Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Zucca]

A warning to anyone out there with an Creality Ender 3 3D Printer: Don't upgrade the hardware from the old 8 Bit board to the newer 32Bit 4.2.x boards. The hardware is fine and quieter (as the loudly claim), but the firmware is just broken. Missing features, non-working commands (and not trivial stuff either, basics such as filament loading and mid-print colour change aren't implemented or not working). I'll be spending the evening downgrading my Ender 3 Pro hardware.

McBryce.

You should have bought the BIGTREETECH Direct SKR Mini E3 V2.0 (very happy with it) or BIGTREETECH Direct SKR Mini E3 V3.0 (not supported by Marlin yet).

Yes, I upgraded my Ender 5 in the past too with the silent board from Creality only to discover I wasted my money.

[mnementh]

...So I removed this HV assembly. It is going to make a trip to Germany to get repaired.

Hmmm.... so, have you had a conversation with this fellow about what exactly it is he does with his "a process" on these HV bits...? Or how it is tested after the fact, or how long it can be expected to hold up...?

Just curious.

mnem
*nibbling on imaginary *

[tggzzz]

Everything in my breakfast tacos is on my Hard Keto diet. The tortillas are lo-carb/hi-fiber, 4 grams net each. 1 gram for the heavy cream, 2 grams for the eggs. I still have 4-9 grams left for the rest of the day. 780 calories total, of 1500 daily.

Have you considered not using the heavy cream?

I prefer sour cream, creme fraiche, or plain yogurt, all of which have more taste so you can use less.

Context dear boy, you're advocating using those in coffee. That registers somewhere between "Yuck!" and "Die, coffee adulterating philistine!". Mind you, so does adding cream to coffee in my book, but that's a matter of taste, whereas putting yogurt in it would fit more into the category of "terminal lack of taste".

In that case add yak butter and salt, as per https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_tea Haven't tried it, so can't recommend it.

Amusingly I've just auctioned such a block of tea, for a gratifyingly high price.

[Vince]

While you were all on discord I was busy in the lab.

I received my little 6x10cm brown paper envelopes, all 120 of them.
Have a pack of Avery A4 label sheets, so I got cracking.

LibreOffice can do labels of course, and it had the appropriate Avery template. So in a couple clicks I could start typing all my E24 labels one by one, all 168 of them.

Problem however, is that somehow in "label" mode, LibreOffice severely restricts how I can edit the document ?!
I can't use the Tab key to switch from one label to the next... have to use the mouse.
I can't easily (with icon shortcuts) set the vertical alignment.
I can't select multiple labels/cells with the mouse, to erase them all at once, or to apply formatting options as I wish.. have to do one cell, format it, then copy/paste to each cell one by one, then edit them to modify the text. A royal PITA !! 

I also didn't find a way to make multiple pages of labels in the same document, somehow ?!    So I could only do one page of label per document/file, so had to make 5 distinct documents to get all the labels done ! 

So once all the labels from 1R to 10Meg are done, and you want to modify ANY aspect of the formatting... anything at all... well you have to redo the entire 5 documents from scratch ! 


I guess I must be using it wrong... it's the first time I ever try to print labels on Libre/OpenOffice 

But if it's not me, then I guess for large quantities of labels like here, it's much more productive to just make the labels without the label assistant/module, just make a regular Word processing document, with a custom table, so at least you can use all the normal editing capabilities of a freaking Word processor...
You lose a bit of time at first to fine tune the dimensions and margins just right, but once done, you will save so much time afterward...


Anyway, that got done eventually.

I tried to DIY a little box to hold the  envelopes properly. Went for the Cerebus way : a roughly OK cardboard box, then insert a spacer in it to adjust the width so it fits / holds  the envelopes just right. Not too loose not too tight. Also added decade dividers like Cerebus, good idea.
Never throw anything away (apart from ancient DIN speaker plugs of course) : I made the spacer using one half of the Amazon cardboard shipping envelope that the envelopes came in. A bit of cutting and folding, some tape... hey presto, works beautifully.
Other half of the Amazon envelope was just the right size to let me cut the decade dividers. They end up sticking out just the right amount to see the label and flick through them. Beautiful.
The finished box is also just the right height to fit in my wooden drawers.
I am quite happy it turned out so well on the first attempt, quick and dirty recycling stuff on hand ! 

Long term I will do a nice custom wooden box, once my garage is built and I can set up a little wood-working corner in there. In a couple years maybe, all going well. In the interim, that marvel of a cardboard box will do just fine I think ! 

Of course 120 envelopes is only good for x5  E24 decades, and I am even missing one envelope : last decade I ran out of envelopes when I arrived at the 91k label, grrr..... will ask for a refund ! 

So I have just ordered another lot of 120 of these envelopes. Labels of course I have printed up to 10Meg, they are all ready. I am only waiting for the envelopes.  Amazon says they should arrive on Thursday.  In the mean time I can start digging out all my old carbon resistors from my Racco drawers, put them in the envelopes I have available so far, while taking notes of quantities available for each value, so I know what I have, what I have not, what I need to order to complete the box.

[Vince]

Ah, a decent ad just popped up here, when I search for "frequency meters ", albeit in French.

Some unusual (here) interesting piece of TE.

A RACAL-DANAl universal counter.

https://www.leboncoin.fr/bricolage/2112563658.htm

Now I am not a RACAL kind of guy usually, the industrial design of them always turned me off.
However this one is of a design I had not yet seen. Still some bits of it that I don't like, but overall it looks cool I find ! 
I think it(s got something to do with the yellow LED display on black face plate, I always like that.
Full width rack form factor, I always like that too...

Guy is reasonable, he wants 75 Euros for it. Others would ask 250 at least...
Shipping is only 5 Euros... hmmm...
It's in excellent cosmetic shape all around...
.. untested he says, so might not work and not be repairable, but at least it powers up and the display comes to life, it's a good start I guess !

hmmmm....so I am half tempted I must say ! 
My financial situation is getting more and more critical with every ad I come across... hard decision to make !

Maybe someone here wants it, so I can be the middle man and not have to spend money on it ?!
Please save my skinny wallet, buy it so I don't have to ? 

EDIT : Oh I see that guy has also a cute little RACAL-DANA bench DMM for only 25 Euros !
Again he says it might now work.... so it probably doesn't, let's be honest... but only 25 Euros what the hell..

https://www.leboncoin.fr/bricolage/2112559129.htm

[GreyWoolfe]

Am currently refreshing the JLCpcb site hourly to watch progress on my two latest constructions.  Also have placed a Mouser order. So, it's waiting times here.

This time is filled up with shopping for Du Pont connector clone kits. My layout is using them frequently.

To make that time pass (and it feels like it's slower than usual!), I'm whipping up a Bœuf Bourgignon. Soon spud peeling time.

I tipped the scales over to the simpler side of food tonight.  Since it is a bit cool and blustery here in Central Flori-DUH, I made split green pea soup starting with dried organic peas.  Lots of sautéed onions, celery and the carrots were on the side because of the amount of sugar in them.  I take a little, Mrs. GreyWoolfe takes a lot.  No ham hocks to add but, considering our lifestyle food choices, Impossible Sausage hot Italian sausage that was nicely seared went into the bowl.  We also use Goya chicken bullion cubes instead of chicken broth, richer flavor and we don't have to add salt to the dish.  And plenty of Cholula hot sauce just because.   Even better, though there is lots of carbs in split peas, the fact that it is good carbs had my evening blood sugar check of 113 and will probably be close to 100 if not the 90's in the morning.  Using our $15 yard sale Power Pressure XL pressure cooker makes dinner ready pretty quick. 

Mnem, because of my diabetes, my coffee has Truvia and unsweetened almond milk in it.  I have grown to quite like it.   I put the leftover coffee into a large glass, adulterate it and let it chill in the fridge overnight.  I will do what I need to get off my meds in the next 6 months, already had my Metformin reduced by half in the past 3 months and my A1c is 5.1.

[Zucca]

I just found out about Klipper as alternative to Marlin.
Looks good.

[ch_scr]

I just found out about Klipper as alternative to Marlin.
Looks good.

Interestingly enough, almost all the "Speedboatracers" (Print a benchy in the shortest time) use klipper -
because they implement a lot of very advanced software features. Relevant on the speed front is "Resonance compensation"
aka "Input shaper" where they filter the frequencys of the printer mechanical resonance from the motor movement inputs
They have other stuff too, like a pretty good delta printer "autocalibration". Originally came in contact with them as the only way
to get my delta printing with the original atmega board, turns out it was too slow to calculate all the basic delta movement stuff on its own. That problem took a loooooong while to figure out. Figuring out my prints came out mirrored because the motors were connected x - y - z in anticlockwise instead of clockwise direction (in a delta they all sit in the base) was easy in comparison 

[AVGresponding]

Oh I see that guy has also a cute little RACAL-DANA bench DMM for only 25 Euros !
Again he says it might now work.... so it probably doesn't, let's be honest... but only 25 Euros what the hell..

Interesting. That's a rebadged Thurlby 1905a, not a bad meter at all for the money.

[Robert763]

Ah, a decent ad just popped up here, when I search for "frequency meters ", albeit in French.

Some unusual (here) interesting piece of TE.

A RACAL-DANAl universal counter.

https://www.leboncoin.fr/bricolage/2112563658.htm

Now I am not a RACAL kind of guy usually, the industrial design of them always turned me off.
However this one is of a design I had not yet seen. Still some bits of it that I don't like, but overall it looks cool I find ! 
I think it(s got something to do with the yellow LED display on black face plate, I always like that.
Full width rack form factor, I always like that too...

Guy is reasonable, he wants 75 Euros for it. Others would ask 250 at least...
Shipping is only 5 Euros... hmmm...
It's in excellent cosmetic shape all around...
.. untested he says, so might not work and not be repairable, but at least it powers up and the display comes to life, it's a good start I guess !

hmmmm....so I am half tempted I must say ! 
My financial situation is getting more and more critical with every ad I come across... hard decision to make !

Maybe someone here wants it, so I can be the middle man and not have to spend money on it ?!
Please save my skinny wallet, buy it so I don't have to ? 

EDIT : Oh I see that guy has also a cute little RACAL-DANA bench DMM for only 25 Euros !
Again he says it might now work.... so it probably doesn't, let's be honest... but only 25 Euros what the hell..

https://www.leboncoin.fr/bricolage/2112559129.htm

The DMM is a re-badged Thurlby Thandar 1905A computing multimeter. It's 512 digit and well worth €25. Some had issues with the membrane keypad but it does not affect basic operation. will display 61/2 digits if you press "**" then "5 1/2".
The counter is OK if a little big. The amber display is quite nice. If you have space and need a counter go for it . Personally I sold mine and kept a HP 5316B instead. 

EDIT : Must Type Faster.......

[tautech]

Back............
Bit of a shit fishing trip with the first day of the 4 day comp cancelled due to inclement weather......blowing like hell !
Still, it was nice to spend time with the cuz and his mates at the premier NZ game fishing location of Russell and their wonderful 100 year old clubrooms.
Once out on the briny I still managed to keep my reputation of #1 berley layer despite the so called magic anti-seasick pills administered but a double dose on the second day had the desired effect. 

But despite our best efforts including copious quantities of ground bait from yours truly we didn't place in this years comp other than a couple of minor individual prizes, last marlin caught and tagged in the comp and best other species with a measly 8.5kg Albacore landed on 37kg tackle by tautech ! 

Pretty flash boat the cuz owns, 51ft with stabilizers powered by 2 thirsty 1000hp CAT's.
A couple of pics for your enjoyment.

[McBryce]

A warning to anyone out there with an Creality Ender 3 3D Printer: Don't upgrade the hardware from the old 8 Bit board to the newer 32Bit 4.2.x boards. The hardware is fine and quieter (as the loudly claim), but the firmware is just broken. Missing features, non-working commands (and not trivial stuff either, basics such as filament loading and mid-print colour change aren't implemented or not working). I'll be spending the evening downgrading my Ender 3 Pro hardware.

McBryce.

Is there no open source firmware. 32bit marlin?
There is a promising config for it I'd say: "Configurations-release-2.0.9.3.zip\Configurations-release-2.0.9.3\config\examples\Creality\Ender-3\CrealityV422"
There is also one for V427. Try that before changing hardware says me!
Edit#2: And it's not as hard as they make it look. I've done similar Marlin installs before, it's really not too bad!

I haven't compiled Marlin before, but it might be worth a try. Do you have a link to the code?

McBryce.

[ch_scr]

A warning to anyone out there with an Creality Ender 3 3D Printer: Don't upgrade the hardware from the old 8 Bit board to the newer 32Bit 4.2.x boards. The hardware is fine and quieter (as the loudly claim), but the firmware is just broken. Missing features, non-working commands (and not trivial stuff either, basics such as filament loading and mid-print colour change aren't implemented or not working). I'll be spending the evening downgrading my Ender 3 Pro hardware.

McBryce.

Is there no open source firmware. 32bit marlin?
There is a promising config for it I'd say: "Configurations-release-2.0.9.3.zip\Configurations-release-2.0.9.3\config\examples\Creality\Ender-3\CrealityV422"
There is also one for V427. Try that before changing hardware says me!
Edit#2: And it's not as hard as they make it look. I've done similar Marlin installs before, it's really not too bad!

I haven't compiled Marlin before, but it might be worth a try. Do you have a link to the code?

McBryce.

The recent marlin is here. They have split out the premade configurations into it's own thing over here.
Edit: I've only compiled firmware in the Arduino software, but adding support for 32bit boards might be a bit convoluted or at least has been in the past. I guess that's why they do it with platform.io? Not 100% sure on "the path of least resistance" TBH, have not looked into the 32bit side of things recently.

[mansaxel]

While you were all on discord I was busy in the lab.

I received my little 6x10cm brown paper envelopes, all 120 of them.
Have a pack of Avery A4 label sheets, so I got cracking.

LibreOffice can do labels of course, and it had the appropriate Avery template. So in a couple clicks I could start typing all my E24 labels one by one, all 168 of them.

Problem however, is that somehow in "label" mode, LibreOffice severely restricts how I can edit the document ?!

Somewhat enticed with your inspiration from Cerebus, I found a DutchSpanish website, with a myriad of different-language storefronts, all speaking that eerie variant of native language that makes you feel it is not Amazon- or Conrad-bad translation, but more expensive, yet not fully professional hand-work. The main thing I think it is that the text is marketing copy, but while often technically correct, it is without the enthusiasm that really good copy conveys. 

Anyway, they're "Koro Packvision BV" and 300 envelopes went for ~24€, which comparing to the cheapest Chinesium storefront on Amazon was roughly equivalent, if I counted on shipping being free with Amazon.

On the label side, I think that the only way to not go insane while doing it from inside an Office Shite, is to grab the stag by the antlers (Swedish proverb for Doing It Right) and dive in doing a "mail merge"; i.e database-driven label printing.

Another way to go more constructively insane is to figure out how to do a \begin{tabular}{} grid in L^AT_EX that fits the labels, and then script a document from that, using a flat file, perhaps from a database dump, or if it is really only E series, do a math function that creates the E24 copy the E24 series from the Wikipedia article because They rounded values post facto with some care, and then get cracking.

Some doodling in gawk later:

Code: [Select]

function read_file_into_array(file, array     ,status, record, count ) {
   count  = 0;
   while (1) {
      status = getline record < file
      if (status == -1) {
         print "Failed to read file " file;
         exit 1;
      }
      if (status == 0) break;
      array[++count] = record;
   }
   close(file);
   return count
}


BEGIN {
records_count = read_file_into_array("E24", values);
printf "\\begin{tabular}{cccc}\n";
decades = 4;
decade = 1;  # a pointer
mult = 1; 
while (decade <= decades ) {
if (decade >1  ) {
mult = mult * 10;
};
# this is GNU extension.
PROCINFO["sorted_in"] = "@val_num_asc"
for ( resistor in values) {
printf " %.1f ",values[resistor] * mult;
if ( resistor%4 == 0 ) {
printf "\\\\\n" ;
} else {
printf "&";
};
};
decade++;
};
};

END {
printf "\n\\end{tabular}\n";
}


[McBryce]

A warning to anyone out there with an Creality Ender 3 3D Printer: Don't upgrade the hardware from the old 8 Bit board to the newer 32Bit 4.2.x boards. The hardware is fine and quieter (as the loudly claim), but the firmware is just broken. Missing features, non-working commands (and not trivial stuff either, basics such as filament loading and mid-print colour change aren't implemented or not working). I'll be spending the evening downgrading my Ender 3 Pro hardware.

McBryce.

Is there no open source firmware. 32bit marlin?
There is a promising config for it I'd say: "Configurations-release-2.0.9.3.zip\Configurations-release-2.0.9.3\config\examples\Creality\Ender-3\CrealityV422"
There is also one for V427. Try that before changing hardware says me!
Edit#2: And it's not as hard as they make it look. I've done similar Marlin installs before, it's really not too bad!

I haven't compiled Marlin before, but it might be worth a try. Do you have a link to the code?

McBryce.

The recent marlin is here. They have split out the premade configurations into it's own thing over here.
Edit: I've only compiled firmware in the Arduino software, but adding support for 32bit boards might be a bit convoluted or at least has been in the past. I guess that's why they do it with platform.io? Not 100% sure on "the path of least resistance" TBH, have not looked into the 32bit side of things recently.

What's annoying is that they list the benefits of the 32Bit board with "more RAM allows more functionality" and then release firmware with much less functionality and important gcode commands such as M600 are completely ignored??

McBryce.

[ch_scr]

What's annoying is that they list the benefits of the 32Bit board with "more RAM allows more functionality" and then release firmware with much less functionality and important gcode commands such as M600 are completely ignored??

McBryce.

That function in particular is configured (as in can be activated) in the configuration_adv.h beginning at line 2474.
Just uncomment the define there and you'll have it, that's the beauty of compiling yourself!

[Specmaster]

Oh I see that guy has also a cute little RACAL-DANA bench DMM for only 25 Euros !
Again he says it might now work.... so it probably doesn't, let's be honest... but only 25 Euros what the hell..

Interesting. That's a rebadged Thurlby 1905a, not a bad meter at all for the money.

You are correct, you know, when I saw that photo last night I thought it looked familiar and I have my 1905a sitting here right in front of me and still I managed to not make that connection. I agree with Robert, it is a good meter, has 6.5 digit capability and is well worth taking a chance on @ 25 Euro's, its a steal.

[Specmaster]

@Vince, personally, I'd seriously be tempted by that DMM, it is as has been said a rebadged Thurlby 1905a (Thurlby is brand name of TTi, as is Thandar, Thurlby Thandar Instruments hence TTi is the new name, they also own BlackStar). I have many items from that stable and have never regretted buying any of them. They are a well respected brand and even Dave likes them down under, where they are quite rare items.

[McBryce]

What's annoying is that they list the benefits of the 32Bit board with "more RAM allows more functionality" and then release firmware with much less functionality and important gcode commands such as M600 are completely ignored??

McBryce.

That function in particular is configured (as in can be activated) in the configuration_adv.h beginning at line 2474.
Just uncomment the define there and you'll have it, that's the beauty of compiling yourself!

New rabbit hole, new frustration... Installed VSCode, Platformio, lots of libraries, downloaded Marlin 2.0.9 and.... Compiling the software even without changing anything results in a failed compile with multiple errors that all mean nothing to me Tried the bugfix version, same result with different errors.

McBryce.

[Peter_O]

A warning to anyone out there with an Creality Ender 3 3D Printer: Don't upgrade the hardware from the old 8 Bit board to the newer 32Bit 4.2.x boards. The hardware is fine and quieter (as the loudly claim), but the firmware is just broken. Missing features, non-working commands (and not trivial stuff either, basics such as filament loading and mid-print colour change aren't implemented or not working). I'll be spending the evening downgrading my Ender 3 Pro hardware.

McBryce.

Is there no open source firmware. 32bit marlin?
There is a promising config for it I'd say: "Configurations-release-2.0.9.3.zip\Configurations-release-2.0.9.3\config\examples\Creality\Ender-3\CrealityV422"
There is also one for V427. Try that before changing hardware says me!
Edit#2: And it's not as hard as they make it look. I've done similar Marlin installs before, it's really not too bad!

I haven't compiled Marlin before, but it might be worth a try. Do you have a link to the code?

McBryce.

The recent marlin is here. They have split out the premade configurations into it's own thing over here.
Edit: I've only compiled firmware in the Arduino software, but adding support for 32bit boards might be a bit convoluted or at least has been in the past. I guess that's why they do it with platform.io? Not 100% sure on "the path of least resistance" TBH, have not looked into the 32bit side of things recently.

What's annoying is that they list the benefits of the 32Bit board with "more RAM allows more functionality" and then release firmware with much less functionality and important gcode commands such as M600 are completely ignored??

McBryce.

I switched to https://www.duet3d.com/ boards years ago and never looked back. Duet 2 Ethernet on the big one, Maestro on the small one. Different concept, but more professional stuff. I like it.
The maeastro ist no longer available, it's successor is the Duet 3 Mini.


https://drucktipps3d.de/duet-2-erste-eindruecke/


https://drucktipps3d.de/duet-2-maestro-einsatz/

[Andrew_Debbie]

Ah, a decent ad just popped up here, when I search for "frequency meters ", albeit in French.

Some unusual (here) interesting piece of TE.

A RACAL-DANAl universal counter.

https://www.leboncoin.fr/bricolage/2112563658.htm

A thing of true beauty.    Too bad we can't see what options it has.  GPIB makes it a 9514 or 9515, I think.  Not certain.    Options 22A and 24A are the OXCO.

[Andrew_Debbie]

Set to bid on an HP 6235A linear power supply.   Same seller as the Racal-Dana counter I recently bought.  Less than an hour to go.   Fingers crossed..

[TERRA Operative]

Hmmm. Not my thing, but it's rare to see this sort of thing pop up on Yahoo Auctions..
https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k1036023907


Just won this though, a Tek P6401 Logic Probe
https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/w1035072937


I'll poke away at the Tek P6247 1GHz differential probe I recently won later to test it and try to get it tweaked into spec (if needed).
Tonight I've been having a go at the cheap HP 355C step attenuator, seems someone has had a go at it before and replaced a BNC and I also found a resistor cracked. On top of that, I measured the resistances to find almost all are waayy out of spec, so new resistors will be eventually ordered.

[Vince]

@Vince, personally, I'd seriously be tempted by that DMM, it is as has been said a rebadged Thurlby 1905a (Thurlby is brand name of TTi, as is Thandar, Thurlby Thandar Instruments hence TTi is the new name, they also own BlackStar). I have many items from that stable and have never regretted buying any of them. They are a well respected brand and even Dave likes them down under, where they are quite rare items.

Thanks for the feedback people. I clicked the "Buy" button... which resulted in a pop-up message saying "Sorry it seems this item is reserved ".

Eh ?! 

If it's reserved why do you still show the " Buy " button on the ad page ?!   

That's a first for me ! 

Normally, so far, if someone clicked on the " Buy " button before you did, the button would become greyed out and read instead : " Transaction in progress.. " , while the buyer and seller are arranging payment and shipping. Not any more now it seems !
So basically, once again... when a good deal is still around an hour after being posted... it's too good to be true and disappointment is on its way...

[Andrew_Debbie]

Just won this HP linear power supply --> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393906153348

1812A....  serial number.      +6V 1A  and +/- 18V 200mA.   The 18V supplies have adjustable tracking.   

I'll post again after it arrives.