Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[factory]

In other news; I pretty soon will lay hands on a (hp) 200CDR ...

The 200CDR has been modified with a XLR connector in the front panel. While not original, it looks like it's been done with some skill, from the outside at least.  I will report further as soon as I've laid hands on them. Reckon I need to do a recap at least partially.  The 3552A has dead batteries, so will have to extract them. I expect to run from the mains exclusively.

Just restored a hp 200cd. All caps were within spec and had no relevant leakage and stayed where they were. One of the output tubes was week and was exchanged.

I've got three 200CDs now, the first one a later (G960 prefix) in full working order.


The second was a death-trap (605-606xx, US made) bought from a house clearer type in Stoke, the green GND/earth wire had been wired to the live connection in the UK plug, this was spotted before I powered it up, if it had been wired correctly I reckon the transformer would had been fried, as it was set for 110V operation inside.
Amazingly this worked fine too, despite being a bit crusty. I've no idea what the extra button is for.


The third was bought this year from Chelford another later one (G806 prefix), last owner had gone silent-key, they had ripped out all the big can capacitors (which were probably fine) and let it half finished with some old cans fitted but not wired up and the third non-polarized one missing. This is the crusty one I posted about before.
I thought I had some original can caps for this, but can't find them, it's been put to one side (round-tuit pile).


I wonder how many they made, as the US one from the mid 60's is s/n 606xx (plus at least 4000 made in Germany) and these were produced till the into the 1980's, last seen in the 1985 catalog.

David

[mnementh]

The Gingerbread Dragon   

"My armour is like tenfold jolly ranchers, my teeth are cocktail swords, my claws shortbread spears, the shock of my tail the closing of the oven, my wings a blast cooler, and my breath...you know that fancy dutch black licorice? The stuff with the texture and smell of asphalt filler? Yeah, that!"

               BWAHAHAHAHA!

   Looks yummeh... Perfect, as long as all the associated assache is in someone else's house. 

mnem
*so not doing the gingerbread house thing this year...*

[AVGresponding]

The second was a death-trap (605-606xx, US made) bought from a house clearer type in Stoke, the green GND/earth wire had been wired to the live connection in the UK plug, this was spotted before I powered it up, if it had been wired correctly I reckon the transformer would had been fried, as it was set for 110V operation inside.
Amazingly this worked fine too, despite being a bit crusty. I've no idea what the extra button is for.



David

The fuckwittedness of some people never ceases to amaze me... on the bright side, there's a very good chance that as it's only a 3 amp fuse, that it would blow before any damage was done to the TE, though if you were touching the case of the thing when you plugged it in you would definitely be having a bad day...

[Zucca]

The fuckwittedness of some people never ceases to amaze me... on the bright side, there's a very good chance that as it's only a 3 amp fuse, that it would blow before any damage was done to the TE, though if you were touching the case of the thing when you plugged it in you would definitely be having a bad day...

[Never trust a used (Ebay) device,] always do basic checks (before).

There is/must be no rush in a EE Lab under any circumstances, it is like drinking wine. Everything must be done in peace a little by little, enjoying every single second.

People who cuts corners will surely learn soon (like kids with fire) or, worst case, not able to tell the bad experience later.

Well done factory

[dl6lr]

In a uncorrelated note, I succeeded to receive SAQ test transmissions today. 

Using the schematics from prinz.nl, I wound a core for the ferrite rod some days ago which I found had to much inductance so I unwound until I was in the 100mH ballpark. Using two Varicap BB112 and a BF245B as FET, I breadboarded the amplifier.
TE related, I used a HAMEG HM8030-4 function generator to feed a second ferrite antenna and a TDS540 to measure the resonance circuit of the receiver. This way I found out that the coil had still too much inductance, I unwound until I got 83mH (measured with HAMEG HM 8018 LC-Meter) and still the upper frequency limit (with the varicaps at about 8V) barely got to 17.2kHz. So I removed the 330pF in parrallel and that gave me a nice tuning range from 14 to 20kHz. That was finished at 13:10 CET.
With SAQrx for the notebook I struggled some time with the microphone input, which I found unresponsive (quite sure this is some kind of multifunction 4 pin jack) so I used a cheap USB sound card which worked, introducing a 16kHz artefact...

At 14:34 I received a test transmission with very low signal, readable at 100Hz bandwidth, in northern germany.

If anyone is interested in the RF file: http://laengerich.com/tmp/RF_S48k_23DEC2021_133412z814_.zip

[mnementh]

*whack* Bad dragon! *whack* SI units are case sensitive! *thwap*

*rubs snout contemplatively*   Yeah, okay... I prolly deserved that...

You did, but Cerebus guessed the weapon right, and dragons are thick-skinned, so it wasn't that hard, right?  Now go take care of the family, while I do the same! (NOT in the "taking care of business" sense. Regardless of Amarone or Chianti, we'll feast with the others, not on the others! )

Honestly, in this scenario it couldn't have been anything else.

Yeah, as for Christmas dinner; I'm already looking over my shopping list, and checking it twice... 

mnem

[Cerebus]

Yeah, as for Christmas dinner; I'm already looking over my shopping list, and checking it twice... 

mnem

We took care of the Christmas shopping yesterday (Weds) afternoon. By my reckoning we'd made it a day too late, by the time we got out of the supermarket I was ready to slice and dice someone for all the idiots that I'd had to dodge around, wait to stop having a conversation stood in front of the item I was pointedly waiting to get at, avoid because even with a rampant upslope in Covid cases they were still not wearing a mask in a crowded shop, etc. etc. I'd been out for some stocking fillers on Tuesday and the shops were empty by comparison.

I thought it was all done and dusted, but discovered today that we'd both misremembered quite how much butter and how much of which type we had in the house so we're short one block of Beurre D'Isigny . So now I have to choose between either going out again, briefly but no doubt facing worse idiots as shopper stupidity clearly increases with proximity to Christmas day, or deciding between compromised pate sable or compromised flaky pastry. Sure, in the grand scheme of things it's not much, but dammit, pastry matters.

Edit: In good news, I have enough sugar and cinnamon in stock to give a whole small Danish town diabetes.

[mnementh]

Those on keto diets should look away now.

Just trying out a new, to me at least, variety of potato intended especially for roasting - "nemo":   

Damn you, C... 

EDIT: Well, Hell... It would appear these were developed for the Tesco food chain and are limited quantities right now, so are not going to be available in the colonies for some while. Guess I'll have to make do with my usual Yukon Gold taters this year...

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/finding-nemo-potato-hybrid-roasting-christmas-dinner-tesco-b970612.html

mnem
*hastily adds to shopping list* *toddles off to find a Santa hat for Brrrrrruce*

[Cerebus]

Those on keto diets should look away now.

Just trying out a new, to me at least, variety of potato intended especially for roasting - "nemo":   

Damn you, C... 

mnem
*hastily adds to shopping list*

Further research finds that this variety is entirely new, available in only one supermarket (Tescos), and is at the moment only available in sufficient quantity for this Christmas. They don't expect to have any more to sell until September. They named it Nemo after the eponymous Disney Clownfish because it looks a little like a Clownfish colour wise, a red potato with oval uncoloured patches.

I am always suspicious of new varieties of fruit and vegetables, they usually turn out to be bred for appearance, shelf life, and to generally have worse flavour, texture or any of the other attributes of good food. Hence the test run yesterday, so I could fall back on another variety for Christmas dinner if they proved disappointing. Not this time. These produce perfect roast potatoes with minimal effort. Really crispy and chunchy outside, fluffy and creamy inside, and they even cook ~20% faster than any of the traditionally good roasting varieties like King Edward or Maris Piper. SWMBO checked out the local Tesco Local today to see whether she could score another bag full before they were gone - no luck unfortunately.

Edit: Mnem found this out as well while I was typing this.

[mnementh]

...I thought it was all done and dusted, but discovered today that we'd both misremembered quite how much butter and how much of which type we had in the house so we're short one block of Beurre D'Isigny . So now I have to choose between either going out again, briefly but no doubt facing worse idiots as shopper stupidity clearly increases with proximity to Christmas day, or deciding between compromised pate sable or compromised flaky pastry. Sure, in the grand scheme of things it's not much, but dammit, pastry matters.

Edit: In good news, I have enough sugar and cinnamon in stock to give a whole small Danish town diabetes.

Exactly the same here; I did bulk of my Christmas dinner shopping on Monday, but now we too are short of moo juice and moo juice derivatives, so will have to brave the madness once wifey returns with the car.

I hope to find a nice apple pie at the local bakery; afraid neither of us are up to making from scratch what with all the unloading mess, etc.

If not... I may have to make a transatlantic flight to come begging at your door for flaky sweets!

Hmmm.... maybe raid Tesco for some Nemos while I'm at it; doubtless they'll be all gone at your house by the time I get there...

Merry Christmas tooya, and to all our crazy TEA family!

mnem

[mnementh]

And a special THANK YOU to Bitseeker and Dave...

It's still all your fault we have this idyllic little corner of the intardnet to hang out in.




Merry Christmas from the monster you unleashed upon eevBlog!!! 

mnem
grr. arrg.

[Cerebus]

It must be nearly Christmas: I just put the living room oscilloscope and bench PSU away! 


Edit: And taken all 32 logic analyser test clips and leads apart and put them away.

[tonyalbus]

Does anyone has a service manual for The Rohde & Schwarz NGPS is a precision fully programmable Dual Voltage Source
NGPS 192.0061.02
one is coming my way, but i can't find anything.

(i have sent 3db a DM, i found a post he also found one and thought he had the manual)

[med6753]

Yeah, as for Christmas dinner; I'm already looking over my shopping list, and checking it twice... 

mnem

We took care of the Christmas shopping yesterday (Weds) afternoon. By my reckoning we'd made it a day too late, by the time we got out of the supermarket I was ready to slice and dice someone for all the idiots that I'd had to dodge around, wait to stop having a conversation stood in front of the item I was pointedly waiting to get at, avoid because even with a rampant upslope in Covid cases they were still not wearing a mask in a crowded shop, etc. etc. I'd been out for some stocking fillers on Tuesday and the shops were empty by comparison.

I thought it was all done and dusted, but discovered today that we'd both misremembered quite how much butter and how much of which type we had in the house so we're short one block of Beurre D'Isigny . So now I have to choose between either going out again, briefly but no doubt facing worse idiots as shopper stupidity clearly increases with proximity to Christmas day, or deciding between compromised pate sable or compromised flaky pastry. Sure, in the grand scheme of things it's not much, but dammit, pastry matters.

Edit: In good news, I have enough sugar and cinnamon in stock to give a whole small Danish town diabetes.

That's where I was this morning. What a fucking circus. But it's done and I sent some pictures of my veggie purchases to the food critic Lady Cop and amazingly they met with her uncompromising high standards so I guess I did good. 

[med6753]

It must be nearly Christmas: I just put the living room oscilloscope and bench PSU away! 


Edit: And taken all 32 logic analyser test clips and leads apart and put them away.

Must be. I have also suspended any further TE activity until next week. All projects put away and benches cleared.

[BU508A]

Does anyone has a service manual for The Rohde & Schwarz NGPS is a precision fully programmable Dual Voltage Source
NGPS 192.0061.02
one is coming my way, but i can't find anything.

(i have sent 3db a DM, i found a post he also found one and thought he had the manual)

You can order it here:
http://www.rainer-foertig.de/unterlagen/RS-16_2010.htm

But they are on vacation until 09.01.2022.

Code: [Select]

NGPS  192.0061.02 Rohde & Schwarz Programmierbare Steuerspannungsquelle Deutsch Beschreibung + Service 11,60


[mnementh]

It must be nearly Christmas: I just put the living room oscilloscope and bench PSU away! 

Edit: And taken all 32 logic analyser test clips and leads apart and put them away.

   


Yup. The dwagon family has arrived at Christmas as well; just under the wire.

Wifey came straight home last night for the first time since she started work, so the whole fam put up the tree which I bought lights for a couple days ago. This morning, I got Brrrrruce chained out in front yard and wearing appropriate holiday attire. 

We'll hold off until next year for the "Where's Rudolph?" gag; we don't want to break the neighbors' brains a couple weeks after we arrive. 

mnem
Plenty of time to do that gradually... 

[nixiefreqq]

did not want to leave the house today due to xmas traffic.  it is not even safe to be in a damn parking lot this week 

it feels like "festival" from "return of the archons" out there.  (you remember....."landru"...."are you of the body?")

so i went down to the fortress of solitude and fixed a couple of wonky 5512a-4a display boards.    now i have plenty of spare boards for my crappy hp 5532a counter.

there was one tricky one.  kept chasing a signal that disappeared before it got to the display matrix.  finally looked closely at the lower left corner of the board and saw the dorked 56k resistor.  doh!   

edit  just realized i said lower left corner.  thats because my probing was all done from the backside of the board.  and that is probably why it took so long to see that feckin resistor.

[med6753]

I like how you keep that calculator in the fore front of every picture.

Purely unintentional I'm sure.   

[mansaxel]

I like how you keep that calculator in the fore front of every picture.

Purely unintentional I'm sure.   

Of course one needs a calculator, and once bitten by the RPN bug, there's no turnin' back. Am planning to buy [hp] 35s to the younger children as they reach a stage in school where they need one.  I'm very happy with my SwissMicros DM42. A very good calculator, that.  nixiefreqq just helps to remind people how a proper one looks.

Full-on confession: I did all my school years on a Sharp EL-506p (that has a = key), which I still have, and sometimes still use, but all my everyday calcing is either dc (a RPN command line calculator, stack and all. ) on the computer or the DM42.

[mnementh]

Just for freqq.

mnem
…there was this boy whose parents
made him come directly home right after school.
And when they went to their church,
They shook and lurched all over the church floor.
He couldn't quite explain it;
They'd always just gone there...

…Mmm mmm mmm mmm
mmm mmm mmm mmm

[mnementh]

I like how you keep that calculator in the fore front of every picture.   Purely unintentional I'm sure.   

Of course one needs a calculator, and once bitten by the RPN bug, there's no turnin' back. Am planning to buy [hp] 35s to the younger children as they reach a stage in school where they need one.  I'm very happy with my SwissMicros DM42. A very good calculator, that.  nixiefreqq just helps to remind people how a proper one looks.

Full-on confession: I did all my school years on a Sharp EL-506p (that has a = key), which I still have, and sometimes still use, but all my everyday calcing is either dc (a RPN command line calculator, stack and all. ) on the computer or the DM42.

You bastards! You killed KENNY! 

No, wait... you reminded me I actually have to buy a new one for my son before he goes back to school in January, as my collection of TI-83/84s isn't good enough anymore; evidently maths have changed so much they aren't smart enough...

Of course, he's not allowed to use a app on his smartPwn.

EDIT: Oh, I see; the problem is my TI-8x are too smart. Just checked the supplies list; they specify the TI-30XS II as it is current, cheap ($12 at Target) and non-graphing/non-programmable. Jeebus.


mnem
   https://www.nukees.com/d/19970917.html

[nixiefreqq]

said i never had much use for rpn.

never said i didn't know how to use it.

[tautech]

In a uncorrelated note, I succeeded to receive SAQ test transmissions today. 

Using the schematics from prinz.nl, I wound a core for the ferrite rod some days ago which I found had to much inductance so I unwound until I was in the 100mH ballpark. Using two Varicap BB112 and a BF245B as FET, I breadboarded the amplifier.
TE related, I used a HAMEG HM8030-4 function generator to feed a second ferrite antenna and a TDS540 to measure the resonance circuit of the receiver. This way I found out that the coil had still too much inductance, I unwound until I got 83mH (measured with HAMEG HM 8018 LC-Meter) and still the upper frequency limit (with the varicaps at about 8V) barely got to 17.2kHz. So I removed the 330pF in parrallel and that gave me a nice tuning range from 14 to 20kHz. That was finished at 13:10 CET.
With SAQrx for the notebook I struggled some time with the microphone input, which I found unresponsive (quite sure this is some kind of multifunction 4 pin jack) so I used a cheap USB sound card which worked, introducing a 16kHz artefact...

At 14:34 I received a test transmission with very low signal, readable at 100Hz bandwidth, in northern germany.

If anyone is interested in the RF file: http://laengerich.com/tmp/RF_S48k_23DEC2021_133412z814_.zip

If you are interested in home builds Charlie does some nice stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/c/CharlieMorrisZL2CTM/videos

I visited him back in July and he was soon to shift house so he hasn't done any more for a few months as I suspect he's not setup his lab again just yet.

[mnementh]

   A possible improvement?   I let you know how it goes..

Hmmm... *adds to his Amazon wish list*

mnem