Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Kosmic]

Has anyone ever tried this style of test clips (accidentally spotted on eBay while looking for something else)? Any good?

Yep got 2 sets of those. Quality is ok and they are working well. Not like some other micrograbber I ordered.

[Kosmic]

Do you have anything with a input anywhere close to 3.9 puff...?

Or are you employing a variant of Bait Theory...?

mnem
 

Ah, so that's what the 3.9pf marking onthe probe means....

I was thinking of using them on my TDS 694C. Neither the front panel nor the user manual state what the input capacitance is, but it's a 3GHz scope so presumably it should do it ?!

3.9pF is the capacitance of the probe, not the scope. They don't need to match. High bandwidth probes always have low capacitance. Capacitance attenuate the signal at high frequency, resistors at lower frequency. That's why you have a mix of both in oscilloscope probes. The passive probe is a frequency compensated voltage divider.

Anyhow, most modern probes (like this TPP1000) have a proprietary connector and interface. So you need to make sure you can connect the probe to your scope.

Vince, you probably need a Tektronix P6056. Goes to 3.5Ghz and got a 50\$\Omega\$ output. A lot of old Tektronix active probes also have a 50\$\Omega\$ output like the p6046 p6202 and p6201.

[WastelandTek]

"bait theory"     

I rather like that, might give it a try...

[mnementh]

   Just popped up here :   https://www.leboncoin.fr/equipements_industriels/2101126198.htm

Guy sells NIB (original pouch, manual, all accessories...) Tek probes, passive, 1GHz, TPP1000. Has 4 available, at 80 Euros each. Sounds like a good deal no, what do you think ?? Am tempted to get at least one, can't afford more.   

Looks like that is a TekProbe or newer interface, so it's a great deal if you have a scope that works with that.

Yeah, on second glance it looks like TekVPI. At 80€, might be worth getting just for bait. 

mnem
*wibble*

[Neomys Sapiens]

Just popped up here :

https://www.leboncoin.fr/equipements_industriels/2101126198.htm

Guy sells NIB (original pouch, manual, all accessories...) Tek probes, passive, 1GHz, TPP1000.

Has 4 available, at 80 Euros each.

Sounds like a good deal no, what do you think ??

Am tempted to get at least one, can't afford more.

Looks like that is a TekProbe or newer interface, so it's a great deal if you have a scope that works with that.

They are TekVPI (the current interface).

[Kosmic]

A good thing about Lecroy is that they never changed their probe interface. Still the good old ProBus.

[mansaxel]

So me needs a low impedance probe then.... good thing is that the manual says that they have one thing going for them : much better bandwidth / price value than a general purpose x10 high-impedance probe. More GHz for your Euros ! 

OK so now I can go to sleep in peace..., I learned something new today 

The Tek probe video posted here a few days ago is a very comprehensive runthrough of all things probe. From the 2465 era, of course, but the rules (You must select probe according to measurement needs and scope input) still hold.

[Saskia]

Unpacking. Requested quote for heating and sparky in the upper level (no, I am not authorized to do that myself, it's an insurance thingie.

Got a 6u wallmount 19" enclosure for 20, need to assemble. It is to house a switch for the upper level (I do have a spare 48 port switch ...

Fun and games unpacking, assembling furniture, throwing out stuff.
Need some firewood to get some warmth into upper level and future arcade.

Volvo is still down. Dealer mechanic sez the loss of coolant was due to a leak at the cooler and that the cylinder head and gasket were ok. I said that he should explain the white smoke then. He'll recheck and get back to me next week, he would do additional testing to see if there was anything wrong with the head.

Need to lug about 30 moving boxes onto the upper level to make room for 3 pinballs due tomorrow. Uggghhh. That stuff always arrives at the worst possible time.
Also need to clean out our garden shed which is full of boxes. Only place to put it: you guessed it: upstairs.

Still shitloads of stuff to do until I am back to normal.

In other news Mouser was unable to update the shipping address for my KRIA SOM and xilinx vision development kit.
So they cancelled the order. I would have to reorder with 60 weeks lead time.

Swell.

[Robert763]

As to having a coax or a screened cable, coming from the back of it, is that so bad?

Not "baaaad"... I mean just unpracticla and weird, having a coax looping from the back.... woud you find it convenient and natural to have every piece of TE in your lab, your scopes and generator and power supply and what not require you to plug the oupui cable at the back ?! 

Power socket however, you only plug it once and you do'nt want it in the way, so every piece of TE, even vintage stuff (but Metrix it seems !  ) have the power cable/socket at the back... seems obvious and natural to every manufacturer...

After all, you are talking about putting a IEC socket there to stop it from zapping you, I doubt that you would be able to mount it in the front where the old 2 pin socket is located 

Well I guess one could make anything fit, with a big enough chainsaw ! 
But it wold look really too out of place... a BNC socket in comparison is much more acceptable... to me 

Any way, its over to you, its yours, and you will have to live with what ever solution you come up with

Yes it's mine !    ... and having a BNC at the front an IEC / power at the back is just like any scope ever made (but Metrix...) probably, so yes I could " live with that " just fine, just like everybody here lives just fine with the same setup and every piece of gear they have !

Why don't you try pushing one of these adapters you have into the antenna socket on that TV you have been given and see if it fits as tightly in that?

Hey good idea !    Result : fits perfectly !

Then I had another idea.... have that other piece of Metrix TE, that huge Wobulator boat anchor if you remember that one. It has many sockets, and comes with a little jumper cable so you can connect one socket to another, in order to setup the instrument properly. So, first I tried the adapter into all the sockets on that Wobulator : would never go in, hard as a rock.

Then I took the jumper cable and tried to shove into the RF generator... fits perfectly, both ends of the cable do !

So... does not look like tolerance issue... looks more like the size was 9.0mm back in the day when these were used for TE stuff, but 60 years later where they are only used for TV consumer stuff, they now make it 9.5mm instead, that is all... so it's a lost cause so... if I get bored of my hack sawed adapter one day, I guess next step is retrofit a BNC socket instead.... and you would won that one... you get a cookie... you want them with just chocolate chips, or hazelnut chunks as well mixed in ?!

I also note the refined / elaborate construction of the plugs of the jumper cable, see pic below. It's a 4 slit design, which measures exactly the same diameter as the socket (9mm), so again no tolerance issue there, and it has a circular spring/clip inside , towards the top, inside a little groove. Clever... the 4 slits let the plug deform a bit to get into the socket, but the spring keeps it from deforming too much. Makes for a more reliable contact. Someone was thinking and trying to get these crappy connectors as best they could make them.

Hmm, it would seem then that Metrix either made their own modified version of that interface in an attempt to improve its reliability, and made a dimensional modification, or, there used to be another interface out there at that time that only Metrix seem to have adopted and therefore rare, but hey, at least you now know for sure there is a plug that will fit perfectly if you can find one, and you also know that the BNC option is still a possibility. 

I think it is a metrication / imperialisation issue. 9.5mm is 3/8". Question is which came first? The Belling lee was about 1922. How old is Metrix?

[AVGresponding]

One of my Latin teachers found great amusement in the fact that a local garment shop was named "Sudor"...



Richard Of York Gave Battle Vainly. I just remember the others...


One of your cousins, mnem?

[Vince]

I think it is a metrication / imperialisation issue. 9.5mm is 3/8". Question is which came first? The Belling lee was about 1922. How old is Metrix?

Googled for Metrix history, found this website :

https://www.oscilloscope-metrix.com/fr/histoire.html

Says company was created in 1936 under the name " CARTEX ", then in 1946 they changed their name to Metrix.
Then ITT took over in 1964 then in 1997 ITT sold Metrix to Chauvin-Arnoux, which they still own today. Metrix still make and sell stuff under their own name today.

90% useless info in the context of your question but hey a bit of TE history never hurts !

[Vince]

One of my Latin teachers found great amusement in the fact that a local garment shop was named "Sudor"...

Richard Of York Gave Battle Vainly. I just remember the others...

I have always been fascinated by this method to try to remember acronyms or such, using weird non-sensicla phrases. I find it's very popular among english speaking countries, somehow.
Never had that in Frogland...

To me remembering a silly phrase is way, way harder and prone to errors, than just trying to remember the technical info to begin with.

I still remember I had a laugh about that 20+ years ago. When I was in the UK studying EE, one of our electronics teacher, one day drew a NPN and PNP transistor symbol on the board. Then he tried to "help" us by giving us one of these strange phrase that would tell us which symbol is which.... only to get it wrong ! 

Can't you just look at the arrow and remember NPN it goes out and PNP well, the other way ? How hard is that ?  Plus it's quite logical, thze arrow goes in the same direction as the conventional current flow in the BE junction, so you don't even have to remember anything, just look at the polarity of the junction 

How do I remember the colour code ?

Easy. I still have a recollection about it, somehow it's still vivid.

I was little, 10 yo or so. Was up teh stars by the kitchen door, dad said : "you need to remember the colour code because it's essential. You won't go anywhere and be worthless if you don't know it by heart. Just repeat it 200 hundred times until it soaks in ! ".

So I did that and hey presto, I remember it now ! 

I will confess though that I do remember I felt under pressure and panicked I might fail to memorize it, so I admit I DID try to find ways to help me.... at least for some of them.

The firstg 5 colours I had no trouble with, because somehow the colours used, and their sequence, had some logic to it.

Black = 0 because well.... 0 is as low as you can get, and black is as dark as you can get in the scale.
Brown = next in line because it's a little less dark than black.
red / orange / yellow : progressively less and less red content in the colour. there is logical progressing from one colour to the other.

It's for the remaining 5 that I needed some help...I came up with

(Green) Vert = 5 ("cinq" in French) because... " Vercingetorix " I was learning about at school at the time..  VER(t) CIN(q).. getorix. Sounds similar. thanks to Vercingetorix for putting "green" and "five"  together in his name ! 

(Blue) Bleu = 6 ( " six " ) in French.  Because " sky blue ". In french "Bleu Ciel " ... ci-el... " ci " sounds the same as the beginning of " six ". So "sky blue" in French puts blue and six together, cool.

(Purple) Violet = 7 ( " Sept " in French ).  Now at that time, my parents took me all the way across France to visit Monaco in the far south east of France. I remember there was a museum there, and outside at the entrance, someone was selling  little flowers coated in sugar, which you can actually eat. It's a little treat. Flower is called " Violette ".  Vio... lette. "  " lette " sounds a bit like " sept ". So "violet = sept "; hey presto.

(Grey) Gris = 8 ( "huit " in French).  I could not come up with anything stellar back then, other than it you repeat " gris huit " fast, it sounds like the "GRR -RRRr-GRRRR " sounds some construction machinery or something...

(White) Blanc = 9 ( " Neuf " in French ). This one was very easy, " Neuf " sounds like  N - Oeuf , " N - egg " in English. So... " blanc neuf " sounds 99% like " egg white ". ! 


That's it... still works for me 35 years later 

[xrunner]

I still remember I had a laugh about that 20+ years ago. When I was in the UK studying EE, one of our electronics teacher, one day drew a NPN and PNP transistor symbol on the board. Then he tried to "help" us by giving us one of these strange phrase that would tell us which symbol is which.... only to get it wrong ! 

This one?

NPN: Not Pointing iN

PNP: Pointing iN Positively

 

[mnementh]

...One of your cousins, mnem?   

Mhmmmm... he does quite remind one of my more famous cousin, doesn't he?

mnem

[mnementh]

One of my Latin teachers found great amusement in the fact that a local garment shop was named "Sudor"...

Richard Of York Gave Battle Vainly. I just remember the others...

I have always been fascinated by this method to try to remember acronyms or such, using weird non-sensicla phrases. I find it's very popular among english speaking countries, somehow.
Never had that in Frogland...

To me remembering a silly phrase is way, way harder and prone to errors, than just trying to remember the technical info to begin with.

I still remember I had a laugh about that 20+ years ago. When I was in the UK studying EE, one of our electronics teacher, one day drew a NPN and PNP transistor symbol on the board. Then he tried to "help" us by giving us one of these strange phrase that would tell us which symbol is which.... only to get it wrong ! 

Can't you just look at the arrow and remember NPN it goes out and PNP well, the other way ? How hard is that ?  Plus it's quite logical, thze arrow goes in the same direction as the conventional current flow in the BE junction, so you don't even have to remember anything, just look at the polarity of the junction 

How do I remember the colour code ?

Easy. I still have a recollection about it, somehow it's still vivid.

I was little, 10 yo or so. Was up teh stars by the kitchen door, dad said : "you need to remember the colour code because it's essential. You won't go anywhere and be worthless if you don't know it by heart. Just repeat it 200 hundred times until it soaks in ! ".

So I did that and hey presto, I remember it now ! 

I will confess though that I do remember I felt under pressure and panicked I might fail to memorize it, so I admit I DID try to find ways to help me.... at least for some of them.

The firstg 5 colours I had no trouble with, because somehow the colours used had some logic to it.

Black = 0 because well.... 0 is as low as you can get, and black is as dark as you can get.
Brown = next in line because it's a little less dark than black.
red / orange / yellow : progressively less and less red content in the colour. there is logical progressing from one colour to the other.

It's for the remaining 5 that I needed some help...I came up with

(Green) Vert = 5 ("cinq" in French) because... " Vercingetorix " I was learning about at school at the time..  VER(t) CIN(q).. getorix. Sounds similar. thanks to Vercingetorix for putting "green" and "five"  together in his name ! 

(Blue) Bleu = 6 ( " six " ) in French.  Because " sky blue ". In french "Bleu ciel " ... ci-el... "ci " sounds the same as the beginning of " six ". So "sky blue" in French puts blue and six together, cool.

(Purple) Violet = 7 ( " Sept " in French ).  Now at that time, my parents to me all the way accross France to visit Monaco in the far south of France. I remember there was a museum there, and outside at the entrance, someone was selling  little flower coated in sugar, which you can actually eat. It's a little treat. Flower is called " Violette ".  Vio... lette. " "lette " sounds a bit like "sept". So "violet = sept "; hey presto.

(Grey) Gris = 8 ( "huit " in French).  I could not come up with anything stellar back then, other than it you repeat " gris huit " fast, it sounds like the "GRR -RRRr-GRRRR " sounds some construction machinery or something...

(White) Blanc = 9 ( " Neuf " in French ). This one was very easy, " Neuf " sounds like  N - Oeuf , " N - egg " in Englsh. So... "blanc neuf" sounds 99% like " egg white ". ! 


That's it... still works for me 35 years later 

If you have some passing interest in science... or just pay attention to the world around you even a tiny little bit... you realize that the core colors follow the same order as ROY G BIV, or the fundamental colors of the rainbow, only INDIGO is omitted as too easy to confuse with BLUE or VIOLET. The rest are mostly shades of non-color (BLACK/WHITE), but easy enough to remember by rote.

mnem

[Vince]

I still remember I had a laugh about that 20+ years ago. When I was in the UK studying EE, one of our electronics teacher, one day drew a NPN and PNP transistor symbol on the board. Then he tried to "help" us by giving us one of these strange phrase that would tell us which symbol is which.... only to get it wrong ! 

This one?

NPN: Not Pointing iN

PNP: Pointing iN Positively

 

Oh I couldn't tell you, I don't remember what it was at all... all I remember was the good laugh I was having when he made a fool out of himself !

[Vince]

If you have some passing interest in science... or just pay attention to the world around you even a tiny little bit... you realize that the core colors follow the same order as ROY G BIV, or the fundamental colors of the rainbow, only INDIGO is omitted as too easy to confuse with BLUE or VIOLET. The rest are mostly shades of non-color (black/white), but easy enough to remember by rote.

mnem

I have zero interest in science, it has nothing to do with electronics ! Even a 10 year old knows that all there is to electronics is plugging "shields" / " hats " onto a Raspberry Pie or Arduino ! 

Nope... I love science and every night before going to bed I play a YT video of a one or two hour long talk of some scientist about astrophysics or particle physics/ quantum physics. I let it play, turn the monitor off, go to bed and listen to it while falling asleep.  The royal Institution in the UK has a YT channel with lots of cool science lectures.  The " World Science Festival " in New York USA, run by Brian Green string theorist, is nice too. Always invites top physicist in their field, it's a lot of fun.

The science / physics aspect of electronics is what drew me to it. I still find it fascinating that a humble age old analog oscilloscope is a particle accelerator, and the trace you see on the screen is being drawn by little electrons, fundamental particles, for you to see. It 's just so thrilling, and partly why I love my old analog scopes so much. Simply looking at the screen gives you a direct connection with the very essence of the universe, it never ceases to amaze me.


So the rainbow colours yeah sure, but clearly it's not good enough otherwise why would all English speaking teachers not just use that instead of silly phrases ?
Because it's just trading one problem for another... now you have to remember the colours of the rainbow and their exact sequence.... IOW you are back to square one, instead you have just renamed " Colour code " into " rainbow colours "... but you still end up having to memorize it !
It's not like you saw rainbows all over the world 10 times a day...then yes people would probably remember it. Personally if I see a rainbow once a year it's already quite good. So not frequent enough to expect people to know it by heart...

[Robert763]

I think it is a metrication / imperialisation issue. 9.5mm is 3/8". Question is which came first? The Belling lee was about 1922. How old is Metrix?

Googled for Metrix history, found this website :

https://www.oscilloscope-metrix.com/fr/histoire.html

Says company was created kin 1936 under the name " CARTEX ", then in 1946 they changed their name to Metrix.
Then ITT took over in 1964 then in 1997 ITT sold Metrix to Chauvin-Arnoux, which they still own today. Metrix still make and sell stuff under their own name today.

90% useless info in the context of your question but hey a bit of TE history never hurts !

Sounds like Metrix metricated (no pun intended) the Belling Lee design. Then IEC validated the Belling Lee version as the 9.5mm
Or maybe Metrix came up with their own design that was almost the same. Noting th for the same impedance the ratio of OD center conductor to ID of screen would be the same so gien general connector sizes of the era simlar designs are not impossible.
 

[mnementh]

...I have zero interest in science, it has nothing to do with electronics ! Even a 10 year old knows that all there is to electronics is plugging "shields" / " hats " onto a Raspberry Pie or Arduino ! 

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

mnem

[Vince]

As far as I can remember, this is by a long shot the most refined, artistically elaborate depiction of a Dragon that you have shown us. You are upping your game into new territories...

[SilverSolder]

[...]It's not like you saw rainbows all over the world 10 times a day...then yes people would probably remember it. Personally if I see a rainbow once a year it's already quite good. So not frequent enough to expect people to know it by heart...

All the colors bleed into each other...   settling for six or seven colors seems a bit arbitrary!

[mnementh]

As far as I can remember, this is by a long shot the most refined, artistically elaborate depiction of a Dragon that you have shown us. You are upping your game into new territories...

LOL... cringe-dwagon has been with the TEA for many years, my friend. He was one of the first, long before I started The .gif Page of Doom™ [img] repo in the middle of the thread. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

[...]It's not like you saw rainbows all over the world 10 times a day...then yes people would probably remember it. Personally if I see a rainbow once a year it's already quite good. So not frequent enough to expect people to know it by heart...

All the colors bleed into each other...   settling for six or seven colors seems a bit arbitrary!

Yebbutt... it was literally elementary-school stuff they drummed into our heads starting from first or second grade.

Yet another aspect of The Arts as it relates to science and the world around us which has been deemed no longer important by TPTB, I guess... as an interest in art is contraindicated in the indoctrination of pliant, docile, worker bees to support the hive the TPTB in the fashion to which they've become accustomed... 

mnem
 

[Vince]

[...]It's not like you saw rainbows all over the world 10 times a day...then yes people would probably remember it. Personally if I see a rainbow once a year it's already quite good. So not frequent enough to expect people to know it by heart...

All the colors bleed into each other...   settling for six or seven colors seems a bit arbitrary!

Yebbutt... it was literally elementary-school stuff they drummed into our heads starting from first or second grade.


mnem
 

Yeah but every school in every country is different... you can't rely on rainbow colours being taught, never mind be part of an exam one has to pass to go to the next class....

Hell even in the US alone I gather there are huge disparities, and some schools teach kids the earth is flat, is only 6000 years old and that the dinosaur fossils are a giant scam, the bloody scientists put them there, it's all a huge world wide conspiracy ! 

So if you can't even rely on the fact that your kids will be taught that 2+2 makes 4, it's a bit hard pressed to take for granted that they will be taught the rainbow colours and sequence by heart, or anything at all really !   


OK time to take a shower and go to the H/W store to buy some zip ties for my power cords...

[Saskia]

2+2 = 4 in which environment ?

Does 2 even exist ?

Take a field with elements 1 and 0 only.

In a field, some mathematical laws must be valid (Law of commutativity, law of associativity ...)
So 0+0 = 0, 0+1 = 1, 1+0 =1, 1+1 = 0 and 0 * 0 =0, 0*1 =0, 1*0 =0, 1*1 =1

see, the number 2 does not exist.
It's all a matter of perspective.