Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

A dragon has been mentioned in today's xkcd, hit by Hilbert's arrow.



Just for mnem: Yes, it is a mathematical joke.

  

[TERRA Operative]

I pay like $25 for these, I got a yellow handle version for $12 a while back.

/showoff mode.

So far your "showoff" is a fail. 

Alright, alright, here's my 1200yen yellow neji-saurus. Model PZ-58, complete with muzzle (PZM-58) to stop it biting.

All you other guys with your boooorrinngggg green pliers, sooo last season! 


Here's a link to the relavent Engineer webpage, for those looking to lighten their wallets. They even have a range of vice-grip ones! 
https://www.engineertools-jp.com/screwremoval

[Ice-Tea]

This should bag me some browny points, eh?

[VK5RC]

Here's a question for the radio aficionados here.

What's the go with shortwave radios? If I want a really good one (new or second hand), what should I look at for a self-contained radio (I.e. no rtl-sdr type gizmos).

For me the classic general purpose receiver is the Yaesu FRG 7, very stable - used a Wadley loop to lock out drift of the VFO, no silly parts, lots around, reasonable speaker. Large format but light in weight
Edit to 30MHz only - no FM

[Robert763]

I meant to post this last week but forgot.
I can confirm that a Schroff 34U 19" rack (0.6 x 0.6 x 1.72 m) will fit in the back of the wife's a 09 Ford Focus estate. You do have to take the casters off if fitted.
It is also the perfect size to fit between a smaller cabinet and a set of shelves at the back of the garage 
No front or back doors but there are a lot of support angles. It will be used to store some of the less used rack mount TE. 

[mnementh]

I pay like $25 for these, I got a yellow handle version for $12 a while back.

/showoff mode.

So far your "showoff" is a fail. 

   Alright, alright, here's my 1200yen yellow neji-saurus. Model PZ-58, complete with muzzle (PZM-58) to stop it biting.

All you other guys with your boooorrinngggg green pliers, sooo last season! 

Here's a link to the relevant Engineer webpage, for those looking to lighten their wallets. They even have a range of vice-grip ones! 
https://www.engineertools-jp.com/screwremoval

Don't feel bad; of course Mikey won't like it, he hates everything!

Yeah, they have a Amazon store for us yanks: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Bridge+Precision+Tools/page/058AF5AE-E944-4CFA-80D3-C0C62ED7346A

I looked at the PZ-65, and like the PZ-56 it just did not scream quality as the PZ-57 & 58 do. 

Cheap enuf to take a punt on tho (esp the PZ-64); maybe next payday. https://www.amazon.com/Engineer-PZ-65-REMOVAL-LOCKING-PLIERS/dp/B07678B78G/

mnem
*still toolish*

[TERRA Operative]

I'll see if I can find some on the shelf in Akihabara next week to take a look at.

[dew]

No front or back doors but there are a lot of support angles. It will be used to store some of the less used rack mount TE.

Thanks for the great idea! I was looking for a 1U shelves for my Aeroflex IFR 3413. Those shelves are ~$100 minimum. But all I really needed was a set of those horizontal rails . Got mine here. They already sold a couple. Thousands. And I was not even thinking of or looking for those.

[mnementh]

A dragon has been mentioned in today's xkcd, hit by Hilbert's arrow.



Just for mnem: Yes, it is a mathematical joke.

  

Yes, to the Arrow of Time, eventually even the mighty dragon must fall. (I know, I know... not exactly the same thing; but ISTR that the two are cohorts according to Heinlein )



So the joke is that ζ in the Gauss Transform sortof looks like Trogdor the Burninator...?




Or is it just that the brackets sortof look like dragon wings...?

(Please forgive the shameless Google abuse; we all know I'm math-defective.)


mnem
my braims hurt.   

[mnementh]

This should bag me some browny points, eh?

InstaPak starter kit? How much wallet pain did that bring...?

mnem

[Robert763]

Those are the pre-filled "mix in the bag" version. They run around $4-6 a bag so around $10 to do a box depending on size.

[Saskia]

@mnem are those pliers good for finger and toe nail removal ? dungeon builders want to know ...
picked up a care package after paying 30 quid of politician gluttony support ...
I have an idea what that might be.

Thanks Robert

[factory]

Looking around, I think what I want is a full-band or all-band radio rather than a dedicated shortwave only receiver. That Grundig Satellit looks like it's pretty much the style of thing I need. Something like that would be good.

Restoration is ok for a decent unit, my budget would be a couple hundred dollars max I think.

A few from my collection (in storage) all of which probably need restoration & recapping, can't comment how good the shortwave performance is as reception is crap here with all the modern RF noise generators, gets much worse at night.  Plus I only really use the MW & FM bands these days, gone are the days we had music on LW (used to listen to Atlantic 252 kHz when I was younger).

USSR era Selena & VEF? radios, I've had these for several decades, Shango066 likes the Soviet era radios too, some of which he reckons are excellent performers.

I like the design of this one, old-school and functional but still looking smart.

Discount the FM band on some old USSR radios, don't know what they use in Japan, but 66MHz to 73MHz isn't the broadcast band over here.
And looking at what they were left set to (around 252kHz LW), I reckon those two haven't been used since we left Scotland in 1997. One of the problems of moving, is stuff can get left in the packing boxes for far too long.
The Selena B216 at least has the waveband scale in Hz rather than metres of the older VEF radio, it does also have a mains inlet on the back, but I don't think I have the matching power cord, might need some new caps by now too. 


These old USSR radios can be found for sale in eastern Europe, for anyone who wants one, although mine were bought second-hand in the UK* decades ago. Shango066 used to get many old Soviet era radios from Ukraine, along with spares from the very helpful sellers over there, sadly not possible now.

*P.S. Seems mine are both export versions according to that awful site "radiomuseum".

David

[factory]

Made some progress today with the Thandar SC110 mini portable scope, stripped it down for fault-finding and after a good long coat of looking at under magnification I have so far failed to find a smoking gun, it really all looks pretty good to me. All the solder joints that are visible without further stripping seem to be in good condition, maybe I might find something lurking beneath the vertical and horizontal board once I remove it, who knows.

I find a few caps with small holes in them, but they exhibit zero outward signs of suffering, the holes appear to have been there from new  .

Here a few pics so far, I doubt that I shall be working on it tomorrow as I shall be over at Hangar 11 collection, working on that Ferguson TE20 tractor restoration.

I guess you have tried an external X input, as the "Trig sweep/Ext X" switch seems to be set to the Ext X input, that will disable the sweep. Those push button switches are often found with very dirty contacts, in the older HP scopes I've been bought, often nothing happens until they have all been exercised many times.


Those through-pins, that join that tracks on the top & bottom of the boards were often a nightmare at work, we would get intermittent faults that were usually one of more of those crappy things, the only solution for us was to replace them all to avoid warranty claims, they were often too tarnished to resolder.

David

[Vince]

Cleaned my old Ferisol counter, because well, it was extremely dirty and crusty.

Now I can touch the control without the fear of getting god knows what germs/virus/bacteria/disease...

Top cover was littered with huge black marker writings. Alcool was useless, so I resorted to using the nuclear weapons... acetone. So yes of course it softened the paint and made it all goey/rubbery, so you have to know when to stop before it's too late... luckily the paint appears to be quite think/resistant, even the "texture" survived (maybe it's actually stamped into the metal ?!  )
I could not make it perfect of course, but it's way better, much more acceptable... will make it easier to wait until I can repaint it to make it shiny brand new again.

Sticker atop the right side of the chromed bezel now removed.

Although it doesn't show, the chromed handles and all the metal work now look much less dull and pitted. Up close it's much better, but nonen of it shows on the pictures, sadly...
It's amazing what the green scratchy side of the kitchen sponge can do. Just.. amazing.

Now it's clean and better looking... but still far from GOOD looking, up close anyway. Main problem are all the fine scratches (I guess some were made by me with the sctoch-brite, I admit... but not all of them  ), as well as the lacquer that comes off here and there. I managed to catch that in a couple macro shots below. That shows just how "yellowed" the lacquer is.

So in order to take the cosmetic restoration of this counter a step farther, and as an opportunity/excuse to practice/experiment/learn new restoration techniques.... the plan is to get pull the front panel, strip if of all its controls so I am left with the bare, flat front panel I could easily work on. Then remove the lacquer completely, which would remove the yellowing as well as the millions scratches. Then relacquer it.

So need to figure out teh best tools and consumables to do that well, as painlessly, quickly and safely as possible. That is, without risking of damaging the black prints underneath the lacquer...
From the macro shots below, one can see that there is a lacquer-free spot where the markings are naked... yet perfectly intact. So looks like the markings are very resistant, but the lacquer comes off quite easily. So that's perfect.... gives me hope.

At any rate I have obviously the donour counter to practice on ! 

The display colour filter needs polishing too, there is a very big scratch on it 
Worse case, if I can't polish it out, I could use the filter from the donour, but it's red not orange... I do like the red one but I prefer Orange I think, looks more natural for a Nixie. 

What's more... the front panel has a few dents underneath the bottom left corner of the display window.. I can't make that go away. Well, I guess once the lacquer will be remove, I could try working the dents a bit to lessen the pain, but I doubt I could just sand them down as I assume it would destroy the finish and it would make it stand out. So I would need to sand the entire panel down, but of course I can do that because of all the markings...

So I am thinking of using the panel from the donour instead, which does not have dents.... however what it does have is a completely worn out/99.99% gone marking above the " Gate" Neon bulb. There is "Gate" text to be seen any more....
I guess that could be an excuse to try to recreate this marking, another useful restoration technique I need to master if I want to restore my type 575 Tek curve tracer as good as I would like to....


What's more... oh, I have  finally found info about the FRB card connectors for the Nixie (and all) boards in this counter.

The guy from "Electropuce" did get back to me but he had no info nor new connectors nor an OEM card extender. What he did have to offer was Nixe board (along with it's mating female/chassis socket), devoid of its Nixie tube, fr 25 Euros, plus no doubt 5 Eyuros shipping on top. So 30 Euros for used board minus its Nixie tube... when I got a complete counter for 80 Euros ? I think he is smoking something funny. Well, at least he did try to help, granted, so I did thank him none the less, because I am not a monster.

The saviour came from my old friend that saw and did it all. The privilege of age I guess...
He managed to pull the datasheet for these connectors ! 

It's a 'K' series from FRB. Well, actually he said he pulled that datasheet from a 150 page period FRB catalog, entirely devoted to the 'K' series... so my connector is a 'K', but there are many more 'K' connectors that are not like mine... so the full designation is needed here.

PDF attached below.

So I will try to find some "new" connectors for sale on the net. If unsuccessful (most likely) or too expensive, I will resort to pulling a pair of connectors from the donour. It's a donour after all, meh 


That's it for today, you can now resume your normal vintage radio activities. I will be monitoring the stability of your radio tuning circuitry with my counter 

[factory]

Vince, looking at that pdf you need K16400FCT & K16400MCT, if you can work with non right angle pins then change the C for one of the other types, i.e. D for straight pins, S for solder bucket, V for wire wrap pins? and I'm non sure what F is.

This listing might have what you need (picture 5), contact the seller to confirm the measurements, to avoid disappointment, maybe they could be persuaded to sell the 16 way ones for less, without the rest you don't need.
https://www.ebay.fr/itm/203868155995

P.S. I can't play with those vintage radios, as I've no idea which box they are in.

David

[Robert763]

@mnem are those pliers good for finger and toe nail removal ? dungeon builders want to know ...
picked up a care package after paying 30 quid of politician gluttony support ...
I have an idea what that might be.

Thanks Robert

There are a couple of totally unrelated items in there. See if you can work out what they are.

[med6753]

Vince, before I forget. When you get the replacement capacitors for your 2467 follow one VERY important point. Do ONE capacitor at a time. Remove old, compare value and orientation, install new. The reason? There are mistakes in the manual. If you do a mass removal and then install you will have magic smoke. Guaranteed. Yes, doing one at a time takes longer but you will have a happy PSU. 

[Saskia]

@mnem are those pliers good for finger and toe nail removal ? dungeon builders want to know ...
picked up a care package after paying 30 quid of politician gluttony support ...
I have an idea what that might be.

Thanks Robert

There are a couple of totally unrelated items in there. See if you can work out what they are.

still need to open the package, hope to do so in the evening (after cooking and before discord)

Did some planting today, then went worm bathing for 2 hours. Just returned.

[AVGresponding]

@Specmaster, if you were after the Thurlby CM200 earlier this week, it was me that nabbed it, sorry (not sorry).
If it's any consolation it's gone straight to the repair queue, though it shouldn't be a difficult fix as it's quite simple inside.

Other recent arrivals include a pair of PK-51 cable shears, £17 shipped as they are from a UK importer, pretty good value, and more or less identical to the CK design. Time will tell if they are as good quality, though naturally I immediately tried them on some 35mm² cable and they went through it without undue effort.

Also some NIB Pomona 6342 test leads, very thin cable and only rated 3A, but super sharp and gold plated probe tips, could use them as tattoo needles!

A LEM PR1235 1200A current clamp, looks unused. 30Hz to 300kHz for the -3dB point, 1mV/A.

Another 5kg box of RS/Farnell NOS, looks like an SK sale. Not as good for obscure semiconductors this time, but some nice stuff even so, like silicone stackable test leads, various good quality clips, a good number of various type battery holders, and they're the good ones, not those ones that melt when you try to solder to the tabs, some nice momentary SPCO flattened-toggle switches, a bag full of octal plug-in relays with a slightly odd coil voltage (48VDC), quite a number of Philips blue bastards, will be interesting to see how those test out, a crap-ton of modular screw terminal tag-strip (no use to me, may well donate that to a local model railway club), a few odd connectors, a 1kW element for an electric fire, should make a decent high-power load resistor, some 1mm and 2mm coils of rubber sleeving, various colours, oh and some amusing things, like racist TTL chips, (74C series, type 00N...), and an address label on one bag from Maplins which show the former owner lived on Brookside Close, in Knotty Ash...

[Peter_O]

...
So in order to take the cosmetic restoration of this counter a step farther, and as an opportunity/excuse to practice/experiment/learn new restoration techniques.... the plan is to get pull the front panel, strip if of all its controls so I am left with the bare, flat front panel I could easily work on. Then remove the lacquer completely, which would remove the yellowing as well as the millions scratches. Then relacquer it.

The front looks perfect to me.
I mean, it's an old device that has it's live lived already. I'd allow it to wear those battle scars with honor.
I've always found old things or people without traces of live scary.

[Ice-Tea]

This should bag me some browny points, eh?

InstaPak starter kit? How much wallet pain did that bring...?

mnem

A box of 72 Gr. 80) 54x68 cm. About 5.5€ a piece. Thinking about using a single bag for most shipments (+ whatever i have lying around to fill up) and two bags for the heavy/fragile/expensive stuff.

[Vince]

...
So in order to take the cosmetic restoration of this counter a step farther, and as an opportunity/excuse to practice/experiment/learn new restoration techniques.... the plan is to get pull the front panel, strip if of all its controls so I am left with the bare, flat front panel I could easily work on. Then remove the lacquer completely, which would remove the yellowing as well as the millions scratches. Then relacquer it.

The front looks perfect to me.
I mean, it's an old device that has it's live lived already. I'd allow it to wear those battle scars with honor.
I've always found old things or people without traces of live scary.

Oh no it's not fine at all... maybe you didn't look at the close up pics at the end.. and that's only a small sample.

Pic of the front panel looks half decent only because of crappy camera and favourable lighting conditions that hid the flaking lacquer and the million scratches. Plus it's hard to catch fine details with a picture anyway, generally speaking... it's hard to convey the state of something unless you see it in the flesh...

But well OK, it's not "disastrous"... never said it was. But it could be improved an awful lot which would make it much more pleasing to look at and play with. Plus as I said it's a pretext to up my game restoration techniques wise. A learning opportunity.

As for "Battle scars" , don't worry there are still some left : the two big handles at the back , took a big hit, they are both well bent inward. Too much of a job to get them off (as explained earlier when I posted about the donour counter), and even if I could get them... they are so beefy that it would take a killed black smith to make a good job at straightening them, and I am no black smith. And then doing so would destroy the chromed finish of course, so I would have to pay both a black smith as well as a company to redo the plating. So huge expense just to straighten those back handles that nobody would even get to see once the counter is sitting on a shelf.

So, the bent rear handles shall remain bent... see ? I like battle scars too ! 

But the front panel, I do get to see and interact with, and I can do something about it for a reasonable amount of money... so yeah, in that case I find it natural to try and do something about it. Low investment but big returns, I am all for it.

[Vince]

Vince, before I forget. When you get the replacement capacitors for your 2467 follow one VERY important point. Do ONE capacitor at a time. Remove old, compare value and orientation, install new. The reason? There are mistakes in the manual. If you do a mass removal and then install you will have magic smoke. Guaranteed. Yes, doing one at a time takes longer but you will have a happy PSU. 

Yes that's would have done anyway, for the reason you state but also because I don't like mass soldering anyway, trying to get all those caps to stay in place with the board upside down, is more work and time than it's worth, so I alwyas solder caps one by one for practicality alone...
I don't care about how much time I might save doing otherwise, I am slow at doing things anyway, I like to take my time... it's not a paid for job where one would want to do  it as fast as possible and charge as much for it as possible...

[Saskia]

seems my boss is pulling thru, thanks to antigene therapy.
Fever is subsiding, and he is feeling better.