Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cerebus]

Do you mean this colour blue

Yes, where did you find it?

Having now seen an example of the colour that looks awful close, if not identical, to a standard tungsten lamp -> daylight conversion filter. Obviously that's not the intent here, but that particular filter is available in industrial quantities on every substrate from mylar film (originally gelatine film, hence lighting 'gels') to optical glass, with dyes designed to be stable for a very long time so it's a kind of obvious thing for Tek to repurpose if they wanted a blue filter.

[Cerebus]

Electronics Plush:

https://www.getdigital.co.uk/electronics-plush.html

Do the cuddly Tants come with somewhere to stick the fireworks?

[nixiefreqq]

really?  this is a puzzlement to me.  still have multiple 5248's and 5245M's cluttering up the basement (according to swmbo).

and i have already given some away. 


edit.  oh crap.  just thought about it and realized.......they are hard to find because you are not looking in my basement.

Does this mean that if we can agree on reimbursement (I can pay your SWMBO if that makes you more eager by proxy) you could be arsed to ship one here?

if you ring the doorbell swmbo will direct you downstairs to the fortress of solitude.

anything i have more than one of you could probably take with you.  (last count the 5245/48 pile had 9 units)

but shipping?   do i have to quote med?

Do you happen to live in SoCal or North West Montana?       Pre Covid we were there once or twice a year.     I've got a Pelican water proof rolling case left over from my consultant days.   It is full of removable foam.   We just went to the US though, with no plans to go back anytime soon.

Shipping to the UK would likely be insane.   Tempting but way too much work for you.


-- BTW flying with that Pelican case is a 100% guarantee that you and your luggage will be hand searched.

nope....sorry... gettysburg.  (where the "war of northern aggression" turned in our favor).

edit  was in a radio shack in fayetteville nc in about 1982 and the clerk asked for my address.  gave it to him and he called me a "bluebelly" and said they planned to revisit the "war of northern aggression".  i may have called him a seditionist.  despite that we got along fine.

[med6753]

I'm such an instigator.  I had to get it out and make sure all was as it should be. And it is. 

And it even has the original hp feet and tilt bail. 

[Cerebus]

Look what I just found sorting through a box of old stuff:



Before I throw it in the bin I thought that I'd take a quasi-mystery photo of it for here. It will be very familiar to those of us of a certain age; youngsters will probably be scratching their heads.

[Andrew_Debbie]

I'll take KiCad any day thank you.

[Cubdriver]

That's from my second round of troubleshooting back in August of 2018.  Think it's time for a third.

I think you cannot switch to prescaler to test the oscillator, as prescaler mode divides the input frequency, not the osc. Switching the knob to INT STD should give you frequencies divided by the decade counters as indicated by the black labels (prescaler mode uses the red indicated ratios). As the EXT STD works, the failure should be very easy in the switching on the back, as both use the same path: FREQ IN -> MULTIPLIER -> DECADE COUNTERS. Maybe just the internal connection from the oscillator to the switch is failing.

Thanks for the tip.  I'll now need to find both the counter and the manual (mentioned ordering it in the video); lacking good schematics at the time I put the counter aside to wait for it then saw a bunny and haven't gotten back to look at it.  I may even find some time over the upcoming holidays to do so!

-Pat

[tggzzz]

Look what I just found sorting through a box of old stuff:



Before I throw it in the bin I thought that I'd take a quasi-mystery photo of it for here. It will be very familiar to those of us of a certain age; youngsters will probably be scratching their heads.

Do you have the matching red tape, black tape and arrays of black circles on 0.2" by 0.6" pitch?

[Andrew_Debbie]

US eBay    -  Seller claims to know nothing about these and will throw them away if not sold.   NATS (of course)


Dana 5900  DMM.  ($29)  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194601698332

HP 5326A (dirty, only 1 photo)  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194601656967


Seller has others. Some with absurd starting bids.

[Cubdriver]

Look what I just found sorting through a box of old stuff:



Before I throw it in the bin I thought that I'd take a quasi-mystery photo of it for here. It will be very familiar to those of us of a certain age; youngsters will probably be scratching their heads.

As frustrating as OrCAD can be, I prefer it to the old school methods.  Somewhere around here I have the clock I made for my college senior project - 148 LEDs, something like 10 75154s and other TTL stuff.  Laid oud at 2x using tape and donuts on vellum.  I was going crosseyed from laying down geometric pattern of lines to the LEDs (hadn't thought of multiplexing; that might have been too easy).  I have the original artwork here somewhere, though lord only knows what condition it's in after spending 35+ years rolled upp in a mailing tube...

-Pat

[Zucca]

   ...and this caused a thermal runaway

Well, it does make sense; thermal runaway protection just says if the  doesn't change with power applied to the hotend or stays outside of a given range for x seconds, trip the alarm and turn off the hotend.

....

mnem
 

Now yesterday before I started to print I saw the filament broken. I do not know why, the filament break for me even with minimal mechanical stress if just sits there for days.
I do not know exactly how to prevent this.

The jammed filament was probably because the loose filament end in the spool did went under other filaments causing a twist/node/tangle.

I am not pissed for what my wife did or the thermal runaway, I am pissed because a "twisted"/knotted filament in the spool is a freaking show stopper.
but but but you can't see it always that the filament is in reality tangled in the spool....

And I can I recover/repair a knotted/tangled spool? this is tragic comic...   

[mnementh]

Look what I just found sorting through a box of old stuff:



Before I throw it in the bin I thought that I'd take a quasi-mystery photo of it for here. It will be very familiar to those of us of a certain age; youngsters will probably be scratching their heads.

Knowing you, there's some overlay sheets, dots and assholes rolled up in another closet.  Why not get them all together for shits & giggsz...?

mnem
I'll bring the plates...

[mnementh]

...I am not pissed for what my wife did or the thermal runaway, I am pissed because a "twisted"/knotted filament in the spool is a freaking show stopper.
but but but you can't see it always that the filament is in reality tangled in the spool....

And I can I recover/repair a knotted/tangled spool? this is tragic comic...   

Yeah, Sanladerer has been on a Jihad aboot tangled filament for years; he swears there's no excuse, that it's always due to careless handling that the ends come loose and get unraveled.

Of course, when you go through mass quantities of filament the way he does old brittle filament is probably a non-issue, and I'm sure he gets enough for free that it costs him very little pain to chuck any suspect roll in the recycle bin.

The rest of us just  and go on about our lives, figuring occasional tangles & failed prints are a fact of life.

Was it like halfway through a multi-day print or something that you're all tore up about it?

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

Look what I just found sorting through a box of old stuff:



Before I throw it in the bin I thought that I'd take a quasi-mystery photo of it for here. It will be very familiar to those of us of a certain age; youngsters will probably be scratching their heads.

Do you have the matching red tape, black tape and arrays of black circles on 0.2" by 0.6" pitch?

No. I found it in a box of 35mm transparencies, which suggests that when originally packed away it was in the darkroom. Perhaps I'd taken it in there to patch something that had got caught/misaligned immediately before shooting film from it and it got left in the darkroom. The rest of that stuff got jettisoned years ago, along with some Staedtler/Rotring technical pens that were gummed up beyond repair.

Knowing you, there's some overlay sheets, dots and assholes rolled up in another closet.  Why not get them all together for shits & giggsz...?

mnem
I'll bring the plates...

See above.

Although I quite liked the almost mediative nature of sitting stripping tape out hour after hour in producing the final artwork,  I hated trying to route a board on paper so I was more than happy to bin the lot at the first excuse. That one remaining part reel was an oversight, probably because it was somewhere 'odd' at the time the rest went to landfill.

[Specmaster]

Here is this week's contender for the dumbest seller https://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/original-avometer-in-working-condition/1419901649?utm_source=salesforce&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=adhoc&utm_content=buyer. I even messaged him from day 1 and advised him that his advert was not correct and told him it was not in fact an original AVO meter as stated but was an Eagle Products K-1400. I have the self same meter myself along with a few AVO's, I also directed him towards "Richard Radios" site who is a bit of an expert on AVO's http://www.richardsradios.co.uk/avometersdata.html .

He messaged me back, thanking me but said it was an AVO as it had a sticker on it saying AVO.  That was a week ago.

Today, Gumtree sent me a notification telling me that the meter I was interested in, is still available, I checked and it was, just as it was a week ago, unchanged, oh well it seems some people don't like to be helped, or are incapable of checking anything out properly 

[Peter_O]

...and this caused a thermal runaway in my 3D printer.
The mail power was turned off automatically (PS_ON pin was configured in Marlin). It started to beeping like crazy but there was no fire risk.

it just jammed the printer.... wife saw it.... turned off main power but not the uC power and we got a thermal way error.

I am pissed (x2)

No matter who's fault it was. That sucks.

[Peter_O]

Now yesterday before I started to print I saw the filament broken. I do not know why, the filament break for me even with minimal mechanical stress if just sits there for days.
I do not know exactly how to prevent this.
...

Filament gets brittle when exposed to humidity over a long time. Try to dry it, i.e. put it into an oven for some hours at 50°, 70° if you're adventurous.

[AVGresponding]

really?  this is a puzzlement to me.  still have multiple 5248's and 5245M's cluttering up the basement (according to swmbo).

and i have already given some away. 


edit.  oh crap.  just thought about it and realized.......they are hard to find because you are not looking in my basement.

Does this mean that if we can agree on reimbursement (I can pay your SWMBO if that makes you more eager by proxy) you could be arsed to ship one here?

if you ring the doorbell swmbo will direct you downstairs to the fortress of solitude.

anything i have more than one of you could probably take with you.  (last count the 5245/48 pile had 9 units)

but shipping?   do i have to quote med?

I don't suppose any of them are parts units? Mine needs (iirc) 3 of the 1MHz digits, which would probably be just about tolerable in shipping costs.

[nixiefreqq]

really?  this is a puzzlement to me.  still have multiple 5248's and 5245M's cluttering up the basement (according to swmbo).

and i have already given some away. 


edit.  oh crap.  just thought about it and realized.......they are hard to find because you are not looking in my basement.

Does this mean that if we can agree on reimbursement (I can pay your SWMBO if that makes you more eager by proxy) you could be arsed to ship one here?

if you ring the doorbell swmbo will direct you downstairs to the fortress of solitude.

anything i have more than one of you could probably take with you.  (last count the 5245/48 pile had 9 units)

but shipping?   do i have to quote med?

I don't suppose any of them are parts units? Mine needs (iirc) 3 of the 1MHz digits, which would probably be just about tolerable in shipping costs.

nope.  they are all working units.

BUT....the guy who worked at the depot gave me some boxes of display boards.

[mnementh]

...Although I quite liked the almost mediative nature of sitting stripping tape out hour after hour in producing the final artwork,  I hated trying to route a board on paper so I was more than happy to bin the lot at the first excuse. That one remaining part reel was an oversight, probably because it was somewhere 'odd' at the time the rest went to landfill.

Meditative... Yes, that's exactly the word for the way I felt about the work. I often considered the similarities in what I was doing as I compared one layer against the other, to animators working from one cel to the next, as seen in informative films from Disney and Chuck Jones, et al as a youth.

mnem
I still often find myself wishing I'd been hatched with just a smidgen of that creative spark... 

[nixiefreqq]

really?  this is a puzzlement to me.  still have multiple 5248's and 5245M's cluttering up the basement (according to swmbo).

and i have already given some away. 


edit.  oh crap.  just thought about it and realized.......they are hard to find because you are not looking in my basement.

Does this mean that if we can agree on reimbursement (I can pay your SWMBO if that makes you more eager by proxy) you could be arsed to ship one here?

if you ring the doorbell swmbo will direct you downstairs to the fortress of solitude.

anything i have more than one of you could probably take with you.  (last count the 5245/48 pile had 9 units)

but shipping?   do i have to quote med?

I don't suppose any of them are parts units? Mine needs (iirc) 3 of the 1MHz digits, which would probably be just about tolerable in shipping costs.

[med6753]

US eBay    -  Seller claims to know nothing about these and will throw them away if not sold.   NATS (of course)


Dana 5900  DMM.  ($29)  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194601698332

HP 5326A (dirty, only 1 photo)  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194601656967


Seller has others. Some with absurd starting bids.

No shipping either. In Ohio somewhere. Too far (perhaps 10 hours one way)   

[mansaxel]

People are buying up the 5245L available like crazy. Shariar effect is real.

[AVGresponding]

nope.  they are all working units.

BUT....the guy who worked at the depot gave me some boxes of display boards.

Holy moly! You weren't kidding when you admitted to owning the majority of the world's supply of 5245/8's and their parts!   

[factory]

Yes the L/M are the same apart from the oven timebase fitted and the ref input/output.

If you want a higher frequency (135MHz) model go for the 5248, but note they use some tunnel diodes.

David

That and the M and 5248 are much less common than the 5245L.  It took me years to find each of those.

-Pat

really?  this is a puzzlement to me.  still have multiple 5248's and 5245M's cluttering up the basement (according to swmbo).

and i have already given some away. 


edit.  oh crap.  just thought about it and realized.......they are hard to find because you are not looking in my basement.

LOL - smartarse!      Obviously I need to look in your basement at some point. 

The 5248M I finally got has an issue with the oscillator circuit - the the part that oscillates is doing its thing, but the signal goes away somewhere along the way.  I sidelined it while waiting for a manual, then never got back to it.  Now I need to find the manual I ordered 3+ years ago and dig into it again.



That's from my second round of troubleshooting back in August of 2018.  Think it's time for a third.

-Pat

my buddy who used to repair the 5245/8 family at an aaarrrrrmy depot told me once that the most common problem is A26 Q1, a pnp germanium.  but it is the oven control transistor.....so not your problem.  in any case..... found this bag of 2n1183's in a box of ancient transistors my old man left for me.  let me know if you need some.  no idea where they came from but they have been checked on the curve tracer and all are ok.  (actually i think i know where he stole acquired them, but am not going to rat him out)

Again depends on the model, "L" uses that 2N1183B germanium PNP transistor to switch the oven heater winding, it's a PITA to get to as well being mounted on the chassis between the oven & plug-in. It can be replaced with a modern silicon transistor too.

If you find a late production "L" it's not used at all, instead it has the 10544 oven and regulator ICs on the attached board.

For the "M" version there is a similar package silicon NPN transistor on the power supply board, it's just a pass element for the 20V supply to the 00105 oven.

All all cases the small transformer is powered all the time when connected to the mains, the main 1A/2A fuse will not protect it if the oven circuit shorts in any way.

David