Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Vince]

No, don't go grabbing your reading glasses, you are not seeing double here... there ARE two of them !

Can't believe it... just 2 weeks after finding that exotic and rare Ferisol HA300B Nixie counter.... I find another one, exactly the same model ! 

Murphy at its best. Happens often with some other TE I got... like my glowing Tek type 502A. Bought my first one 4 years ago, then within 6 months I saw half a dozen of them for sale (of course too far to go pick them up), and then for 4 years, zero for sale, until I found my second one a couple months ago as you saw.

So... I knew that seeing this second counter was hardly indicative that they were common as mud, no. All it meant is that I better try and get it or else I would regret it ! 

Because I am lucky one time in a million... this one was actually close to me ! Like in : only 75kms / an hour drive away ! 
So I just went to pick it up this afternoon.

This one was sold "For parts", for 80 Euros. Same price I got the other one for, but I don't have to add 25 Euros shipping on this one, so it's still quite OK value for money-wise.

Guy selling it has a lab like I will never have. A HAM guy (yes apparently they still exist here). He split his lab in two : one side for the HAM "operations", the other side for the electronics lab.
HAM bench has 3 LCD screens, half a dozen radios all powered up and buzzing.. he actually USES his gear, I was stunned, it's not for show...
Has lots of cool WWII radio gear, including a 60kg art piece in like new condition, an American Collin  "ART 13", that they shoved into bombers.... and lot of cool stuff.
In his garden... I couldn't believe my eyes, a 11 meters high pole with half a dozen antennas mounted on top 
3m³ of concrete at the base to keep it in place, and 0.5m3 of concrete for each of the anchor points for the cables that help keep the mast in place when it's windy..

2 full height / 2meters high 19" racks 100% populated with fancy gear most people here would kill to have. R&S RF synth, HP Network analyzer, Anritsu spectrum analyser, to name a few.

Says every year he takes his camping van and spends a week in Germany in Friedrichshafen, says there is a huge international HAM fest there, a huge venue where they provide space for your camping van, showers, restaurant, electricity for your gear... all for only 50 Euros. The Germans mean business apparently !!! 

Anyway, counter is for parts so it's in a very rough shape, though complete and mostly working.

My first counter has now a donor... all I need most likely are a few Thyratron and/or Germanium trannies, of which the donor counter is full. So I am covered....
Might still want to try and get the donor running though, so I can use it as a test bed to assess the health of its Nixie boards.

I cannot test it for now because of its issues. Guy managed to make it count a 45MHz signal, but back home... can't get it to count anything 
Guy did say that he accidentally overloaded/blew the front end of the 520MHz Frequency converter plugin (the only plug-in the counter comes with).
so maybe it's a bit hard hearing and I need to crank up the amplitude of the input signal, I don't know... I tried with the old HP 3200B VHF oscillator, no luck. From memory the HP was outputting like 300mVpp.
Will try again with my old sig gen, limited to 1MHz but it can of course deliver much higher amplitudes, so might get me somewhere.

There is at least one Nixie board that's kaput, as you can see : left most digit instead of displaying '0', displays.... uh what the hell is it displaying ?!    Lemme have a closer look... what is this mess of a display... OH..... looks like it's turning on the '4' and '8' digits at the SAME time !   
I think guy said another board misbehaves, sometimes turns off, but the problem did not show up when we tested it on his bench. However he said it was one of the low frequency boards (300kHz), (digits #4 to #8 ), so no big deal. The 3 high-frequency ones (50MHz, 10MHz and 2MHz) are fine then... two of the 3 faulty boards on mine, are the 50 and 10MHz ones, so it's cool if they work on the donor counter ! 

So although I have no intention to restore this one, I still would want to spent a little bit of time to get it going again so I can test its boards without messing with my other counter.
So for that I need to pull the dodgy Frequency converter plugin and swap it for the "normal"/basic plugin from my other counter. BUT.... I can NOT remove the plugin on the donor counter because the mechanism is jammed somehow !!!    You can unlock it and pull the plugin PARTIALLY out, an inch or so, say, not more, at which point it must be catching something somewhere and it won't go out !

So first thing to do is take the counter apart, hoping there is a way to get to the inside of the plugin area without having to resort to destructive methods   

Other than that, mains power  'FRB' socket at the back, is half destroyed, would need a replacement in case of a restoration.
Top and bottom cover... 100% of the crews are missing. Needs a paint job all over as well.
Needs some metal work too : big dent on the top cover, front edge, to the right.. also impacted the chromed bezel sadly 
But inside it's like the other counter : 100% like new. Not a spec of dust (probably because there is no fan in these things). All boards are conformal coated, and wafer switches gold plated. So... it's new.
It's just the exterior that needs a bit of work.

The colour filter for the display is red versus orange for the other counter... so I have choice now ! 
Actually I like both... I can't make up my mind...

Ideally.... ideally.... my (first) counter, that I am restoring, most likely only needs a few Germanium trannies and Thyratron, so no big deal.
Hell maybe I can just swap boards with the donor and call it a day, job done.

Then I would not need a donor anymore... and I could, eeeeventually... get carried away and contemplate restoring the donor as well ?! 

Yeah.... fixing the first counter just by swapping boards is not fun... I want to design and make my own extender cards so I can work on the Nixie boards and troubleshoot them 

Restoring the donor would also be more satisfying as there is more work to do on it, so more satisfaction once it's all fixed up, a greater feeling of achievement eh ? 

That's it for tonight, you can now resume your normal activities.

[Neomys Sapiens]

@ ICE-TEA: General precautions are to keep DC and anything of greater power away from the inputs. These blow easily and repair won't be cheap or easy.
As it is a VNA, you can also measure phase. If you add that to the display, you would see something like the attached example, which is a bandpass filter in this case. (green: magnitude/attenuation, red: phase) 

[Neomys Sapiens]

@Vince: I hope that you can adjust the apparent positions of the digits in the unit that you keep. In this way it is it looks like an overused one-armed bandit.

[mansaxel]

Now, there's a Sunday project.

*goes away to mess with an apache config*

NOOOOOOOO !!!!!   

Status report: Having whacked my head into LetsEncrypt and CertBot for the better part of an evening, I now have a working config. I made things a bit hard for me, and moved web servers at the same time. Serious version upgrade, faster machine (now a vm with 24G RAM, and 8 virtual CPUs on top of FreeBSD "bhyve"), and one step closer to actually decommissioning the old server.

It is a very narrow path to follow if one wants to do sysadmin painting-by-numbers and just follow the instructions. I feel that there's a lot to be desired in terms of understanding. And I'm quite baffled at the mix of magic and grueling hand-configuration required. Seems half-baked. Anyway, a little padlock now is visible.

And....



...pictures can be included. SMF has come into this millenium.

[Vince]

@Vince: I hope that you can adjust the apparent positions of the digits in the unit that you keep. In this way it is it looks like an overused one-armed bandit.

Yes I noted that when I posted about it the other day.

I shall see what's going on exactly when I take it apart, but I can't see how it could not be fixed ?

I mean I guess it can only be one of two things : the tubes not seated properly in their socket, and/or the boards themselves not seated properly in their card-edge connector... in either case should be easy to "fix"...

[mansaxel]

Sadly I think for instrumentation we are still groping blindly to find modern, mostly digitally implemented, user interfaces that are better than the analogue user interfaces they replace.

I fully agree. The Janitza is quite OK, though. A bit expensive, of course.

[mansaxel]

NOOOOOOOO !!!!!   

mnem
I dare you: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA23623_hires.tif 

Only 2.3GB and 2 hours download time according to Firefox.... because my 4G modem seems in good shape this evening, freaking 350kB/s  wow! 
I wish it were like that 24/7....

It's not only you; I'm only getting about 780kbit/s  on a gig-connected host. (trying from my colo host which does have excellent connectivity).  NASA must have put that file on  a slow machine.

Edit: Fetched a FreeBSD image just to test, and I got 346MiB in 5 seconds. So, it's NASA.

[Cerebus]

NOOOOOOOO !!!!!   

mnem
I dare you: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA23623_hires.tif 

Only 2.3GB and 2 hours download time according to Firefox.... because my 4G modem seems in good shape this evening, freaking 350kB/s  wow! 
I wish it were like that 24/7....

It's not only you; I'm only getting about 780kbit/s  on a gig-connected host. (trying from my colo host which does have excellent connectivity).  NASA must have put that file on  a slow machine.

Edit: Fetched a FreeBSD image just to test, and I got 346MiB in 5 seconds. So, it's NASA.

It's them big Texas electrons, too big to fit through them thin Internet pipes in Reston, VA.

[mnementh]

The INTEGRATION has begun...

mnem
Yes, you may touch it...

[mnementh]

NOOOOOOOO !!!!!   

mnem
I dare you: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA23623_hires.tif 

Only 2.3GB and 2 hours download time according to Firefox.... because my 4G modem seems in good shape this evening, freaking 350kB/s  wow! 
I wish it were like that 24/7....

It's not only you; I'm only getting about 780kbit/s  on a gig-connected host. (trying from my colo host which does have excellent connectivity).  NASA must have put that file on  a slow machine.

Edit: Fetched a FreeBSD image just to test, and I got 346MiB in 5 seconds. So, it's NASA.

Yeah, well I would expect them to limit B/W on requests from the general public; it's not like they have unlimited discretionary funds, and they have actual science needs tending.

Similar setup here: 1GbE host direct to 1GbE gateway router, connected to 1Gb symmetrical fiber ONT. This old house has yummy ISP. 

mnem
*toddles off to shut down his workbench*

[AVGresponding]

@Vince: I hope that you can adjust the apparent positions of the digits in the unit that you keep. In this way it is it looks like an overused one-armed bandit.

Yes I noted that when I posted about it the other day.

I shall see what's going on exactly when I take it apart, but I can't see how it could not be fixed ?

I mean I guess it can only be one of two things : the tubes not seated properly in their socket, and/or the boards themselves not seated properly in their card-edge connector... in either case should be easy to "fix"...

You neglected the third option; the boards could be from multiple different sources/iterations, and naturally offset, in which case there is no fix. The modules nixiefreqq kindly sent me to fix my 5245L are of a different generation to the originals, and while functionally the same, there's a slight offset issue which prevents the fitment of the steel retainer bar across the top of the displays. Also one tube is a Russian equivalent and is physically bigger, and means that board doesn't quite seat.
Personally I think it adds to the character of the instrument.

[McBryce]

NOOOOOOOO !!!!!   

mnem
I dare you: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA23623_hires.tif 

Only 2.3GB and 2 hours download time according to Firefox.... because my 4G modem seems in good shape this evening, freaking 350kB/s  wow! 
I wish it were like that 24/7....

It's not only you; I'm only getting about 780kbit/s  on a gig-connected host. (trying from my colo host which does have excellent connectivity).  NASA must have put that file on  a slow machine.

Edit: Fetched a FreeBSD image just to test, and I got 346MiB in 5 seconds. So, it's NASA.

Yeah, well I would expect them to limit B/W on requests from the general public; it's not like they have unlimited discretionary funds, and they have actual science needs tending.

Similar setup here: 1GbE host direct to 1GbE gateway router, connected to 1Gb symmetrical fiber ONT. This old house has yummy ISP. 

mnem
*toddles off to shut down his workbench*

The time of the day makes a difference too. It's downloading for me at 1.1Mbit/s at the moment.

McBryce.

[med6753]

Here you go hp fan boys. Don't know if that's a reasonable price or he's crazy. Appears to be in good shape. I have no interest.


https://hudsonvalley.craigslist.org/ele/d/poughkeepsie-hp-4195a-network-spectrum/7454375022.html

[Robert763]

The first thing to learn about using VNAs is that to get accurate measurements the required accessories will cost more than the analyser.

Need to get something out of the damn thing before I worry about accurate 

Ok, which unit is it? Maybe I could guide you to a point where you ought to see something.

HP8753E. Don't worry about it too much though. I actually like figuring stuff like that out It's just that time is always in short supply

At least the RF test set is built in with the "E" model. That's one variable and 4 coax cables eliminated 

[Vince]

@Vince: I hope that you can adjust the apparent positions of the digits in the unit that you keep. In this way it is it looks like an overused one-armed bandit.

Yes I noted that when I posted about it the other day.

I shall see what's going on exactly when I take it apart, but I can't see how it could not be fixed ?

I mean I guess it can only be one of two things : the tubes not seated properly in their socket, and/or the boards themselves not seated properly in their card-edge connector... in either case should be easy to "fix"...

You neglected the third option; the boards could be from multiple different sources/iterations, and naturally offset, in which case there is no fix. The modules nixiefreqq kindly sent me to fix my 5245L are of a different generation to the originals, and while functionally the same, there's a slight offset issue which prevents the fitment of the steel retainer bar across the top of the displays. Also one tube is a Russian equivalent and is physically bigger, and means that board doesn't quite seat.

Oh.. wow... uh.... erm... thanks for that ? I guess ?!   
Sure didn't see that coming.... well well well... let's just hope that is not the problem ! 
But thanks, I will look at all the boards closely and compare them side by side, and take measurements with calipers.
Worse case I guess I could trim the edge of the PCB where it sits in the card edge connector, so that it sinks a bit lower...
Or since I have two counters, mix and match the board to try find a complete series of aligned boards.

We shall see, thanks for the warning !

Personally I think it adds to the character of the instrument.[/color][/size][/b]

I will first try to fix it... and if I can't, OK, I will try to convince me it gives it character !   

WOOOOORST case well... the board is simple, so I could just make a new one on Kicad with the dimensions I need...

OH ! Another idea : instead of trying to trim / lower the "high" boards... I could approach it the other way around, and instead try to RAISE the low boards ?!
Could put a shim between the Nixie tubes and their socket, or between the bottom of the boards and their edge connector on the main chassis...
Or if that would lead to so much raising that it would compromise the reliability of the connection for either tube, or the board edge connector, then split / spread the raise between these two places.

Anyway, I will try and figure something out ! 

[Specmaster]

NOOOOOOOO !!!!!   

mnem
I dare you: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA23623_hires.tif 

That is nasty!    I cancelled when I realized that even with my brand new DSL modem (yep, it got replaced AGAIN on Friday) it was going to take 4.5 hours...

Downloading it now, estimated time on my system states it will be 44 minutes, lets see.

EDIT:
Update, 46 minutes in total, the detail in that photo is amazing, shame that so much of it has been blacked out. Oh, that 46 minutes was while I down loading 5 other bits of 4K HD video at the same time 

[tggzzz]

NOOOOOOOO !!!!!   

mnem
I dare you: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/archive/PIA23623_hires.tif 

That is nasty!    I cancelled when I realized that even with my brand new DSL modem (yep, it got replaced AGAIN on Friday) it was going to take 4.5 hours...

Downloading it now, estimated time on my system states it will be 44 minutes, lets see.

EDIT:
Update, 46 minutes in total, the detail in that photo is amazing, shame that so much of it has been blacked out. Oh, that 46 minutes was while I down loading 5 other bits of 4K HD video at the same time 

Try this link to the 18k*5k image, a mere 78MB (not surrounded by img tags to avoid annoying everybody!)
https://mars.nasa.gov/system/resources/deepzooms/24797_PIA23623_revised.jpg

[mnementh]

Sadly I think for instrumentation we are still groping blindly to find modern, mostly digitally implemented, user interfaces that are better than the analogue user interfaces they replace.

I fully agree. The Janitza is quite OK, though. A bit expensive, of course.

Ehhhhh..... I think that is as much to do with design by committee and scope creep/feature bloat as it does with anything inherent in "digital". Look at modern cars with digital dashboard; Tesla d-baggery aside, most of the manufacturers quickly learned (because people stayed away in droves) that emulating analog gauges (in most cases, with digital mechanical gauges) was what people need and want when driving. A little "infocenter" area for the ECM to talk to the driver is okay... but basic controls need to be usable instantly (as in both instantly readable and instant response) with just a moment's glance away from the road.

One of the most annoying UI "features" of the Rav4 (aside from the idiotically long and insistent seatbelt Bitch-a-ma-tron, which even overrides essential driver information like the turn signal tick-tock and notification bings) is the Remote Keyless Entry: It has a 2-stage entry; you press the button once, it chimes once twice and unlocks only the driver's door. But it doesn't unlock until after it finishes playing the fucking door chime. TWICE. Worse, when you press the button twice quickly to open all the doors, it doesn't open the other doors until after it finishes playing the door chime twice, unlocks the driver's door, then plays the door chime twice again (Yes, a total of 2 solenoid activations and 4 chimes).    This whole cycle takes over a second to complete... and if you have a impatient teenager who pulls the door handle at the sound of the first chime, the pulled door handle interferes with unlocking that door every fucking time.    Obviously, they simply did not do any consumer reaction studies, because I guarantee you, that "feature" would have gotten a LOT of negative feedback.

The problem is that the bean counters don't properly consider the work involved in proper software UI design; they just keep adding stoopit shit and expect the software designers to wave their magic wand and all those "features" will magically become usable functionality rather than 16 layers of useless shit you have to wade through to get to the stuff you need. 

If our modern TE followed similar UI design rules to that of most automobile dashboards, none of us would ever have "DS1054Zed dread"... and there is a reason I felt instantly at home using my 54645A, even though it is technically a less-advanced scope than the 1054Zed. The UI is straightforward and uncluttered, response is CRO-instant, and the digital features just work without you having to guess whether you have every possible config (including that one that's buried 3 menu layers deep) set right.

mnem

[dl6lr]

That is nasty!    I cancelled when I realized that even with my brand new DSL modem (yep, it got replaced AGAIN on Friday) it was going to take 4.5 hours...

The limit is on the other end of the modem. I do not get 1MB/s from that "server"...

[david77]

...
If our modern TE followed similar UI design rules to that of most automobile dashboards, none of us would ever have "DS1054Zed dread"... and there is a reason I felt instantly at home using my 54645A, even though it is technically a less-advanced scope than the 1054Zed. The UI is straightforward and uncluttered, response is CRO-instant, and the digital features just work without you having to guess whether you have every possible config (including that one that's buried 3 menu layers deep) set right.

This.
After the first 5 minutes using the 54621A the DS1054Z left my bench for the depth of the not-so-frequently-used TE storage shelf.

[Vince]

OI !!

Success, the counter plug-in is freed !!! 

At first I tried to take the metal work / enclosure of the plugin compartment apart, so I can access its inside and see what's going on... failure. It's not designed to be taken apart in situ, once the counter is fully assembled... I started doing it, gave it my best shot... but had to give up halfway, no joy.

So I changed approach. I pulled the plugin as far as it would go, an inch or so not more... shed some light in there, fiddled with it a bit... and was able to see what the problem was.

Remember I said there was a dent on the top cover and chromed bezel ? It didn't look THAT bad from the outside... but... it was, it turns out.
Underneath the chromed bezel there is a long beam/stiffener that runs all the way across the width of the instrument. So I removed the two side panels (which contain each a couple spare fuses, fuse holders and Allen wrenches !  ), that gives you access to a 3mm BTR screw at each extremity of the beam, and then the beam just comes off... thus freeing the plugin, (and Nixie boards) which now comes out as it should.
Once the beam is out, you can really see it's severely bent. Eyeballing it, something like 1/4" worth of deformation inward ! No wonder the plugin was banging on it ! 
The beam is quite thick/beefy iron... will be a lot of fun trying to straighten it ! I guess short term, I can make it "good enough " to stop it from interfering with the plugin, but as far as getting it back into proper cosmetic shape... that's a whole different story...

Front panel is well designed : comes off as one big unit ! 
Once you have removed the few screws visible from the outside, you can get the entire assembly out of the way and work on it as you want. Well, you can't detach it completely from the counter because the wiring harness has no connector sadly, but you get a fair bit of movement, enough to work on it quite comfortably. Plus, looks like if you cut just a few tyraps, the harness can get even more slack.

Once the front panel is "loosened" in this way, the colour filter for the display is easily removed, should you want to replace it for a different colour, or polish it for restoration.

Because I love you very much, I pulled the Nixie boards so I can make a few decent pics of them.

Well, not all of them, just one of each : 50MHz, 10MHz, 2MHz and 300kHz, from top to bottom on the pic below. 50MHz section is actually made up of two boards not just one. The one that holds the Nixie tube, whose topology is similar to all the other boards, but then it needs also that other board, this one contains quite a bit of transistors....

I note that one of the boards has 2 of its 8 trannies, that have been replaced. A different/more modern looking package, but same part number it seems.

As for the vertical alignment "problem" of the Nixie tubes, had a first look at it and looks like the answer is simple : the mechanical design of the counter just does not permit to hold the boards firmly in place, never mind an accurate place...
Turns out the boards do NOT have a card edge connectors... no. They have proper board to board connectors. Connector is made of thick round pins. Problem is that even once the board is properly seated, there is still a lot of play in the connector "assembly" : the board can easily rock back and forth, which translates into a fair bit of vertical movement at the NIxie end of things !   
The board does not "snap" into place, never mind firmly so.

So basically all you can do is wiggle the boards to align the tubes, then put the top cover in place and hope they stay that way ! 

OK, 2PM here, time to cook something, then go shopping at the H/W store to get what I need to pack my Metrix Wobuloscope, ship it to the buyer... then this evening I will resume work on the counter.

Now that I have freed the plugin compartment, I will be able to use my plugin from the other/working counter, see if that gets the donor going....

Have a good day...

[Robert763]

Very nice Vince.
Looks like an easy fix for aligning the nixies: Just take a small round file to the PCB and turn the mounting holes for the nixie sockets into slots.

[med6753]

The crazy price increases are hitting the automotive consumable market big time. When I was working the CR-V and Civic were on a 6K mile oil change schedule. But now that I'm retired neither go more than 4K-5K/year so I put them on a 1 year oil change schedule regardless of mileage (as long as under 6K miles). Both will be due for an oil change in June. Decided I better stock up on oil/filters now and I'm glad I did. I saw one 5 quart synthetic oil jump from $25USD to $46USD in one day. Purolator economy filters $12USD on Amazon (new stock) vs only $8USD for their premium filter (old stock). Which means restock is probably going to be $15USD or more. Obviously I went with the premium filter and I snagged Pennzoil Platinum Synthetic 5qt for $25USD from Walmart. You can bet that price will go nuts soon.

The CR-V has 55K miles on it and the original front brake pads. It will be due for NYS Inspection in May and I figure they will need replacement. The prices for new Chinese rotors at the local auto parts stores are ridiculous. The prices for the pads are nuts too. The offerings on Amazon seem to be nothing more than cheap Chinese but not cheap price wise. There is a Honda Dealer in Rhode Island that sells OE Honda parts on line at a discount. I was able to get genuine Honda OE brake pads and rotors cheaper than any other source. That has never happen before. OE is usually the most expensive. $200USD including shipping/tax which is a bargain.

     

[Brumby]

Checked out the 539A today.

A quick wipe down of the case was all it needed.  Inside wasn't too bad, just dust - a healthy layer, but not greasy.  I gave a small patch of the PCB a rub with a dry cotton bud and the dust it removed was dry - so that gave me confidence I wouldn't have to deal with decontamination.  I gave the PCB a spritz with IPA and a little working with a small brush, then rinse off.







I let that dry and powered it up.  All magic smoke stayed in place.   



Fed it a 1MHz signal and was able to get a trace up pretty easily.  There is a nice sharp trace which gets a bit fuzzy towards the sides.  There is limited range of brightness.  My comfortable operating level (only bright enough to be clearly visible) requires the control at 90-95%.  There is also an increase in trace size when the brightness is varied from barely visible to maximum.  While this isn't ideal, it isn't too bad.  The timebase, however, seems to be running about 33% fast.  That will require some attention - but it will be a ways down on the priority list.

[Robert763]

The crazy price increases are hitting the automotive consumable market big time. When I was working the CR-V and Civic were on a 6K mile oil change schedule. But now that I'm retired neither go more than 4K-5K/year so I put them on a 1 year oil change schedule regardless of mileage (as long as under 6K miles). Both will be due for an oil change in June. Decided I better stock up on oil/filters now and I'm glad I did. I saw one 5 quart synthetic oil jump from $25USD to $46USD in one day. Purolator economy filters $12USD on Amazon (new stock) vs only $8USD for their premium filter (old stock). Which means restock is probably going to be $15USD or more. Obviously I went with the premium filter and I snagged Pennzoil Platinum Synthetic 5qt for $25USD from Walmart. You can bet that price will go nuts soon.

The CR-V has 55K miles on it and the original front brake pads. It will be due for NYS Inspection in May and I figure they will need replacement. The prices for new Chinese rotors at the local auto parts stores are ridiculous. The prices for the pads are nuts too. The offerings on Amazon seem to be nothing more than cheap Chinese but not cheap price wise. There is a Honda Dealer in Rhode Island that sells OE Honda parts on line at a discount. I was able to get genuine Honda OE brake pads and rotors cheaper than any other source. That has never happen before. OE is usually the most expensive. $200USD including shipping/tax which is a bargain.

     

I know there are some firm opinions on this, but you really don't need to change synthetic oil in a modern engine every 6,000 miles 1 year.  A 12,000 mile 2 year change is perfectly OK. A longer interval is a lot more eco-friendly too. It's interesting to read the UK and North American versions of the service schedule for identical cars (have to make sure it's the same engine though). The American service intervls are a lot shorter. This is despite the fact tha average journeys are much shorter in the UK.
It seems to be marketing driven thing in the USA.