[Robert763]

So I can't give away a TF2730 SA on here but PP auction one for £51 plus mark up plus VAT =£70   

This one sold for 22 quid delivered (plus 10 quid packing?) 5 years ago...

https://spheremusic.com/Bargaindtl.asp?Item=15409

Not sure if that makes it better or worse... 

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

Well that one was  , shipping cost was not specified. The £10 was a packing charge. 

[mansaxel]

The Marconi TV "OB" SPG we had at PTC, (old, even then) used this method, but proper studio ones from the '50s used cascaded bistables with feedback loops to get weird counts.

"59,94 frames per second seems like a clever idea"

Never Twice Same Color is full of those clocks....

Here in 50Hz land we've recently Phased out our old SPG, and as Alternative a new Line of SPGen has been installed, Tek / Telestream SPG8000 which are steered from an elaborate system of IEEE1588-2008 PTP Grand Masters and protocol-aware switches.  It removed a lot of headache from daily operations, since we had sync issues with the old infrastructure that was more like

GNSS SPG -> Tri-level sync -> VDA -> VDA -> Audio generator -> AES3 style WordClock -> PTP GM

It was more like a small wonder when it worked more than a week uninterrupted.

[AVGresponding]

Todays crazy eBay valuation  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392307906399

I think the original price new was around £500 and has recently been discontinued, so this price is utterly stupid.

That one has been listed and re-listed by them at that price for at least a couple of years now. Not sure the reasoning (if any) behind it.
Pretty much all their other items are similarly stupidly priced.

[Neper]

That one has been listed and re-listed by them at that price for at least a couple of years now. Not sure the reasoning (if any) behind it.
Pretty much all their other items are similarly stupidly priced.

The pub in the desert? Noone ever gets there, but the day someone does...

[med6753]

The 2nd Type 1A1 from last Saturday's haul just got permanently downgraded to a parts unit. This is the same unit that has the -150VDC short to ground. I discovered this morning that one of the matched pair FET's for channel 1 is missing. See pix. Q142 and Q122. Absolutely unobtainium as a matched pair. One Ebay seller has ONE (unmatched) for $25 USD plus $12 shipping. Needless to say he can go piss up a rope. I have the other newer FET input Type 1A1 which works great but was missing the 2 pull knobs for the INVERT switch. It now has the pull knobs.



For reference, here is what the older nuvistor input looks like.



Later today going to start cleaning out the two Type 547 scopes.

[AVGresponding]

Oh, and the stupidly cheap GenRad LCR arrived. It's currently toasting off the seasonal delivery condensation by the fire. I'll give it a poke with the mains in a bit.

Cool, those were pretty simple machines to use, now my 1689 was not as easy.
Does it have the slide out quick start sheet, like my other digibridges have?

Sadly not. Very impressive performance though, agrees with my LCR819 pretty closely, though lacks the same ultimate resolution.

[mansaxel]

That one has been listed and re-listed by them at that price for at least a couple of years now. Not sure the reasoning (if any) behind it.

It does have a make-offer-button, though. Probably is set to "ignore if not > 105% of price".   

Today's electrickal workings: Dishwasher errored out (Bosch, E15, "small water leak") yesterday, and has been dried out over night. Installed a better outlet for it, purely for convenience. I fully expect the dishwasher to break again; it is bordering on 8, I think, years now.  This is aimed to let us install the next one easier, and also to make fixing the same problem again easier, in the mean time.

TE usage: Uni-T UT210E in NCV mode.  "Beep before you cut the cable."

TE Arrivals: Gossen Geohm. In impeccable exterior condition. I do not have any 3R12 batteries for it, so will need to pop by a store for those.

[AVGresponding]

Another Solartron 7081 from UK.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284541597525

Look like crap and it's already more than what I would be willing to pay. Too bad, shipping to Canada was actually acceptable 

It looks the way I feel!

To be fair, I'd rather have an honest picture here. If they cleaned the outside, and you bought it thinking it's had a nice comfortable life in a clean lab, then opened it to find something like that scope med just acquired, I'd be really pissed off.

[AVGresponding]

The 2nd Type 1A1 from last Saturday's haul just got permanently downgraded to a parts unit. This is the same unit that has the -150VDC short to ground. I discovered this morning that one of the matched pair FET's for channel 1 is missing. See pix. Q142 and Q122. Absolutely unobtainium as a matched pair. One Ebay seller has ONE (unmatched) for $25 USD plus $12 shipping. Needless to say he can go piss up a rope. I have the other newer FET input Type 1A1 which works great but was missing the 2 pull knobs for the INVERT switch. It now has the pull knobs.



For reference, here is what the older nuvistor input looked like.



Later today going to start cleaning out the two Type 547 scopes.

Couldn't you use a curve tracer to match a pair yourself? Or would the resolution/accuracy not be there?

[tggzzz]

ICs? Who needs ICs for digital logic?

The divide-by-10 circuits in the 1965 Tek 184 use only 3 transistors. How do they do that? Having debugged mine, that's a rhetorical question!

What we used to call a "step counter"---syncing a lower frequency astable multivibrator to a higher frequency?
We were taught about these in "Pulse Technology" at Perth Tech College back in 1960/61.

The Marconi TV "OB" SPG we had at PTC, (old, even then) used this method, but proper studio ones from the '50s used cascaded bistables with feedback loops to get weird counts.

Quite possibly; the name isn't a bad evocation of the implementation, but there's no syncing in the 184. Frequencies higher than >10MHz to 500MHz are simply amplified and filtered harmonics.

I can only guess they used that technique as late as '65 because the designers knew it and there was no benefit to doing it "properly" in what's no more than a single-purpose semi-internal instrument. Plus technicians and trimcaps were cheaper than transistors.

[med6753]

The 2nd Type 1A1 from last Saturday's haul just got permanently downgraded to a parts unit. This is the same unit that has the -150VDC short to ground. I discovered this morning that one of the matched pair FET's for channel 1 is missing. See pix. Q142 and Q122. Absolutely unobtainium as a matched pair. One Ebay seller has ONE (unmatched) for $25 USD plus $12 shipping. Needless to say he can go piss up a rope. I have the other newer FET input Type 1A1 which works great but was missing the 2 pull knobs for the INVERT switch. It now has the pull knobs.



For reference, here is what the older nuvistor input looked like.



Later today going to start cleaning out the two Type 547 scopes.

Couldn't you use a curve tracer to match a pair yourself? Or would the resolution/accuracy not be there?

I could, if I had one. And I'm not about to invest in one. I fore see this plug-in turning into a time and money pit. I already have two functional Type 1A1's so this one is now more valuable to me as a parts unit. Parts units have saved my bacon numerous times. For example....the Type CA plug-in from this haul was fixed with a parts unit I had in the TEA closet. 

[Robert763]

Todays crazy eBay valuation  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392307906399

I think the original price new was around £500 and has recently been discontinued, so this price is utterly stupid.

That one has been listed and re-listed by them at that price for at least a couple of years now. Not sure the reasoning (if any) behind it.
Pretty much all their other items are similarly stupidly priced.

The sellers business model is selling obsolete and long lead items to industrial and commercial users who "need it right now" (the production line stopped costing thousands of pounds per hour) or have to have exactly the right model of TE. This could be because "the manual says so" or so they don't have to retrain semi-skilled workers etc. They also cater to companies who like to have a minimum number of suppliers due to approvals and administration costs.
A lot of their "stock" is on consignment as well so they don't have any capital invested in it. I think ebay is mostly "advertising" for them.

[med6753]

More USPS follies. The 8416 vacuum tube shipped from Sussex, NJ on the 24th. Sussex is exactly 60 miles south from me. Yesterday was a national holiday but it still did move SOUTH to Teterboro, NJ distribution center and then FURTHER south to Jersey City, NJ distribution center where it currently sits. Where will it go from there? It will drive on the NYS Thruway right by my place to NORTH Albany, NY distribution center. Then go back SOUTH of me to Newburgh, NY distribution center before FINALLY arriving at my PO on Monday. Or so sez the tracking projection. In the old days I could get a package from the UK faster than that. 

Well glory be, someone put a fire to USPS arse. It went from Jersey City, to Albany, to Newburgh and it's at my local PO this morning. Delivery today as long as my local PO doesn't drop the ball. (They have in the past). 

[Specmaster]

Todays crazy eBay valuation  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392307906399

I think the original price new was around £500 and has recently been discontinued, so this price is utterly stupid.

That one has been listed and re-listed by them at that price for at least a couple of years now. Not sure the reasoning (if any) behind it.
Pretty much all their other items are similarly stupidly priced.

The sellers business model is selling obsolete and long lead items to industrial and commercial users who "need it right now" (the production line stopped costing thousands of pounds per hour) or have to have exactly the right model of TE. This could be because "the manual says so" or so they don't have to retrain semi-skilled workers etc. They also cater to companies who like to have a minimum number of suppliers due to approvals and administration costs.
A lot of their "stock" is on consignment as well so they don't have any capital invested in it. I think ebay is mostly "advertising" for them.

Well this meter is a used one that they have had out on hire, been returned at the end of the lease and now surplus to their requirements, no doubt its place in their portfolio has already been filled by a current model. So if your explanation of their business model is correct (I know that Rodwell have many arms to their operation) then to my mind, that method of advertising is flawed. As I see, it is a blatant case of profiteering if they think a company is going to pay that money, even with a 2-year warranty when a business buyer could just as easily purchase a new meter for less, and it's not that hard for staff to transition from one meter to another. 

[tggzzz]

Todays crazy eBay valuation  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392307906399

I think the original price new was around £500 and has recently been discontinued, so this price is utterly stupid.

That one has been listed and re-listed by them at that price for at least a couple of years now. Not sure the reasoning (if any) behind it.
Pretty much all their other items are similarly stupidly priced.

The sellers business model is selling obsolete and long lead items to industrial and commercial users who "need it right now" (the production line stopped costing thousands of pounds per hour) or have to have exactly the right model of TE. This could be because "the manual says so" or so they don't have to retrain semi-skilled workers etc. They also cater to companies who like to have a minimum number of suppliers due to approvals and administration costs.
A lot of their "stock" is on consignment as well so they don't have any capital invested in it. I think ebay is mostly "advertising" for them.

Well this meter is a used one that they have had out on hire, been returned at the end of the lease and now surplus to their requirements, no doubt its place in their portfolio has already been filled by a current model. So if your explanation of their business model is correct (I know that Rodwell have many arms to their operation) then to my mind, that method of advertising is flawed. As I see, it is a blatant case of profiteering if they think a company is going to pay that money, even with a 2-year warranty when a business buyer could just as easily purchase a new meter for less, and it's not that hard for staff to transition from one meter to another. 

If there are that many options, then it isn't really profiteering. If it is the easiest option, then that's a simple time-money tradeoff, optionally with ignorance thrown in.

I've no complaint about fools that are easily separated from their money, provided there's no coercion (explicit or implicit). My complaint would be about polluting my search results with things I'm never going to buy.

[mansaxel]

As I see, it is a blatant case of profiteering if they think a company is going to pay that money, even with a 2-year warranty when a business buyer could just as easily purchase a new meter for less, and it's not that hard for staff to transition from one meter to another. 

Read what Robert wrote, it might be down to procedures. If there is a (medical, aeronautical, whatever) approval for a device that states "DC Battery voltage on Test Point 4711, shall be 28V +/- 10%, as measured by a Frobnitz 6000 Computing Multimeter" we all here can probably stake our lives more or less on that voltage being in-spec using pretty much any of our devices at hand.

But that is not OK, because the protocol says unless the right device is used it is not right.

And the person checking your work is a consultant from Accenture or similar who earns 5 times your pay for being not you ("independent verification"). He knows nothing except that the boxes shall be ticked.

Robert is probably the one of us in here most knowledgeable on this subject, since high-risk specifications written to be implemented by functional idiots (squaddies et al) apparently has been a part of his professional life for some time. If he says so, it probably is so.

And yes, it is profiteering. I fully agree.

[Robert763]

One of the initiating failures that contributed to the Lion Air 737MAX aircrash was a company in Florida using a different synchro angle indicator to repair an Angle Of Attack vane than the model specified in the manual. The indicator used had a "zero" function that was not on the specified unit (it was also less accurate but that was not an issue in this case). The operator used the zero function incorrectly resulting in the AOA vane being out of alignment. All theis happed before the Lion Air 737 Max was built. The mis-aligned vane was the same part number on the MAX and older 737s. It was fitted as a replacement shortly before the crash.

Personally I have seen a case where a Fluke 8060A was specified for an adjustment on a unit. Another meter was used instead. I queried this and was told there was no difference. I bought a 8060A in from home and it gave a different reading. Checking with the manufacturer they confirmed that a wideband True RMS meter was required due to the waveform. The only acceptable meters were Fluke  8920A, 8060A, 8062A or HP 3404C.

I once got £1200 for a Toshiba T3100 at a time when no one wanted them. Why? Because one was used as a terminal in a special role aircraft installation. It had failed and to fit even a slightly different model would have required raising the modification paperwork and re-testing it for EMC, costing thousands. I'd previously worked for the company and had bought the T3100 then and offered it to them for what I paid, £200. They did not buy it then but came back to me when the one on the aircraft failed and offered me the £1200 :-)
(I think my old manager was making a point to the boss as he had said the company should have bought it for £200 when I worked there, but the purchasing manager said no)

[mansaxel]

Dishwasher update: E15 all over again. Wife has ordered and paid for a new one, and I've evicted the old one, leaving behind only a South Rhône appellation (perhaps Gigondas or so) wine cork in the outlet hose, a similar one in the outlet on the dishwasher, and a BSPT ³/₄" blind cap on the water supply, with a few turns of PTFE tape for good measure. There's a ball valve that does most of the blocage so the cap is just braces to a belt.

No TE harmed or used. Specifications violated: Probably several.

TE situation: I have to make a reorganisation of the workshop shelves. I'm approaching saturation on low voltage power supplies, so am mostly loitering looking absent-mindedly for a 6209b.

I should dig out the side plates for my Marconi VTVM, and bolt it together. It will be relegated to the storage shelf because I want to run my 410b a bit now. Also, the 410B will look gorgeous adjacent to the 428b.

The SA I stumbled over is a 8592L. Competent unit, even though there's no tracking gen. I must try establishing the status of it, and place myself first in the decommission queue, if this is an option.

[Specmaster]

One of the initiating failures that contributed to the Lion Air 737MAX aircrash was a company in Florida using a different synchro angle indicator to repair an Angle Of Attack vane than the model specified in the manual. The indicator used had a "zero" function that was not on the specified unit (it was also less accurate but that was not an issue in this case). The operator used the zero function incorrectly resulting in the AOA vane being out of alignment. All theis happed before the Lion Air 737 Max was built. The mis-aligned vane was the same part number on the MAX and older 737s. It was fitted as a replacement shortly before the crash.

Personally I have seen a case where a Fluke 8060A was specified for an adjustment on a unit. Another meter was used instead. I queried this and was told there was no difference. I bought a 8060A in from home and it gave a different reading. Checking with the manufacturer they confirmed that a wideband True RMS meter was required due to the waveform. The only acceptable meters were Fluke  8920A, 8060A, 8062A or HP 3404C.

I once got £1200 for a Toshiba T3100 at a time when no one wanted them. Why? Because one was used as a terminal in a special role aircraft installation. It had failed and to fit even a slightly different model would have required raising the modification paperwork and re-testing it for EMC, costing thousands. I'd previously worked for the company and had bought the T3100 then and offered it to them for what I paid, £200. They did not buy it then but came back to me when the one on the aircraft failed and offered me the £1200 :-)
(I think my old manager was making a point to the boss as he had said the company should have bought it for £200 when I worked there, but the purchasing manager said no)

That Toshiba T300, was that the one with the orange plasma? screen?

[Robert763]

One of the initiating failures that contributed to the Lion Air 737MAX aircrash was a company in Florida using a different synchro angle indicator to repair an Angle Of Attack vane than the model specified in the manual. The indicator used had a "zero" function that was not on the specified unit (it was also less accurate but that was not an issue in this case). The operator used the zero function incorrectly resulting in the AOA vane being out of alignment. All theis happed before the Lion Air 737 Max was built. The mis-aligned vane was the same part number on the MAX and older 737s. It was fitted as a replacement shortly before the crash.

Personally I have seen a case where a Fluke 8060A was specified for an adjustment on a unit. Another meter was used instead. I queried this and was told there was no difference. I bought a 8060A in from home and it gave a different reading. Checking with the manufacturer they confirmed that a wideband True RMS meter was required due to the waveform. The only acceptable meters were Fluke  8920A, 8060A, 8062A or HP 3404C.

I once got £1200 for a Toshiba T3100 at a time when no one wanted them. Why? Because one was used as a terminal in a special role aircraft installation. It had failed and to fit even a slightly different model would have required raising the modification paperwork and re-testing it for EMC, costing thousands. I'd previously worked for the company and had bought the T3100 then and offered it to them for what I paid, £200. They did not buy it then but came back to me when the one on the aircraft failed and offered me the £1200 :-)
(I think my old manager was making a point to the boss as he had said the company should have bought it for £200 when I worked there, but the purchasing manager said no)

That Toshiba T3100, was that the one with the orange plasma? screen?

FTFY Yes the orange screen. I've still got a T3200 with the slightly bigger plasma / EL orange display.