Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Messtechniker]

This new fangled electrical stuff will not be any better.
Even more limited life electronics.
With even more battery technology. 

[Cerebus]

Whenever a Chieftain tank is parked or stands idle for some time an oil puddle is left behind.

That's not an oil puddle, that's the dregs from the crew's teapot.

[RolandK]

Whenever a Chieftain tank is parked or stands idle for some time an oil puddle is left behind.

That's not an oil puddle, that's the dregs from the crew's teapot.

no wonders english tea tastes like recycled tank oil and the separatists
 thew it in the harbour to kill the fish as they ran out of dynamite for fishing.

fact checking: neither tanks nor dynamite were invented to this time. So the story with the tea must be a hoax.

[Ice-Tea]

Further, the ICE car needs a lot of finicky sensors; lambda, angle, pressure, absence of pressure, fluid level, fluid flow, fluid regulation (injectors) and so on. Those are what breaks.

My last few cars all had to go not because of the usual mechanical probs - low compression, run-out bearings, corrosion - but because of galloping dementia in their electronics and sensors.

Methinks the infernal combustion engine is well on the way out. I for one won't miss it.

My last car had to go because of some of the emission control stuff going belly up. New car is electric, I don't think I'm going back.

[Cerebus]

Whenever a Chieftain tank is parked or stands idle for some time an oil puddle is left behind.

That's not an oil puddle, that's the dregs from the crew's teapot.

no wonders english tea tastes like recycled tank oil and the separatists
 thew it in the harbour to kill the fish as they ran out of dynamite for fishing.

Says a man from a country whose wine could be actively improved in flavour by adding anti-freeze to it, and worse still, actually has been by its makers. At least I'm describing the waste from the process of producing the drink, not the end product.

[Specmaster]

Whenever a Chieftain tank is parked or stands idle for some time an oil puddle is left behind.

That's not an oil puddle, that's the dregs from the crew's teapot.

LMAO 

[xrunner]

Remember the Boonton power meter I was talking about a while back?

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3831494/#msg3831494

I just got home with it today - it was given to me (as in free). 

I guess he realized that whatever his inner gorilla wanted to do to it just wasn't going to work. Fortunately for the meter it's mine now.

But, he had another project that he wanted my opinion on. He got an active RF probe from an Ebay seller based in Ukraine, and had asked for a cable to connect it to a small audio amp. This is it -

eBay auction: #291998278881

I knew before I went over there that the output probably wasn't an audio signal. However I brought him the BNC cable anyway. When I got there he gave me the Boonton meter and I asked him to show me the documentation for the RF probe. As I suspected, it simply acts as a buffer so you don't load the circuit you are probing. The output is the same RF signal but attenuated ~ 20 dB. It says to look at it on a spectrum analyzer or scope. Yep - see schematic. I told him that it wouldn't pass any audio signal out and he was kind of bummed, and wanted to give me that too!

I politely refused and just told him to experiment with it - it's legit and will display on the scope if the signal is low enough in freq. (the scope is 20 MHz) and high enough in amplitude. All is not lost. We'll see if he does anything. Maybe I'll get that too. 

On to the Boonton ...

Well surprisingly it seems to work. Looks like it's been rode hard and put up wet, but it's displaying -3 dBm @ 50 MHz properly. The other ranges work too. Well except for one thing - it's got a really bad connection somewhere, and it won't work unless you the cable / sensor to lay just right sortof like the audiophiles have to lay down their speaker cable just so. I'll be getting into that this week and checking out the rest of the meter too. It's also missing a button, might see if an .stl is available or design one myself. I swear those buttons look like ones I've seen before on other equipment.

And cleaning it - I did a quick wipe down using Simple Green and what is that yellow/brownish tinge to the paper towel? Hmmm could it be ... no certainly not that.

We've got a lot of work to do out there people.

[Specmaster]

Further, the ICE car needs a lot of finicky sensors; lambda, angle, pressure, absence of pressure, fluid level, fluid flow, fluid regulation (injectors) and so on. Those are what breaks.

My last few cars all had to go not because of the usual mechanical probs - low compression, run-out bearings, corrosion - but because of galloping dementia in their electronics and sensors.

Methinks the infernal combustion engine is well on the way out. I for one won't miss it.

Seriously, I reckon there has to a way of just passing the exhaust through a series of scrubbers to remove / convert the harmful emissions into harmless ones. They already do that some extent with the catalytic convertor, so why not pass it through some more conversion boxes before allowing it to escape?

It might just be that all of these sensors etc that are apparently suffering from dementia would not be required if more efficient methods of cleaning the emissions via a series of filters was used?

[ch_scr]

Whenever a Chieftain tank is parked or stands idle for some time an oil puddle is left behind.

That's not an oil puddle, that's the dregs from the crew's teapot.

no wonders english tea tastes like recycled tank oil and the separatists
 thew it in the harbour to kill the fish as they ran out of dynamite for fishing.

Says a man from a country whose wine could be actively improved in flavour by adding anti-freeze to it, and worse still, actually has been by its makers. At least I'm describing the waste from the process of producing the drink, not the end product.

Can you imagine they make wine in east germany? And on a north slope none the less...
The old timers said the taste was "slightly above turpentine" 

[Robert763]

Further, the ICE car needs a lot of finicky sensors; lambda, angle, pressure, absence of pressure, fluid level, fluid flow, fluid regulation (injectors) and so on. Those are what breaks.

My last few cars all had to go not because of the usual mechanical probs - low compression, run-out bearings, corrosion - but because of galloping dementia in their electronics and sensors.

Methinks the infernal combustion engine is well on the way out. I for one won't miss it.

Seriously, I reckon there has to a way of just passing the exhaust through a series of scrubbers to remove / convert the harmful emissions into harmless ones. They already do that some extent with the catalytic convertor, so why not pass it through some more conversion boxes before allowing it to escape?

It might just be that all of these sensors etc that are apparently suffering from dementia would not be required if more efficient methods of cleaning the emissions via a series of filters was used?

Come up with a "conversion box" that capures the CO2 without sapping all the power and costing a a fortune and you will be rich. Come up with a means to convert the captured CO2 into hydrocarbon fuel and O2 using water and sunlight at large scale and low cost and you will be really rich.....

[AVGresponding]

I'd expect the electricians working on DC traction motors to have knowledge and experience of said systems, however the majority of industrial electricians that I know personally, wouldn't have a clue with DC stuff.

It's not something gone into during the college work part of an apprenticeship here, knowledge like that is acquired during on-the-job training, so you only get it if you're in that specific field.[/color][/size][/b]

Agreed. Although HV electricity transmission systems only get some little coverage in those sort of courses, I wonder if that little coverage nowadays includes some high voltage DC stuff given the increasing usage of DC for high voltage transmission. It won't be much, but there might be a bit of coverage nowadays. That said, every working general sparkie I've know had forgotten everything above 440V by the time their college courses were only a year or two behind them.

Nope.

[salvagedcircuitry]

Someone... Anyone... Please hold me back from lowballing 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185234037496
hubba hubba hubba
Such VNA, much want.

[tggzzz]

Says a man from a country whose wine could be actively improved in flavour by adding anti-freeze to it, and worse still, actually has been by its makers. At least I'm describing the waste from the process of producing the drink, not the end product.

As I recall, it was the Austrians that enabled the joke "would you like red white or blue wine, sir?"

But there is a standing joke "what do you think you will get for your auslese this year, Johann?". " Three years, if I'm caught".

[Neper]

Reminds me of the guy who put a bit of Carling into a flask and sent it to a laboratory. Three days later, he had the reply in the mail: Your horse has diabetes.

[Specmaster]

Further, the ICE car needs a lot of finicky sensors; lambda, angle, pressure, absence of pressure, fluid level, fluid flow, fluid regulation (injectors) and so on. Those are what breaks.

My last few cars all had to go not because of the usual mechanical probs - low compression, run-out bearings, corrosion - but because of galloping dementia in their electronics and sensors.

Methinks the infernal combustion engine is well on the way out. I for one won't miss it.

Seriously, I reckon there has to a way of just passing the exhaust through a series of scrubbers to remove / convert the harmful emissions into harmless ones. They already do that some extent with the catalytic convertor, so why not pass it through some more conversion boxes before allowing it to escape?

It might just be that all of these sensors etc that are apparently suffering from dementia would not be required if more efficient methods of cleaning the emissions via a series of filters was used?

Come up with a "conversion box" that capures the CO2 without sapping all the power and costing a a fortune and you will be rich. Come up with a means to convert the captured CO2 into hydrocarbon fuel and O2 using water and sunlight at large scale and low cost and you will be really rich.....

Thats the point, though, it would need to be inexpensive to avoid having thieves running round nicking them off parked vehicles. I expect that when someone does do it, they price it just high enough that they can milk the market but think of all the ICE cars etc that would be saved from being scrapped and of course all of that CO2 that the manufacturing of batteries takes up with the shipping to points all over the globe for the next step in the process to be done.

[mansaxel]

Whenever a Chieftain tank is parked or stands idle for some time an oil puddle is left behind.

That's not an oil puddle, that's the dregs from the crew's teapot.

I would suspect that the swedish tank crews were quite capable at judging that; they all had extensive experience with the Centurion which before the strv 103 (The "S" tank) was the mainstay of the Swedish tank force. Since the strv 81 (first incarnation of the Centurion in Sweden entered service, all armoured vehicles have a kettle. And I don't think the Meteor engine in the Centurion is so un-british so as to not signal the presence of oil in the engine.

How can you tell there's oil in a british combustion engine?

The puddle under it is present, but not too large.

[Cerebus]

Someone... Anyone... Please hold me back from lowballing 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185234037496
hubba hubba hubba
Such VNA, much want.

Whoa. That's from the official Keysight store and they are selling it as "For parts or not working"? In the body of the listing they even have:

Key Features
Not functioning. Has issues
Broken/'As is' sale
No warranty. No return

Given it's Keysight kit they ought to know whether it's working or not, and given they have parts available to them at cost one must presume that it is beyond economic repair and they are still asking for nearly $10,000 BIN. Is this a new low from Keysight?

[Specmaster]

Off-topic, but a timely reminder to take care with this blasted Covid, my son's girlfriend's Mother has just been rushed off to hospital in an ambulance, will her brother and Father be next, they all have it and live in the same house 

[mansaxel]

Says a man from a country whose wine could be actively improved in flavour by adding anti-freeze to it, and worse still, actually has been by its makers. At least I'm describing the waste from the process of producing the drink, not the end product.

It was the Austrians who did that, not the Germans.

German wine -- even the reds -- is actually really good, if one bothers to look. I think I'll get very good reason to evaluate that, soon.

[Cerebus]

Says a man from a country whose wine could be actively improved in flavour by adding anti-freeze to it, and worse still, actually has been by its makers. At least I'm describing the waste from the process of producing the drink, not the end product.

As I recall, it was the Austrians that enabled the joke "would you like red white or blue wine, sir?"

But there is a standing joke "what do you think you will get for your auslese this year, Johann?". " Three years, if I'm caught".

Although the Austrians were the main culprits, West Germans (as they were at the time) got in on the act too:

The Associated Press
August 1, 1985
Undated (AP) _ A poisonous component of anti-freeze allegedly used for sweetening has been found in 10 West German wines, millions of liters of Austrian wines, at least one brand of grape juice and a champagne. Six more people were arrested in the growing scandal Thursday.

In West Germany, the number of domestic wines found contaminated with diethylene glycol rose to 10 Thursday.

Diethylene glycol is normally used to make anti-freeze for motor vehicles, but apparently was added as a sweetener to wine by many vintners in Austria and increasingly, West Germany.

[Cerebus]

It was the Austrians who did that, not the Germans.

As noted above, it was vintners in both countries.

As far as adulterated drink in modern times goes England is not without blame. During the whole of the 1960s and 70s Watneys sold Red Barrel under the guise of it being beer.

[mnementh]

...Come up with a means to convert the captured CO2 into hydrocarbon fuel and O2 using water and sunlight at large scale and low cost and you will be really rich.....

I think you just described a tree... 

mnem
the irony is not lost on me...

[Cerebus]

...Come up with a means to convert the captured CO2 into hydrocarbon fuel and O2 using water and sunlight at large scale and low cost and you will be really rich.....

I think you just described a tree... 

mnem
the irony is not lost on me...

I think it's closer to a description of oilseed Rape.

[mnementh]

How can you tell there's oil in a british combustion engine?

The puddle under it is present, but not too large.

That sounds like the old biker joke about Triumphs:

How do you know that your Triumph is blowed up?

There's no oil underneath it.

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

It was the Austrians who did that, not the Germans.

As noted above, it was vintners in both countries.

As far as adulterated drink in modern times goes England is not without blame. During the whole of the 1960s and 70s Watneys sold Red Barrel under the guise of it being beer.

What was it, then, apart from gnats piss?