Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Are you suggesting that the tinkerdwagon enjoys stirring shit up...? Moi...?

It appears Vectron is now a MicroChip property, and currently headquartered in New Hampshire... so not that close. Did you look at their online reference library for any legacy data?

http://www.vectron.com/products/literature_library/index.htm

mnem
*toddles off to feed the chiddlers*

[Specmaster]

An off topic post, and yet sort of topical at the same time, as no doubt we are following the situation in Ukraine at the moment. I had this YT video suggested to me, about 2 men trying to escape from Kyiv to Hungary, and it seemed so surreal to hear public address announcements on the train were also in English and so many Ukrainians speaking English as well.

 

[Vince]

An off topic post, and yet sort of topical at the same time, as no doubt we are following the situation in Ukraine at the moment. I had this YT video suggested to me, about 2 men trying to escape from Kyiv to Hungary, and it seemed so surreal to hear public address announcements on the train were also in English and so many Ukrainians speaking English as well.

Well every time I see a piece of news on TV from some foreingn country, no matter on the planet it is, somehow people there speak English.

The only ones on earth that seem incapable of speaking English, are the French. it must something to do with our genes I guess 
.. or we are just stupid and lazy, I don't know...
OTOH people here have become completely illiterate, digital age and all that, they can't even speak or write or understand French anymore... so I say top priority is master French, then we can look into luxuries such as learning a second language...

[Vince]

Are you suggesting that the tinkerdwagon enjoys stirring shit up...? Moi...?

It appears Vectron is now a MicroChip property, and currently headquartered in New Hampshire... so not that close. Did you look at their online reference library for any legacy data?

http://www.vectron.com/products/literature_library/index.htm

mnem
*toddles off to feed the chiddlers*

I was hoping Microchip did not get rid of the Vectron HQ / facility, that they would do liek most merges do : change the sign / logo at the public entrace / gate, and that's about it...
Oh well ...

No joy with your link, no datasheet there.
Problem is Microchip/ Vectron now make a modern OCXO with the same series name, but completely different product... so it's a mess.

No worries, I will just wait for my friend to excavate it, he said he had the original one on paper, 50 year old paper.... he has lots of it... a truck load... just needs a bulldozer to find the relevant book...

Anyway he said it was good for 10^-9  and trimmed it at work with top notch TE. So I will go with that for now... 10^-9  or there about is good enough for my 8 digit Nixie counters, so I am good.  Obviously it probably drifted a bit over the past 30/40 years not being used, but should still be in that order of magnitude no matter what I would think, so still perfectly good enough for my old counters...

[Cubdriver]

Are you suggesting that the tinkerdwagon enjoys stirring shit up...? Moi...?

It appears Vectron is now a MicroChip property, and currently headquartered in New Hampshire... so not that close. Did you look at their online reference library for any legacy data?

http://www.vectron.com/products/literature_library/index.htm

mnem
*toddles off to feed the chiddlers*

I was hoping Microchip did not get rid of the Vectron HQ / facility, that they would do liek most merges do : change the sign / logo at the public entrace / gate, and that's about it...
Oh well ...

No joy with your link, no datasheet there.
Problem is Microchip/ Vectron now make a modern OCXO with the same series name, but completely different product... so it's a mess.

No worries, I will just wait for my friend to excavate it, he said he had the original one on paper, 50 year old paper.... he has lots of it... a truck load... just needs a bulldozer to find the relevant book...

Anyway he said it was good for 10^-9  and trimmed it at work with top notch TE. So I will go with that for now... 10^-9  or there about is good enough for my 8 digit Nixie counters, so I am good.  Obviously it probably drifted a bit over the past 30/40 years not being used, but should still be in that order of magnitude no matter what I would think, so still perfectly good enough for my old counters...

So basically like HP, where every time I do a web or EvilBay search on an old HP instrument number I get a flood of printer cartridges and other useless computer crap that reuses the old part numbers and vastly outnumbers what I'm interested in, resulting in a ton of chaff to sort through to find the few grains of wheat.  (Ebuy's crap search/sorting is no help either, but that's another ball of wax.)

 

-Pat

[Vince]

Same here, our local ad site leboncoin.fr has no category for electronics or TE stuff, so you put it under "industrial " stuff, or "hobby" or whatever depending on the mood, all of which are irrelevant.

So you have no choice but do a broad site-wide search, hence when you search for HP TE, all you get as you said is a trillion of HP consumer crap... so I just give up, it's totally insane.

So instead I search for agilent and Keysight, because luckily these terms are not used by anything else, and most vendors who sell HP stuff are clever enough to add Agilent / Keysight words in their description/ad body, even when they sell an old / vanilla HP piece of TE.

[Vince]

Seeing the end of cable sorting I think ! 

Ethernet cables are done, 14 of them.

All that's left now is this big box of old computer ribbon cables. I weighted the box at no less than 2.7kg.

Counted the cables... 49 of them ! 

I think that's a bit too much hey ?

OK I am into old computers, but still that's way too much !

My reasoning is that the IDE ones (there are also FDD cables) can be used to connect to 0.1" headers so could be useful in my electronic ventures possibly...

Still need to throw some of them away I think ! Maybe keep half of them I don't know ...

I guess I should first sort them a bit to see what's what.

A pile for the IDE cables, another for the FDD cables.
And sort the IDE cables : a pile with 0.1" cables, another with high density 0.05" cables.
A pile with the cables that have only 2 plugs, and another pile for those with 3 plugs, master/slave stuff.

Then look at each pile in the eyes, with a menacing look, see which cables get scared and run away for their life, and which ones want to stay...

[25 CPS]

I’ve finally had some time to do a bit of badly needed bench cleanup and gotten back to those Stark substitution boxes I picked up in January.

The big question I had given the Conestoga College markings on the bottom cases was:  Did they get cooked by students?  I saw stuff go up in smoke in the lab when I was in college and I know it’s easy for people just starting out to damage equipment by accident.

Anyways, I’m walking through the low side steps on the resistance box with the 3457A.  Some of the values at the extreme ends of the ranges are damn close to bang on if not right on so I don’t think they got used and abused much:









15 and 22 ohms is a good example at the bottom end of the low range where they're very close and they get close again across the top part of the range like the 1k and the 10k I took sample pictures of.









The trouble spot seems to be the lower to middle third is way out.  There must've been a lab assignment where this part of the low range got used hard and might have been run hot for extended periods.  Here's a good example where the 150 would better serve as a capable 220 for the next value up, for instance:





Anyways, another cup of coffee and change the music and I'll walk through the high range and see how it tests out and maybe take the cover off to see what the inside looks like.

[Vince]

Interesting little box !

I only knew of decade boxes, didn't know about E6 series boxes, nor thought of it... but that's quite cool. A wide range 10R to 10M with only 2 knobs in a very compact little box, quite handy ! 

Love the town it was made in, too, AJAX, cracked me up  ! 

And how come you posted so many pics but NONE of its guts ?! 

Or maybe you did when you bought them can't remember... january in TEA terms is like 10 centuries ago 

Is it just off the shelves through hole 5% resistors that you can easily source and replace ?

[25 CPS]

The high range side of the box is a totally mixed bag, all over the map.  Some are close like the 22k:





Then others are way off like the 470k and 680k, then back to close at 1M and then high again for most of the rest of it.









I took the two boxes apart not knowing to expect inside.  The resistance box is pretty straightforward with the range switch throwing one of the banana plugs between the two wafter switches.  The common’s all bare wire looping all the resistors on each wafer switch with a jumper connecting the two and an insulated wire going directly from one to the other banana plug.







The resistors themselves are A-B style ones but clearly some of them have drifted up pretty badly even though they all started out with a 10% tolerance from new.  I wonder what the cost difference would have been to build this box with the 10% resistors it has vs 5% when it was made?

The more interesting box on the inside was the capacitance box.  The same general build was followed with one end of the capacitors attached to the wafer switch and the other side to a bare wire common ring but I’ll have to do a separate post for that due to the attachment limit.  That separate post's going to have to wait until later tonight or tomorrow because I'm about to head out the door and pick up a friend and head to Swiss Chalet, which is neither Swiss nor a Chalet, and have dinner.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Interesting little box !

I only knew of decade boxes, didn't know about E6 series boxes, nor thought of it... but that's quite cool. A wide range 10R to 10M with only 2 knobs in a very compact little box, quite handy ! 

Love the town it was made in, too, AJAX, cracked me up  ! 

And how come you posted so many pics but NONE of its guts ?! 

Or maybe you did when you bought them can't remember... january in TEA terms is like 10 centuries ago 

Is it just off the shelves through hole 5% resistors that you can easily source and replace ?

See here for a contemporary, professional version.
It's an E12-box with 0.5% 50ppm resistors.
(Maker is the Schärer Elektronik from Switzerland, otherwise known for their state-of-the-art chicken shack door automation device  )
http://www.seags.ch/ses/dekaden/

Yes, the picture shows mine. 

[mnementh]

yummmm.

mnem

[mansaxel]

Some comments on the pictures:

A somewhat closer pic than Spec usually manages. Less engines running, though.

Sometimes it takes a special picture to get a firmly embedded notion corrected. I always had the Viggen put down mentally as being much more massive than the Gripen, factually as an aircraft of F-4-size. Your picture made me look at the data in direct comparison - it sits between the two except in wing area, which is nearly the same as the F-4 due to the configuration.

But the 37 looks HUGE. And the 39 does not. The impression is clearly different. Of note is that the 37 is the only one that folds to fit in hangars; the fin can be toppled over when you want to squeeze it in. Some hangars in Sweden are a bit complicated to enlarge; it requires rock blasting..

[mansaxel]

........... and some oddball phototransistors I couldn't find a datasheet for, pics below. Part number may be 2100-4 or 21004   

Coupled to the right LED with black shrink sleeve they would make good HV optocouplers.

I've been toying with using a neon in that situation, to get a low-current mains detector.  Or are there simple optocoupler solutions to that? A relay needs current, and any current at 230V means energy..

[BU508A]

So it is switching resistor boxes time? 

Okay, here are mine:

Burster PT100 simulator. I've received it in this state from the zhoefler seller from ebay
as a "Thank You!" gift, because I received some HV capacitors, which were meant for another customer, so I forwarded them to the correct customer and informed Mr. Hoefler about this. Then I got the other day a nice parcel from him.   

The resistors are all high precision and low drift types, made by Burster itself.


I got also in the same parcel some switching resistor modules, made by Burster as well.




And here my own homebrew and totally over-engineered switching box.   
Resolution: 0.1Ohm, accuracy: 1% (mostly), temp. drift: yes.

[Neomys Sapiens]

From good intentions and an enjoyable time away from the all-pervading topic...straight into catastrophe!

Originally I wanted to put this under the headline 'H.M. Schlumbergers - how the realm is kept safe by precision measurements' as both reached me from U.K. military sources. (The 7045 came from RAF Guetersloh, the 7151 from a former RSRE Malvern stock)
Nope, the realm isn't safe anymore, the realm got skunked. By a RIFA.  And I'm short one desk multimeter.   

First I had a go at the 7045, which still performs respectably given the long time since last calibration. It came into my hands in 1998, IIRC. It indicates high for the square AC waveform, like most average measuring instruments do. (see the MetraMax12) But for current not as much as much as for voltage, which I can't explain yet.
DC is in spec, resistance too. I think it will have to get a try at careful adjustment to correct the AC reading a bit.

So far so good - continued in next post.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Then the 7151. As a RMS-measuring instrument, nothing out of the expected seen on AC - regardless of frequency. (The 100Hz ACV picture had a garbled display caught in a bad sync moment with a short exposure, it seems)
But the indication of 3.64mA instead of 1 mA was a bit alarming and suggested urgent intervention. Resistance again not too bad, although the 7045 fared better, when taking resolution into account.
Letting it sit reading this resistance inorder to get an impression of the stability (the complete chain was used for both R measurements shown), I turned towards the computer in order to process the pictures...the 7151 is no more.

Did you know that the sound of an exploding RIFA is almost as disgusting as the smell? But only almost : My nose, my poor tortured nose!
The lack of universally compatible olfactoric input/output output devices did unfortunately prevent that I could include you all in the experience.

This disgusting episode of the DMMCheck series will hopefully get equalized by the performance of the next candidates, which are the active Multizets (A1000/A1001).

[Red Squirrel]

Total impulse ebay purchase.    HP 3311A function generator.

https://imgur.com/a/Okn036p

Was around $100 shipped.  The package came in right before I left for my first night shift so did not even get a chance to play with it yet. 

I want to get more into SMPS stuff so this will come in handy to test different switching frequencies and what not.  Mostly use it in square wave mode. 

[Vince]

So it is switching resistor boxes time? 

Okay, here are mine:

Burster PT100 simulator. I've received it in this state from the zhoefler seller from ebay
The resistors are all high precision and low drift types, made by Burster itself.
]

I love how the face plate keeps saying " + xxR "... " + " .. " + "...... does that mean they also do a similar box but that provides negative resistances ?! 

I got also in the same parcel some switching resistor modules, made by Burster as well.

Oh, Tektronix TM500 style resistor boxes, didn't know about this concept !  Do they also make a TM5000 style one with GPIB to configure the boxes ?!

And here my own homebrew and totally over-engineered switching box.   
Resolution: 0.1Ohm, accuracy: 1% (mostly), temp. drift: yes.

Nah, hardly over-engineered !  To the contrary, this is merely an early proof of concept prototype !
It will be over engineered only once you get to the final product you have in mind for sure : die cast aluminium enclosure, large colour graphical LCD with touch screen, 32 bit CPU running Linux, Ethernet, GPIB, USB, Wifi, Bluetooth, built-in web server, app on your smartphone, and voice synthesis of course, as well as a 4G modem with a SIM card so it can send you a text message for whatever event.

You are given 6 months to do it, with a report on progress posted here every week, to keep us entertained... no time to be wasted, get cracking NOW ! 

[Vince]

yummmm.

mnem

As always the US are all about finesse and nuance ! 

It's not an apple pie... it's BUCKET pie !   

Take a bucket load of apple chunks, wrap it in a bag, and you're done !

Is that how you intend to tackle your diet now you have moved to Connecticut ?! 


This is an apple pie in reasonable countries :

[Vince]

Interesting little box !

I only knew of decade boxes, didn't know about E6 series boxes, nor thought of it... but that's quite cool. A wide range 10R to 10M with only 2 knobs in a very compact little box, quite handy ! 

Love the town it was made in, too, AJAX, cracked me up  ! 

And how come you posted so many pics but NONE of its guts ?! 

Or maybe you did when you bought them can't remember... january in TEA terms is like 10 centuries ago 

Is it just off the shelves through hole 5% resistors that you can easily source and replace ?

See here for a contemporary, professional version.
It's an E12-box with 0.5% 50ppm resistors.
(Maker is the Schärer Elektronik from Switzerland, otherwise known for their state-of-the-art chicken shack door automation device  )
http://www.seags.ch/ses/dekaden/

Yes, the picture shows mine. 

Hmm yeah looks not too bad... too expensive for me though, especially since one needs a few of those boxes not just one...
Also, call me picky, but it looks horrible with these screws ! 

slotted heads ? Really, in 2022 ? 

At least he could have put them at the back of the enclosure so that they are hidden.
If he can't do that then at least use black anodized BTR screws so that they blend much better and don't look like spots on teenager's face ! 
And why not go all the way to 10M ? 
The banana plugs oriented side ways don't look very convenient to me. Takes more bench space and is so close to the bench surface that you can't wrap your fingers around the plugs to disconnect/connect them... posts mounted upwards on top of the enclosure, traditional style, seem much better to me 

... I intend to make my own boxes to save money have some fun and make them just like I want them... so you will be able to criticize them then ! 
Not going for BU's high-tech style though, I prefer "dumb" boxes... easier/faster/cheaper to design...and more reliable.

[Robert763]

So it is switching resistor boxes time? 

Okay, here are mine:

Burster PT100 simulator. I've received it in this state from the zhoefler seller from ebay
The resistors are all high precision and low drift types, made by Burster itself.
]

I love how the face plate keeps saying " + xxR "... " + " .. " + "...... does that mean they also do a similar box but that provides negative resistances ?! 


<SNIP>

If you look closely the dial is marked degrees Centigrade not Ohms. It is designed to simulate a Platinum resistance sensor.
They make them for negative temperatures:
https://www.burster.com/en/calibration-instruments/rtd-simulators/p/detail/4506-4506-s
The resistance is still positive   

[Vince]

Hmmmm..... right.... I was wondering about the Celsius symbol in there, and the extremely limited range (if it were ohms).... now makes a whole lot more sense, thanks ! 

A very special purpose little box then, interesting....

[Robert763]

Hmmmm..... right.... I was wondering about the Celsius symbol in there, and the extremely limited range (if it were ohms).... now makes a whole lot more sense, thanks ! 

A very special purpose little box then, interesting....

Well I have a few Pt100 thermometers so could use one. Not found one at a bargain price yet though. The burster ones are very nice. They are much better than the Time Electronics one that are much more common in the UK.

[Neper]

The only ones on earth that seem incapable of speaking English, are the French.

Methinks this cuts both ways.

Besides, all announcements in the port of Dover and onboard the DFDS ferries from there to Calais and Dunkirk are in English, French and... Polish. Make of that what you will.

https://aporee.org/maps/?loc=50664&snd=57768