Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Wow, I am starting my shopping with the 100uF 25V and 35V caps. Both voltages appear kinda obsolete, zero choice. Next voltage with good choice is 50V. OK so let's got for 50V, voltage derating only help increase their life expectancy after all, and will consolidate the BOM a bit... but...sorting by price, the cheapest decent brand with decent life expectancy at 105°C is... a Vishay a 1.10 Euro !!!

Over ONE EURO for a tiny 100uF 50V cap ?!! 

At that rate, BOM will cost me 100 bucks by the time I am done with the shopping !

Papa Smurf 20 buck BOM is I thought day dreaming for me here.

Only hope to not lose my house when I validate the order is... to compromise an buy this " Würth Electronics " stuff. I though they made German tools not electronic components... I don't know who they rebrand.. is it any good, any feedback on Würth caps or components ?? 

They do have a long life 105°C one and it's literally half the price of the Vishay one so... 

... but their datasheet sucks, not much info in there... they don't even mention ESR... you just don't know what you get... so a bit skeptical 
Not sure I want to spend the money and then have to replace them again and pay twice and dismantle the PSU twice 

Vince, you are being way too picky and getting twisted in your panties checking specs and capacitor type. Although I do understand your frustration with the limited selection you have available to you. It really isn't rocket science. I've re-capped literally dozens of PSU's, both linear and SMS, and never had an issue with the capacitor selected. Let's use the recent Type 105 re-cap as an example. There were concerns that re-capping sections of the unit would affect the quality of the output waveform. That proved not to be the case. I also demonstrated that I could take multiple separate cans that were in parallel and combine them in one capacitor with no ill effects. So what is my criteria for selection of replacement capacitors? Pretty simple:

Tantalum or aluminum
Axial vs radial
Capacitor value/voltage
105C
Known name brand
Cheapest price

That's it. Modern capacitors have low ESR anyway so I don't even consider that spec. "Long life"? Meh. And some of the more expensive "high grade" or "Gold" capacitors IMHO is marketing wankery to appease the audiophools.

And you can always play with values too if you can't find exact match. Or put capacitors in parallel. Examples: 100uf tants are damn expensive. Two 47uf in parallel a hell of a lot cheaper. Many older capacitors are values not considered "standard" today. Like 40uf. A 39uf standard is perfectly acceptable or you could upgrade to 47uf.     

[Martin Miranda]

Siemens B 1002 Multimeter. 

- broken negative socket.
- corroded rotary contacts.

works and tested. for being kept on a warehouse for ## of years.
another dmm in the collection.

[TERRA Operative]

Any of our German friends able to forward something from ebay to me in Japan?

I found a faceplace NOS for one of my TM500 modules, but the seller only seems to ship in Germany...

[Saskia]

went offloading brass at the scrap metal dealer yesterday. 33 kg  gave me about 150€ which I reinvested in some Ikea SAMLA boxes and an Asus ProArt 27" monitor that I got with a fair price reduction from my favorite distributor.
(hint: the 150 were not enuff to cover that cost ...)
Better have a spare for home office purposes ...

Reichelt was out of CAT 8. Was contemplating CAT 7a or going for fibre for my home cabling.
What's your opinion on that ?

[TERRA Operative]

Cat7 isn't a real standard for 8p8c 'RJ-45' modular connectors, that's Cat6A you want there. Category 7 is not recognized by the TIA/EIA.
Cat8 is only intended for shorter runs in data centers not for commercial or domestic use. Class I uses 8p8c connectors and is compatible with Cat6A but I doubt you'd find equipment at the consumer level that uses its capabilities.

Cat6A is good for a 10Gig connection and well more than enough for a home network. Most consumer hardware doesn't even support 10Gig yet anyway.
It's what I ran in my house (shielded S/FTP Cat6A and the proper shielded Cat6A Panduit keystone jacks and shielded patch panels) and it works fine. The slightly thicker conductors are good for PoE cameras and the like, but I need to use special 8p8c plugs on this cable (for things like direct connection to cameras rather than via a jack) as normal ones won't fit the thicker wires.


We don't even use RJ-45 Ethernet cable in the data centers anymore, we've moved almost exclusively to SFP+ and QSFP cables for 10Gig for servers and 100Gig for cross connects and uplinks from routers to switches etc.

[McBryce]

Shahriar introduced the other day a cheap battery driven spot welder.
Guess what?
Today a similar device showed up here.     

I've bought it for ca. 67 Euro at Amazon. It is a InLove-As-0532
(Really, who comes up with these stupid names all the time?)

Picture from Amazon:


I did a little teardown and spot welded two Nickel stripes.
The construction is a bit different than the one from Shahriar.

The front panel with all the connectors and knobs.


Overview, front- and backside of the PCB. Lots of vias. The two battery backs are connected in parallel.


The OLED display, backside and in use. This thing is able to throw out 460A with ease!


The copper tips and the high current connectors.


I did a little test with two Nickel stripes and here is the result. Back- and frontside.


I've isolated the area between the display and the screws of the battery packs with Kapton tape, because the display is flapping in the breeze and it could shorten the battery packs. Not a good thing imo. It is recommended to check first the construction of such a spot welder before the first use. Shariahr mentioned this as well in his video.

Thank you for watching.

And as tradition requires, they included a picture that makes absolutely no sense at all....

McBryce.

[ch_scr]

Shahriar introduced the other day a cheap battery driven spot welder.
Guess what?
Today a similar device showed up here.     
(...)

Thank you for watching.

And as tradition requires, they included a picture that makes absolutely no sense at all....

McBryce.

Why? I guess it's pretty efficient at indicating a short on a pcb 
Edit: Thinking about it, a good chance it might be spectacular as well

[Andrew_Debbie]

Wow, I am starting my shopping with the 100uF 25V and 35V caps. Both voltages appear kinda obsolete, zero choice. Next voltage with good choice is 50V. OK so let's got for 50V, voltage derating only help increase their life expectancy after all, and will consolidate the BOM a bit... but...sorting by price, the cheapest decent brand with decent life expectancy at 105°C is... a Vishay a 1.10 Euro !!!

Over ONE EURO for a tiny 100uF 50V cap ?!! 

At that rate, BOM will cost me 100 bucks by the time I am done with the shopping !

Papa Smurf 20 buck BOM is I thought day dreaming for me here.

Only hope to not lose my house when I validate the order is... to compromise an buy this " Würth Electronics " stuff. I though they made German tools not electronic components... I don't know who they rebrand.. is it any good, any feedback on Würth caps or components ?? 

They do have a long life 105°C one and it's literally half the price of the Vishay one so... 

... but their datasheet sucks, not much info in there... they don't even mention ESR... you just don't know what you get... so a bit skeptical 
Not sure I want to spend the money and then have to replace them again and pay twice and dismantle the PSU twice 

I stick with one well-known brand, Nichicon,  because it makes selection easier.  I memorize a few standard types and look at those first.   

Nichicon PM   should be around 50p each.   Ummm  part number UPM1H101MPD   EDIT:   8mm can is 3000hours.  UPM1H101MPD6 with 10mm diameter is    Rated 5000 hours at 105C.

Nichicon PS ~45p each   3000 hours at 105C     Switch mode power supply type.

Nichicon PW  £0.208 each in a bag of 10 from RS.    UPW1H101MPD    Available to back order for despatch 18/05/2022

PW are rated 2000-8000 hours at 105C depending on the can diameter.    I'll have to look at the datasheet.  . . .  100µF @ 50V is 8mm  - 3000hours at 105C.

TT and HE are the high reliability ones.  Checking datasheets again, since I never buy them.

UHE1H101MPD   7000 hours at 105C   0.318 in a pack of twenty  -  available for despatch mid august


Checking my personal stash,  I've  got UPW  220µF @ 50V and  470µF at 35V and 50V.   How critical is the value?  I could send you some 220s if you can't find stock. 

[Robert763]

Mouser operate in Europe https://eu.mouser.com/aboutus/
You might not get the same price as the USA though.....

But you do get free shipping from Mouser in the EU over a certain amount. Not the case here in USA. No free shipping regardless of amount.

This is my annual reminder that Digikey does do free shipping in the USA and Canada when you pay by check or money order:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/digi-key-has-changed-and-it-is-not-very-good/msg3273588/#msg3273588

Probably not super useful if you are buying a big BOM, but if you only need a few parts and you are not in a big hurry, it's killer.

I wonder if they would ship the 55 gallon drum of WD-40 for free. 
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/wd-40/640292/14039489

N. "A separate shipping fee may apply." is clearly shown.

[Robert763]

Wow, I am starting my shopping with the 100uF 25V and 35V caps. Both voltages appear kinda obsolete, zero choice. Next voltage with good choice is 50V. OK so let's got for 50V, voltage derating only help increase their life expectancy after all, and will consolidate the BOM a bit... but...sorting by price, the cheapest decent brand with decent life expectancy at 105°C is... a Vishay a 1.10 Euro !!!

Over ONE EURO for a tiny 100uF 50V cap ?!! 

At that rate, BOM will cost me 100 bucks by the time I am done with the shopping !

Papa Smurf 20 buck BOM is I thought day dreaming for me here.

Only hope to not lose my house when I validate the order is... to compromise an buy this " Würth Electronics " stuff. I though they made German tools not electronic components... I don't know who they rebrand.. is it any good, any feedback on Würth caps or components ?? 

They do have a long life 105°C one and it's literally half the price of the Vishay one so... 

... but their datasheet sucks, not much info in there... they don't even mention ESR... you just don't know what you get... so a bit skeptical 
Not sure I want to spend the money and then have to replace them again and pay twice and dismantle the PSU twice 

Vince, you are being way too picky and getting twisted in your panties checking specs and capacitor type. Although I do understand your frustration with the limited selection you have available to you. It really isn't rocket science. I've re-capped literally dozens of PSU's, both linear and SMS, and never had an issue with the capacitor selected. Let's use the recent Type 105 re-cap as an example. There were concerns that re-capping sections of the unit would affect the quality of the output waveform. That proved not to be the case. I also demonstrated that I could take multiple separate cans that were in parallel and combine them in one capacitor with no ill effects. So what is my criteria for selection of replacement capacitors? Pretty simple:

Tantalum or aluminum
Axial vs radial
Capacitor value/voltage
105C
Known name brand
Cheapest price

That's it. Modern capacitors have low ESR anyway so I don't even consider that spec. "Long life"? Meh. And some of the more expensive "high grade" or "Gold" capacitors IMHO is marketing wankery to appease the audiophools.

And you can always play with values too if you can't find exact match. Or put capacitors in parallel. Examples: 100uf tants are damn expensive. Two 47uf in parallel a hell of a lot cheaper. Many older capacitors are values not considered "standard" today. Like 40uf. A 39uf standard is perfectly acceptable or you could upgrade to 47uf.     

What about the "wobble" in the rising edge? How can you be sure that was not cused by the capacitors? I agree it is unlikely, but you can't be certain. One thing is certain, Tektronix didn't put the flat strip connections in the capacitor circuit without good reason.  The only obvious reason is low inductance. They certainly have  lot lower inductance than the leads of a modern minature electrolytic. We don't know why they used so mny sections in parallel either. Maybe because larger vlues were not available or would not fit but possibly to get a lower ESR. I have desigined circuits where I had to use multiple capacitors in parallel to et the required characteristics.

ESR and life (as specified in hours) are imprtant parameters. ESR can be critical in modern equipment. Too low can be bad in older designs too. There are plenty of 105C capacitors that have orders of magnitude lower "specification" life than the 85C version in the same can size from the same manufacturer. Go figure. In judging the quality of capacitors (for new designs as well as replacement) you need to consider all these things. 

[mansaxel]

went offloading brass at the scrap metal dealer yesterday. 33 kg  gave me about 150€ which I reinvested in some Ikea SAMLA boxes and an Asus ProArt 27" monitor that I got with a fair price reduction from my favorite distributor.
(hint: the 150 were not enuff to cover that cost ...)
Better have a spare for home office purposes ...

Reichelt was out of CAT 8. Was contemplating CAT 7a or going for fibre for my home cabling.
What's your opinion on that ?

A lot of things you want to connect is going to want copper, and the Cat6 generation is sufficient there. Copper of course conducts electricity which is useful for PoE consumers like WiFi access points, IP phones, cameras, and so on.

For links between switches, especially if they go between devices connected to different breaker panels (where ground potential difference might be a thing) I strongly prefer fibre.  I'm not 100% there at home, but for instance the connections between machine room in garage and switches in the house are optical and singlemode. Some links in-house aren't.

[TERRA Operative]

For links between switches, especially if they go between devices connected to different breaker panels (where ground potential difference might be a thing) I strongly prefer fibre.  I'm not 100% there at home, but for instance the connections between machine room in garage and switches in the house are optical and singlemode. Some links in-house aren't.

When I build my garage, I'll be installing two fiber pairs (one as a spare) and having a 10Gig link, no copper for the reasons you describe.

[med6753]

Today is an anniversary of sorts. One that I prefer to forget. It's the day I made that ill fated road trip to Utica, NY and the start of my medical issues that lasted damn near to September. The pain in my back started while I was driving to pick up the Type 547. By the time I got there the pain was pretty intense. And was aggravated by helping the guy get the Type 547 into the back of the CR-V. And then on the drive home getting a flat tire. I had to lift the Type 547 on my own out of the CR-V to gain access to the jack and spare tire. Then change the tire, again by myself. I had to stop at every rest area and lay down in the back seat to ease the pain before continuing. Took almost 4 hours to get home.

For the next week the pain came and went but by the 24th of March I knew I was in deep trouble and called the EMT's who transported me to the ER. The rest you guys know about.   

[tggzzz]

I had noticeable 30kHz SMPS noise on channel 2, and less on channel 1. I replaced C2360/2361/2560/2561 with some new 1000µF electrolytic capacitors. I replaced C1005/1019 4.7µF10V tant beads with 47µF 16V tant beads. The 30kHz is much reduced, even without the pre-amp tin box cover screening.

The main amp PSU is, by design, about 7V rather than the 5V on the schematic. The pre-amp PSU was about 7V, but I tweaked that to 5V and did the DC adjustments. Everything is now symmetrical around 0V, and the waveforms are cleaner. Remaining task is to reduce the peaking on fast input transitions.

Thanks for the pictures.

It is not clear from these pictures whether the shield is grounded or connected to some other circuit common. Can you confirm if there is a electrical shield connection?

There is <<1ohm between the transformer shield and the output BNC connectors, so it is connected to mains ground.

I opened up my A6902A to compare and found it is has a substantially different layout compared your unit, which I assume is an A6902B. In particular it seems to use linear supplies rather than the switching convertor in your unit hence the suggested capacitor changes would not apply to my unit.

That is indeed very different. The B's main PCB is rectangular, without a cutout for any of the transformers.

I notice the signal transformer orientation is different, which might be important.

Curing your problem will depend on where the noise is entering, and how it is getting there. On my unit the noise depended on the setting of the range switch on the preamplifier output, and the 30kHz was a dead giveaway. I suspect that increasing the tanalum capacitor value was at least as important as the electrolytics.

[tggzzz]

Pro power amp maker QSC used a quite clever catchphrase in their advertising; "Boringly reliable". That's what I want.

When HP/Sony introduced DAT drives for data backup, they used two very different advertising strategies.

In the USA a technician was shown screaming when something went wrong.

In Europe the picture was of a baby sleeping peacefully.

Comments on whether that indicates a wider motivation are directed to /dev/null.

[tggzzz]

Vince, you are being way too picky and getting twisted in your panties checking specs and capacitor type. Although I do understand your frustration with the limited selection you have available to you. It really isn't rocket science. I've re-capped literally dozens of PSU's, both linear and SMS, and never had an issue with the capacitor selected. Let's use the recent Type 105 re-cap as an example. There were concerns that re-capping sections of the unit would affect the quality of the output waveform. That proved not to be the case. I also demonstrated that I could take multiple separate cans that were in parallel and combine them in one capacitor with no ill effects. So what is my criteria for selection of replacement capacitors? Pretty simple:

Tantalum or aluminum
Axial vs radial
Capacitor value/voltage
105C
Known name brand
Cheapest price

That's it. Modern capacitors have low ESR anyway so I don't even consider that spec. "Long life"? Meh. And some of the more expensive "high grade" or "Gold" capacitors IMHO is marketing wankery to appease the audiophools.

And you can always play with values too if you can't find exact match. Or put capacitors in parallel. Examples: 100uf tants are damn expensive. Two 47uf in parallel a hell of a lot cheaper. Many older capacitors are values not considered "standard" today. Like 40uf. A 39uf standard is perfectly acceptable or you could upgrade to 47uf.     

I also take the operating frequency (SMPS/mains) and ripple current into account.

When removing a big electrolytic capacitor was too difficult (or I wanted to test the effectiveness of the existing capacitor), I've been known to solder a new capacitor in parallel with the old one.

[tggzzz]

An off-the-beaten-track auction in Hampshire UK, collect or arrange collection. Looks like a silent key clearout. The crappy pictures appear to show a Tek 2445, A TTi function generator, a Gould oscillator, and an Advance RF signal generator.

https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/pump-house-auctions/catalogue-id-srpum10214/lot-2757a91c-acad-4bfa-b319-ae5a01041ff4

[Cerebus]

For good or evil... I made it to the other side. Trying to decide whether the value of Catalina (the latest OSX) is worth the inherent security risk of running MacOS that has been "patched" by an out-of-channel 3rd party to work with this old box... I suppose if Frustion360 works with it, I can just not use it for anything that has money or important communications tied to it...

(1) Catalina (10.15) is not the latest, the latest is Monterey (12) two major version further down the line
(2) Catalina is still actively getting security patches (latest 2022-003)
(3) It's been called macOS, not OS X, since Sierra (10.12) in 2016, six major versions back

[Andrew_Debbie]

I was about to post something similar. 

I recently updated my work desktop from Catalina(10.15)  to BigSur(11.6)     


Installing yesterday's  Ubuntu 22.04  daily build  onto my  'Sandbox' MacPro.   

I'm going to set up a PACS and disk array on it.    Once that is done, I have to configure the MRI scanner to send data to it.  Nearly two years since I've done that.  Last time, we had a Philips applications software engineer showing me what to do.  Fingers crossed I don't break something.


This is in preparation to moving a production PACS to 22.04LTS next month.   

[Vince]

PSU recap.

Thanks for the comments and thanks Andrew for the offer ! 

OK so I spent a few more hours today clicking on websites. An absolute chore.

I took the time to complete the BOM on Mouser. Almost 30 Euros, including 5 Euros for a single lone Tantalum cap that Papy Smurf paid less than 2 Euros for in his BOM...
I press the trigger/order button. I am offered the expected 20 Euros export "deal" for shipping and customs fees etc... OK.
Then I click "Next", to select the payment method... and oh, what's that ?! They now add a new line to the order summary : " French Taxes, 10 Euros ", no detail/explanation 
So much for the "20 Euros flat rate we take care of everything for you " ! 

So 60 Euros in all, for 30 Euros worth of goods.

Order cancelled, bye bye.

Mouser also had the OEM Lithium backup battery for the CPU board, excellent, but won't export it (as TerraOperative said in his video..), so useless to me.

So I tried Reichelt and it's 30 Euros shipped, half price, not much hesitation from my part.
Well actually I pushed it to 35 Euros to get a backup battery. Not OEM of course, a cylindrical one, not available here, so much thicker than the flat / low profile original battery. Hoping it will clear the scope cover, we shall see. If it does, it's gonna be a close call.

The result of this PSU recap searching is that I am appalled, stunned and disgusted. It is my first and last "mass"/brute force recap, until the world/situation comes back to normal. Never again.

Now some more on-line searching for me today, this time to find a supplier for the plinths in the bedroom... hoping it will be a bit easier....

I hate spending hours sat in front of the computer searching for stuff, whatever that stuff is.
I like designing, thinking, creating, doing, building, crafting, testing, using/playing with stuff.... not searching all day long for stuff on-line   

[mnementh]

Shahriar introduced the other day a cheap battery driven spot welder.
Guess what?

   

I regret not to buy this when I was living in Germany.

Ooooooh... shiny kit.

   https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1100513560.html   (I think that's the correct listing)

Much nicer than this one (12V Spot Welder V5.6) I bought a lifetime ago in the GWN, which resurfaced yesterday while I was looking for caps for that Apple power brick. So far, I really have not had a need for it; all the cells I've built with lately have come from busting packs, so I just trim the existing shunts into tabs I can solder to.



Guess I do still need to at least build and try the fucking thing sometime soon...  I figured for $12, at least worth a punt. Get some nice high-current FETs for cheap if nothing else.

mnem

[mnementh]

Yebbut since you dodged the bullet on that bunk lot of micro/telescope objectives, even after you buy the baby-brother PZ-57s you'll still be $540 to the good... and you'll thank me every time you meet one of those Chinesium screws made of case-hardened cheese...

Not only I got the PZ-57, but if you post a PZ-56 I will buy it as well.

   

I looked into the PZ-56; it just didn't seem like anything I really wanted. The PZ-57 & PZ-58 are a quantum level better quality, and less expensive; these just seem like a slightly modified pair of crappy slip-joint pliers. 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=PZ-56&_sacat=0&_sop=15

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133971359618


   

Similarly, the PZ-59 appears to just be a modified pair of lineman's pliers; while they appear to be better quality than the PZ-56, looking at the ergonomics I honestly don't believe they'll get a useful grip on the larger screws they're supposedly intended for. 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=PZ-59&_sacat=0&_sop=15

https://www.ebay.com/itm/252258777151 (these were the cheapest ones I found with a vendor who had half-decent feedback)

mnem
*tool-dwagon*

[mnementh]

Trying to decide whether the value of Catalina (the latest OSX) is worth the inherent security risk of running MacOS that has been "patched" by an out-of-channel 3rd party to work with this old box... I suppose if Frustion360 works with it, I can just not use it for anything that has money or important communications tied to it...

I think you'll be good. Having a supported OS (even if a bit sideloaded) is better than running on old code. If it's snappy enough, that is.

Here's where we're at right now; While I waited for Catalina to finish installing, I migrated power connections over to the fanless 24V/6.5A Meanwell PSU, then posted my Q'apla! pic and went to bed. 

First thing this morning, I resumed and... crazy blinkity-blink on the Cinema Display again. 

Had the FLUKE 189 on hand; monitored voltage at the terminals while it was having its morning "episode": difference between Min/Max was ~380mV. So +/- approx 165mV regulation while the monitor was having its little hissy-fit. I think that's pretty effing good.

Okay... so immediately after getting that reading... less than 30 seconds powered up... I unplug the Meanwell PSU's power cord, wait 5 seconds, and plug it back in again.

Cinema display immediately comes up and plays perfectly, and has continued to do so for a couple hours over breakfast & coffee. 

I think next I will try unplugging the DVI, USB & FireWire plugs while it's freaking out and see if that changes the behavior. Still wondering if it's a "go away, I don't wanna wake up" old equipment problem inside the display (I think probably, but jeebus this thing's a total bitch to take apart without scratching the screen) or some weird interaction between monitor and CPU with "not Apple version" GTX670 GPU.

So yeah, I'm taking it little bit by little bit, eliminating likeliest culprits one at a time. Today, I plan to try and get Frustion360 and Cura working on it; see if I can get my 3DP workflow happening on MacOS.

One thing I like already... FireFlumph doesn't crash whenever I try to browse for attachments in here like before. 

mnem
"Any day you learn something new is a day not wasted." ~grand-dad

[mnementh]

@mnementh I love a cheese grader Mac Pro, I have a MacPro4.1 in my garage that I upgraded to 8 cores {(and I think 32gb ram), what are your specs?}; I see your geforce card, wanted to do that for playing older games. What's your usage plan for the Mac Pro?

P.S. First post (minus those in the support sub-forum), love reading y'alls back and forth over the years. Had a lurker account that dave purged btw

My use-case for the MacPro is... daily driver to become at least moderately proficient with MacOS. El Capitán was kindof holding that back, so the patched version of Catalina became necessary.

Specs according to EveryMac are:

Processor Speed:    2.8 GHz    Processor Type:    Q. Core Xeon E5462 x2
Details:    Each of two 45-nm Xeon E5462 (Harpertown/Penryn) processors has four independent processor "cores" with 12 MB of level 2 cache per processor (each pair of cores shares 6 MB). It also features a 128-bit SSE4 SIMD vector engine, and 1.6 GHz "64-bit dual independent frontside buses."

Turbo Boost:    N/A    Custom Speeds:    2.8, 3, 3.2 GHz*
Processor Upgrade:    LGA 771 Sockets    FPU:    Integrated
System Bus Speed:    1.6 GHz    Cache Bus Speed:    2.8 GHz (Built-in)
ROM/Firmware Type:    EFI    EFI Architecture:    64-Bit
L1 Cache:    N/A    L2/L3 Cache:    12 MB*
RAM Type:    PC6400 DDR2 ECC    Min. RAM Speed:    800 MHz
Details:    Uses "800 MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory" and has a "256-bit wide memory architecture".

Standard RAM:    2 GB    Maximum RAM:    64 GB*

Installed: 20GB ECC RAM, 4x 750GB 7200RPM Barracuda SATA-II HDDs, Generic-FW NVIDIA GTX670, DOSDUDE1-patched Catalina OS

The GTX670 was a necessary upgrade, as the original NVIDIA 8800GT was one of those with the self-desoldering GPU chip. I resurrected it with booty-fab reflow soldering; it lasted long enough to get a legit copy of El Capitán installed.  Main problem is that the Cinema Display will not even turn on unless it detects signal from a GPU in full Dual link DVI format. I got lucky and found it at a Thrift Store for $25; it were filthy but cleaned up well, and is on the list of "will work without flashing, but you lose the EFI pre-boot environment" GPUs here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/gpu-compatibility-list-for-cmp.2174600/

The physical form-factor of the MacPro makes swapping HDDs literally a moment's diversion, so I really don't have a problem with losing that.  It was hard just letting the patched version of Catalina work and not freak out until it finally came up; but somehow I managed. 

As HDD swapping is so easy, I may eventually also do a Mint/Cinnamon build again; maybe even Win10 too. Haven't decided yet.

Oh, and welcome to the nuthouse, James.  

The neverending taco truck in the corner is is very proud of its shiny new wheels, so do compliment them if you visit; I've been doing half Columbian Supremo/half dark roast Hazelnut ground at COSTCO a few days ago, so the coffee should be half-decent for a few days, even if beanflying is AWOL. Papa Smurf's herd of hollow-state Teks is still grazing in the front yard, while bd139 is on walkabout in the real world, but we see him from time to time in the Discord, so we know he's alive. If you see Vince battling a floor polisher, give him a hand, willya?  The crusty old Aardvark in the corner is a great source of Mac info; he's been irreversibly contaminated for decades, but watch out if he reaches for the conversational cutlery... Oh, and the pervy little dragon fancier schtick is mine; I've been offering classes but they are full at this time! 

mnem

[ch_scr]

@mnementh I love a cheese grader Mac Pro, I have a MacPro4.1 in my garage that I upgraded to 8 cores {(and I think 32gb ram), what are your specs?}; I see your geforce card, wanted to do that for playing older games. What's your usage plan for the Mac Pro?

P.S. First post (minus those in the support sub-forum), love reading y'alls back and forth over the years. Had a lurker account that dave purged btw

My use-case for the MacPro is... daily driver to become at least moderately proficient with MacOS. El Capitán was kindof holding that back, so the patched version of Catalina became necessary.
(...)

You forgot to add it doubles as a space heater