Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Zucca]

My last sin

[Cerebus]

The shape of the opening to open the drawers looks similar indeed... but I guess it's just due to ergonomics 101 rather than a styling  thing as such...

Also a shape that's very easy to make quickly, well and consistently on a spindle moulder once you've got a jig to hold the boards (Or nowadays probably get a robot to make on a spindle moulder for you). The Ikea one looks flat rather than curved in cross section, which is less classy, less ergonomic and even quicker and cheaper to make as you can use poorer materials and just cover them with a flat strip of plastic edging.

[tautech]

this https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/keysight-officially-lost-the-plot-dont-buy-if-youre-a-hobbyist/

Thanks for the link. Wow 10 pages worth of messages... looked a the first few and last few.

Crap indeed, but looks like people think it's not really a Keysight specific thing and will probably spread to every manufacturer eventually, due to US and EU regulations.

So soon we will have other similar threads about other brands...

However where I see Keysight has no excuse, is no providing support to the OP in that thread, even though he did buy his scope brand new ! And not an old one at that. It's not like he was trying to get support and parts for 40 year old spectrum analyzer or something...

I do wonder why Daniel from KS that frequents here has seemed to have gone AWOL however I'd bet his inbox is getting a bashing.
OTOH in the last few days I've had PM's from a few chaps all over the world asking for advice or help that I freely give....what's a minute or 2 outta your day to help someone with a Siglent instrument.

Now I haven't sold it and profited from such or ask for anything in return from them or from Siglent but I'm well aware it leads to further sales if even just basic support is offered.

[Saskia]

which reminds me that I do have to purchase a maintenance contract for my stuff while I still have my VAT ID ...
awwww crap.

[Saskia]

about 60 - 70 boxes to unpack. Making room for 3 pinballs due later today.

2 of them dead and in dire need of repair. Will document if I have a chance.

[vk6zgo]

Spotted a couple of old Racal frequency counters on eBay.

There is this 520 - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/384663905868   - This is the version with individual lamps in a vertical column.    Starting bid is £20.

Racal 832   6 digit Nixie tube  30MHz  -- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324991526216  BIN at £150.  No thank you.

I know nothing about the sellers or the

I won't be bidding or making offers on either one.   

The former is the first frequency counter I ever used.
From memory, it topped out around 10MHz.

[med6753]

this https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/keysight-officially-lost-the-plot-dont-buy-if-youre-a-hobbyist/

Thanks for the link. Wow 10 pages worth of messages... looked a the first few and last few.

Crap indeed, but looks like people think it's not really a Keysight specific thing and will probably spread to every manufacturer eventually, due to US and EU regulations.

So soon we will have other similar threads about other brands...

However where I see Keysight has no excuse, is no providing support to the OP in that thread, even though he did buy his scope brand new ! And not an old one at that. It's not like he was trying to get support and parts for 40 year old spectrum analyzer or something...

I do wonder why Daniel from KS that frequents here has seemed to have gone AWOL however I'd bet his inbox is getting a bashing.
OTOH in the last few days I've had PM's from a few chaps all over the world asking for advice or help that I freely give....what's a minute or 2 outta your day to help someone with a Siglent instrument.

Now I haven't sold it and profited from such or ask for anything in return from them or from Siglent but I'm well aware it leads to further sales if even just basic support is offered.

If you were Daniel would you want to log in and face the angry mob? And you can bet if he wants to continue his employment with Keysight he would have to tow the company line. And that would further incite the mob to prepare the tar and feathering. It would not surprise me if either management or legal put a muzzle on him anyway. What's ironic about this whole situation is that Keysight has an ad banner on this blog for deals on used equipment. Sure.....buy our stuff but if it breaks you're screwed.   

[Ice-Tea]

Just a heads up: I replaced the linefilter on the Solartron 7055. Boots up fine, but was about half a percent off in measurements. Got to work on the compensation for the reference (in attachment) but that doesn't react as I expected it to (linking both G & H puts it in a boot loop, most other links simply do nothing at all,...).

All in all, I went as far as (and a bit further) as "economic repair" allows. So, I'll  send it off for auction on eBay. Unless one of you lot wants to have a go? Either as a purchase or just as a free "project" to be returned if/when you figure it out.

Shoot me a PM if you're interested. If not: expect your eBay search filters to be triggered 

[vk6zgo]

It's branded " Yokogawa - HP "... even has a little modified " YHP" HP looking logo on it... so which is it  then ?

A Yokogawa TE rebranded by HP, or the other way around ? Or a joint venture and both participated in the design equally ? Don't see the latter happening, not very practical...

So it's a bit like the Sony - Tek  ultra expensive curve tracers then, designed by Sony not Tek, well I think !

Apparently back in the day it was practically impossible for a foreign company to establish in Japan due to various laws and regulations etc, so partnerships were formed between companies.
HP/Yokogawa, Tek/Sony, etc etc.
There was a lot of model sharing between companies in the respective partnership, as well as joint development. So HP sold their own branded gear, Yokogawa sold their branded gear, then they also sold joint-branded gear too.
It was an easier way for foreign companies to crack into the Japanese market during the economic boom of the 80's/90's (Semiconductors used to be HUGE here) and an easy way for Japanese companies to expand their offerings.

Sony/Tek were around in the 1960s.

[mansaxel]

reminds me of this one from IKEA:   

ALEX is MDF, IIRC.

MOPPE is plywood.

I'm sort of interested in trying HELMER.

I've got some of my stuff in leftover wire baskets, which is pretty bad. A couple ALEX or HELMER would be useful.

What I really want is something like this, but that is completely insane in price. (A SEK is about 1/9 USD today.)

[DC1MC]

EBAY cadavers:

One "Mr. Carlson" frequency meter:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/363681267597



One old and almost useless scope   
https://www.ebay.de/itm/363681261082




Enjoy spending your hard earned cash   

[BU508A]

If you were Daniel would you want to log in and face the angry mob? And you can bet if he wants to continue his employment with Keysight he would have to tow the company line. And that would further incite the mob to prepare the tar and feathering. It would not surprise me if either management or legal put a muzzle on him anyway. What's ironic about this whole situation is that Keysight has an ad banner on this blog for deals on used equipment. Sure.....buy our stuff but if it breaks you're screwed.   

Statement from Daniel:

"Well this thread is a party.

Yes, I am here on this forum as a mostly official Keysight rep. My day-to-day job isn't this, but it does fall into the larger role that I've built for myself. It was not a corporate "initiative" or anything like that, but it's something that I recognize as important. I've had the very unique opportunity to essentially define my day job at Keysight, and things like my presence here and the Keysight Labs YouTube channel have gotten folded into that. I have full support and can make official statements here, but also try to cut the corporate nonsense and give unofficial advice as needed.

That being said.

There are areas I'm not going to touch and will stick to the official statements that the powers-that-be have given me. I do this because I like my job and want to be able to keep this up. A lot of people have reached out to me through this forum and we've been able to help them out when they'd otherwise have been stuck or had a situation being handled in a way that I would consider not HPAK-level support. Those types of cases are somewhat inevitable in a business this large, and I want to help catch things that fall through the cracks. I say this not because I want to brag, but because I want to keep this thing going.

other comments: I am US based but my role and scope is global, believe me when I say that...uh... I hear all sorts of things from all over the place.

Regarding the Europe/VAT ID/non-business concerns, that's an area that I unfortunately can't help or circumvent/shortcut around the official channels/statements. If I could I would 100% have done it already."

[med6753]

If you were Daniel would you want to log in and face the angry mob? And you can bet if he wants to continue his employment with Keysight he would have to tow the company line. And that would further incite the mob to prepare the tar and feathering. It would not surprise me if either management or legal put a muzzle on him anyway. What's ironic about this whole situation is that Keysight has an ad banner on this blog for deals on used equipment. Sure.....buy our stuff but if it breaks you're screwed.   

Statement from Daniel:

"Well this thread is a party.

Yes, I am here on this forum as a mostly official Keysight rep. My day-to-day job isn't this, but it does fall into the larger role that I've built for myself. It was not a corporate "initiative" or anything like that, but it's something that I recognize as important. I've had the very unique opportunity to essentially define my day job at Keysight, and things like my presence here and the Keysight Labs YouTube channel have gotten folded into that. I have full support and can make official statements here, but also try to cut the corporate nonsense and give unofficial advice as needed.

That being said.

There are areas I'm not going to touch and will stick to the official statements that the powers-that-be have given me. I do this because I like my job and want to be able to keep this up. A lot of people have reached out to me through this forum and we've been able to help them out when they'd otherwise have been stuck or had a situation being handled in a way that I would consider not HPAK-level support. Those types of cases are somewhat inevitable in a business this large, and I want to help catch things that fall through the cracks. I say this not because I want to brag, but because I want to keep this thing going.

other comments: I am US based but my role and scope is global, believe me when I say that...uh... I hear all sorts of things from all over the place.

Regarding the Europe/VAT ID/non-business concerns, that's an area that I unfortunately can't help or circumvent/shortcut around the official channels/statements. If I could I would 100% have done it already."

Thanks for that. As I suspected. I haven't been keeping up to date on the Keysight nonsense as it doesn't really affect me.

[Specmaster]

this https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/keysight-officially-lost-the-plot-dont-buy-if-youre-a-hobbyist/

Thanks for the link. Wow 10 pages worth of messages... looked a the first few and last few.

Crap indeed, but looks like people think it's not really a Keysight specific thing and will probably spread to every manufacturer eventually, due to US and EU regulations.

So soon we will have other similar threads about other brands...

However where I see Keysight has no excuse, is no providing support to the OP in that thread, even though he did buy his scope brand new ! And not an old one at that. It's not like he was trying to get support and parts for 40 year old spectrum analyzer or something...

Thats another reason why I like TTi gear, they do offer support to people like us, while they may not have parts for old gear, they do have manuals and if they can assist, they do, I have had good success with and there are a few others in this thread who have similarly benefited. What today is a hobby for some, could well become a full time profession tomorrow, Keysight cannot know who you are or what you might be doing in the future, you could be looking for parts / assistance with your own personal TE gear at home in your lab today and tomorrow you might well be looking to place a large order for your daytime job in a large research facility or similar. If they refused, my business as a private person, I'd never give them the company business as long as there were others choices I could make.

[TERRA Operative]

reminds me of this one from IKEA:   

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/alex-drawer-unit-white-00473546/#content

mnem
moo.

I have one of these, All my crimpers are in the bottom drawer (It's almost full), I'm absolutely astounded that the bottom hasn't fallen out yet, I've had it holding the weight for years now.

[Vince]

The shape of the opening to open the drawers looks similar indeed... but I guess it's just due to ergonomics 101 rather than a styling  thing as such...

Also a shape that's very easy to make quickly, well and consistently on a spindle moulder once you've got a jig to hold the boards (Or nowadays probably get a robot to make on a spindle moulder for you). The Ikea one looks flat rather than curved in cross section, which is less classy, less ergonomic and even quicker and cheaper to make as you can use poorer materials and just cover them with a flat strip of plastic edging.

Yes that's it. The IKEA one is the usual particle board + plastic edging and covering, so it's always squarish stuff.  My drawers are plain wood so they can machine them in which ever way they want.

[Robert763]

reminds me of this one from IKEA:   

ALEX is MDF, IIRC.

MOPPE is plywood.

I'm sort of interested in trying HELMER.

I've got some of my stuff in leftover wire baskets, which is pretty bad. A couple ALEX or HELMER would be useful.

What I really want is something like this, but that is completely insane in price. (A SEK is about 1/9 USD today.)

I found 3 unopened flat pack MOPPE at the back of the garage over the holidays. Should be nicely seasoned plywood after at least 16 years sitting on a shelf 

[vk6zgo]

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.

Vince, seeing that it is ancient (like me), the socket is possibly for a "MUSA" connector, or some other old type.

Thinking a bit more about the MUSA, I think, maybe they were the other way round, with the female centre pin on the cable connector, though!

Unfortunately, MUSAs were so horrible that nobody kept them after they fell out of common use, so I haven't got one in my "junk box" to compare with.

[Robert763]

The Amprobe power analyser www.ebay.co.uk/itm/294716146283 arrived today. Moment of truth, has it really got all the parts that arn't in the photo's, Is the LCD OK? There are marks over the LCD in the photos.
It was well packed and in the soft carry case.
It's all there. There are three 1000 A clamps, three 200 A mini clamps two sets of clamp leads with the expensive hypertac connectors, voltage input lead, croc clips, mains supply and serial lead.
It works and no marks on screen 
I claim Jammy Git.  No idea why no one else clicked BIN for £50 Anyone want a LEM Analyst or Hawk power analyser. I don't need them now

[nfmax]

reminds me of this one from IKEA:   

ALEX is MDF, IIRC.

MOPPE is plywood.

I'm sort of interested in trying HELMER.

I've got some of my stuff in leftover wire baskets, which is pretty bad. A couple ALEX or HELMER would be useful.

What I really want is something like this, but that is completely insane in price. (A SEK is about 1/9 USD today.)

I found 3 unopened flat pack MOPPE at the back of the garage over the holidays. Should be nicely seasoned plywood after at least 16 years sitting on a shelf 

That sounds like a magic Garage! Is it made of sapient pearwood? Does it follow you around on hundreds of little legs?

[DC1MC]

OK, so you want more  >:Dbay week-end deals (said nobody), here we are, happy to serve:

A yellowed but nice Keithley 2000 Multimeter:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/203786354076



And a rare Keithley 487 Picoammeter/ Voltage Source:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/203786427630



Start spending, so I don't 

[vk6zgo]

Thanks all, I stand corrected, my bad ! This round earth thing was indeed a scam then ?!    But how do they manage to put satellites in "orbit" then, I am all confused now ! 
These mad scientists really have powerful tricks up their sleeves, they could get you to believe anything, naughty mean scientists ! 

And how do scopes work then ? If electrons don't exist, what's drawing these fancy sine waves on the screen ? Has to be God drawing the pictures with his finger, hiding inside the CRT ! Yeah got it must be that !

Nah! It's trained Quokkas using flourescent green markers!

[AVGresponding]

Just a heads up: I replaced the linefilter on the Solartron 7055. Boots up fine, but was about half a percent off in measurements. Got to work on the compensation for the reference (in attachment) but that doesn't react as I expected it to (linking both G & H puts it in a boot loop, most other links simply do nothing at all,...).

All in all, I went as far as (and a bit further) as "economic repair" allows. So, I'll  send it off for auction on eBay. Unless one of you lot wants to have a go? Either as a purchase or just as a free "project" to be returned if/when you figure it out.

Shoot me a PM if you're interested. If not: expect your eBay search filters to be triggered 

Did you check the links are correct for the voltage the reference is outputting? If they are, then it's not the reference that needs adjusting, but the front end. I'd be more inclined to suspect drift/damage there anyway...

[m k]

MuRuPuOrKeViSiVioHaVa

That one is easy ! It's the marking code for a SOT23 5.1V Zener diode ! Everyone knew that I thought ?! 

Nope, is that something you just made up for the sheer hell of it 

Gurrgle thinks it is a geocache of dubious content:

https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC4BFK4_murupuorkevisiviohava

mnem
I'd go, but I need to have my scales polished... 

Nope, that geocache description looks fine to me.  Did you not see the electronic components used to make the graphical border around the text?

At a more advanced level, did you see the Winnie-the-pooh reference in that same geocache? 



EDIT:

What have you all been drinking or smoking today? 

Nothing at all.

It is waaay tooo coooold to be able to light anything up!

You know it is too cold when you take force the kid outside for some fresh air.  I looked back, and the dog decided to watch us at the patio door from INSIDE the kitchen...

I use 3332 notation so it has one extra letter.

Mu-Ru-Pu, O-ra-Ke, Vi-Si-Vio Ha-Va
(not right but riming)

0 Mu sta black
1 Ru skea brown
2 Pu nainen red

3 Ora nssi orange
4 Ke ltainen yellow

5 Vi hreä green
6 Si ninen blue
7 Vio letti violet

8 Ha rmaa gray
9 Va lkoinen white

BTW,
we got El Niño/La Niña effect few days ago, +2C.

[Robert763]

The R&S ZVH4 with all the options that sold for £1650 on ebay has been relisted twice and ended because "no longer available" 
And not even negative feedback. Ebay are mking it hard to leave negative feedback for buyers these dys. They have a waiting period etc.
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373851304724