Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Saskia]

Yeah, except that we're guys.

Nope, I ain't.

[Saskia]

Cool, just received the lot of vintage FRB connectors from Ebay. Lots of them...

6 varied pieces of the one I need for my Ferisol counter.
I have one piece of the exact style I need : male angled PCB mount, and female angled PCB mount.
So I can now go Kicading and design my extender card to fix my Nixie decade boards... my second Kicad project, so supposed to go more smoothly than the my first ever project.
I have already forgotten most of it though, will need to read the Kicad on-line tutorial again 

I think I will make a text file and start taking notes as I go...

I just don't have much memory 
That's something I like in Engineering.. you don't need lots of memory, you just remember basic formula and apply them...
I couldn't be a doctor or lawyer, too many huge fine print books that you need to learn by heart and keep in your head at all times to do your job, brrr... these people are robots, with GB of RAM...   

I studied Neuropsychology among other things. We are not robots. Which is the reason why I am not working as a neuropsychologist or neurosurgeon.
I kinda dislike the emotional stress. I have enough grief in my life, I don't need my job to add to it.

[mnementh]

Yeah, except that we're guys.

Nope, I ain't.

Of course not, you're the statistical outlier. 

mnem
Also, "One of the guys", most of the time.

[Robert763]

Cool, just received the lot of vintage FRB connectors from Ebay. Lots of them...

6 varied pieces of the one I need for my Ferisol counter.
I have one piece of the exact style I need : male angled PCB mount, and female angled PCB mount.
So I can now go Kicading and design my extender card to fix my Nixie decade boards... my second Kicad project, so supposed to go more smoothly than the my first ever project.
I have already forgotten most of it though, will need to read the Kicad on-line tutorial again 

I think I will make a text file and start taking notes as I go...

I just don't have much memory 
That's something I like in Engineering.. you don't need lots of memory, you just remember basic formula and apply them...
I couldn't be a doctor or lawyer, too many huge fine print books that you need to learn by heart and keep in your head at all times to do your job, brrr... these people are robots, with GB of RAM...   

I'd be tempted to just use ribbon cable. You can then lay it flat on top of an insulating board over the top of the other boards. A cheap thin chopping board works well. It's a lot easier to probe a board when it's laid flat.

[med6753]

7904 fan update. Supply installed and currently running one fan. I wanted to make sure everything was Kosher before installing the 2nd fan. And it is. The scope doesn't even "know" the fan is there. No interference or weirdness of any sort.

Tomorrow the 2nd fan will be installed.

[mnementh]

Ah well... it were worth a try. Time to bust that spinning rust down to its nulls.

mnem
"delete partition... delete partition... yes, delete that partition too... OH FFS, just nuke 'em all; God will know 'is own!"

[med6753]

It's not really an a case of early or later design, they are different options, your PSU board is clearly labelled as the AC only version.


Mine is the AC/DC option with two boards & two transformers, it has a linear supply to charge batteries & power the DC convertor from the mains. The board I've been working on has the DC convertor & step-up transformer. This option allows you to use the optional internal batteries (missing in my case) or an external low voltage DC source, all of this means the scope is a bit longer with the extra parts.

Tek wiki has pictures showing the size difference of the two versions, it's missing pictures of the battery pack & AC/DC PSU assembly, I guess most of the battery packs have long since been removed & chucked when they starting leaking.
https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/422
Guess I need to take some more pictures at the weekend.

David

I've done so many Tek scopes over the past year or so that I sometimes forget what's what. You are correct. My Type 422 is the AC only supply. And what can really confuse you at first is the Type 422 has the AC/battery supply contained within the manual but NOT the AC only supply. I ran into that when I started to generate a capacitor BOM and nothing matched. Luckily I soon discovered and got a copy of the AC only supply manual.

[mansaxel]

Dood... I just wanna restore the effing thing so I can flip it for a quick C-note or so profit. Have mercy.

In that case, as you were. But lose it fast and avoid contamination...

[Vince]

Cool, just received the lot of vintage FRB connectors from Ebay. Lots of them...

6 varied pieces of the one I need for my Ferisol counter.
I have one piece of the exact style I need : male angled PCB mount, and female angled PCB mount.
So I can now go Kicading and design my extender card to fix my Nixie decade boards... my second Kicad project, so supposed to go more smoothly than the my first ever project.
I have already forgotten most of it though, will need to read the Kicad on-line tutorial again 

I think I will make a text file and start taking notes as I go...

I'd be tempted to just use ribbon cable. You can then lay it flat on top of an insulating board over the top of the other boards. A cheap thin chopping board works well. It's a lot easier to probe a board when it's laid flat.

Hmmm... OK, makes good sense.
However extender cards are ncie in that yu can add stuff on them to help you : use the silk screen to identify the various power rails, add LED's to show you if they are present. Add silk screen for all the interesting signals. Add jumpers to interrupt a power rail so you can insert an am-meter, whatever. I kinda like that.

So I am now thinking of doing hybrid : a ribbon cable (could use the shit load of old IDE cables I have... the old 0.1" ones not the high density ones. More copper in the wires I guess...).. soldered directly on one end to the male connector that goes into the counter/chassis, and at the other end of the cable, a little board with a HE10 header to plug the IDE cable, and the silk screen and LEDs and test points etc, and the female connector to plug the Nixie board.
Hell I could make a little board for the other end of the cable as well.. would save me from soldering all these wires to the connector, a pain for sure.

The best of both worlds eh ? I think I like that a lot...  plus the boards would therefore be very small hence very cheap... guess I could even just make them myself from some proto board, and just add a sticker with label printer instead of silk screen... but I like the idea of a nice clean good looking PCB, more. 

The nice things too, is that I could make make a different extender board for other uses in the counter : there are 23 boards in there IIRC, all 16 pins, but obviously the pins have different roles.
so I could make a little extender board for the various use cases in the counter, if/when needed, and I could just easily plug them to the IDE cable as required. Flexibility you see ! 

Hmm yeah, think I will do that !

[Specmaster]

TE incoming      

This was mentioned, by specmaster I think AVGresponding :  www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Model-61-Leakmeter-/373981737310

I went for it as if it does still have the radioactive source in it I know how to deal with it. And i was cheap 

Hey... I think I saw that thing just recently... *sound of muffled grunting and ruffling through papers*

Oh, yeah... here it is...




mnem
"Don't cross the streams. That would be... bad."

[vk6zgo]

Well if you have a solar system generating electricity, you can use the electricity generated to power the equipment that is currently switched, or if not enough is produced, it will reduce the amount you have to purchase from the supply company. If anyone actually has a solar system just to power a HWS then I suggest they are not using the solar panels to their best advantage.

I meant have the solar HWS in addition to your solar panels---its footprint is quite small, & the roof space used would not reduce that available for panels by much.

[vk6zgo]

Not sure I understand how a SWMBO would be any different in this case, to being alone ? To you mean you talk to her about all the details of your TE repairs ? And she gives you technical advice ?! 

That's one helpful SWMBO, indeed... but somehow I doubt this is the norm...

I do talk to SWMBO about such things, usually she just "smiles & nods", but occasionally she has an insight into things which I had missed by being so much into the minutiae of the problem.
Other times, when I really need some purchased item but normal feelings of financial caution have me tearing the house apart for a possible substitute, she says "Go & buy what you need!"

I do talk to myself when repairing stuff, that's called thinking ! 

Yes, over many years of "technicianing" I have yet to meet an Tech or EE who doesn't verbalise freely when working on a repair.

[Cerebus]

Yes, over many years of "technicianing" I have yet to meet an Tech or EE who doesn't verbalise freely when working on a repair.

Which frequently involves questioning the parentage of half the parts involved...

[Specmaster]

Not sure I understand how a SWMBO would be any different in this case, to being alone ? To you mean you talk to her about all the details of your TE repairs ? And she gives you technical advice ?! 

That's one helpful SWMBO, indeed... but somehow I doubt this is the norm...

I do talk to SWMBO about such things, usually she just "smiles & nods", but occasionally she has an insight into things which I had missed by being so much into the minutiae of the problem.
Other times, when I really need some purchased item but normal feelings of financial caution have me tearing the house apart for a possible substitute, she says "Go & buy what you need!"

That was exactly my point, but less eloquently put. We can be so far down the rabbit hole that we convince ourselves that we have tried this and that when in fact we haven't, instead we followed a trail that is a dead end and then forgot what we have and haven't done 

[mnementh]

Yes, over many years of "technicianing" I have yet to meet an Tech or EE who doesn't verbalise freely when working on a repair.

Which frequently involves questioning the parentage of half the parts involved...

Picturesque speech doesn't seem to make  lot of difference with inanimate objects, sadly... but they certainly do seem to inspire all sorts of colorful invective.

mnem
"Ahhh... yer momma was a toaster oven...
...and you will be too, very soon." 

[vk6zgo]

Real insanity is when you argue with yourself.

And lose.

Back when "hands free" phones were rare enough to be of note, I sat opposite a lady on the train, who was carrying on an animated conversation with someone unseen.
"Aha!" thought I, "Hands free phone!"

After some time, I noticed she was glancing upwards, gesticulating, & so on, as if someone was standing in front of her, & showing all the signs of a "face to face" conversation.
Nor was there any sign of an earpiece, or any of the signs of the more clunky "hands free" setups of the era.

The "nice lady" was talking to an invisible companion------Harvey the Rabbit, perhaps!

[mnementh]

Speaking of appliances... the Acer seems to be quite usable, as I'm writing this missive with it right now as it installs updates. It does take longer than I like to open apps, but that's just the spinning rust and small RAM.

Guess I jut got used to my Lenovo; honestly I'd have been tickled pink with purple polka dots over this thing a few years ago, especially for this much money. 

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

Real insanity is when you argue with yourself.

And lose.

Back when "hands free" phones were rare enough to be of note, I sat opposite a lady on the train, who was carrying on an animated conversation with someone unseen.
"Aha!" thought I, "Hands free phone!"

After some time, I noticed she was glancing upwards, gesticulating, & so on, as if someone was standing in front of her, & showing all the signs of a "face to face" conversation.
Nor was there any sign of an earpiece, or any of the signs of the more clunky "hands free" setups of the era.

The "nice lady" was talking to an invisible companion------Harvey the Rabbit, perhaps!

[Brumby]

It's amazing all the problems you run into when you do an actual product, not just some DIY cobbled together " good enough " thingy, and are having to solve all the problems by yourself, with no prior experience. Every step of the way is a chore and a challenge. The mechanical aspect of the design is by no means trivial. I pulled many hair to get something that works. Every time you run into a wall, anxiety and blood pressure rise, because you know that you MUST find the solution, because nobody will come to the rescue. If you fail to fix ANY of the myriad of problems that pop up, you know your project is dead, and you wasted all that R&D time and money, down the drain.

I had similar anxiety putting together a number of modified milligram scales for someone who hit me up on the EEVblog.  It involved soldering onto existing traces - that were not designed to have off-board connection, fitting a microcontroller and programming the thing.  The absolutely biggest heart-thumping step was sending them off to Israel - knowing I couldn't pop around for a "quick fix" if something went wrong.

I still get anxious thinking about them - but I haven't heard anything bad about the ones I sent for a couple of years now, so that gives me some comfort.  There was one unit that played up a little (occasionally) which I held back and that still functions as well as it did when first completed.

[Brumby]

Real insanity is when you argue with yourself.

And lose.

Now THAT lit up my weary brain........

The 4 stages of madness (as I have expressed for several decades)....

1. When you talk to yourself
2. When you get an answer
3. When you argue with yourself
4. When you lose the argument

[Brumby]

Not sure I understand how a SWMBO would be any different in this case, to being alone ? To you mean you talk to her about all the details of your TE repairs ? And she gives you technical advice ?! 
That's one helpful SWMBO, indeed... but somehow I doubt this is the norm...

I have engaged the assistance of SWMBO for problem solving on more than one occasion - and it goes something like this.....

* I encounter a problem that I'm not making progress with
* I engage SWMBO in "conversation" (more like a monologue) in which I give detailed explanations.  She stands there politely.
* As I progress, another avenue of investigation - sometimes even a solution - becomes obvious
* I thank her for her help and dive back into the melee.

Later, when I emerge from my den, I sometimes ask her: "You didn't understand a thing I was talking about, did you?", to which she simply replies "Nope".  Sometimes it's just the process of laying out all the information to someone who doesn't know that leads us to see the bigger picture - because we were too focussed on specific details.

[GreyWoolfe]

Yes, over many years of "technicianing" I have yet to meet an Tech or EE who doesn't verbalise freely when working on a repair.

Which frequently involves questioning the parentage of half the parts involved...

Picturesque speech doesn't seem to make  lot of difference with inanimate objects, sadly... but they certainly do seem to inspire all sorts of colorful invective.

mnem
"Ahhh... yer momma was a toaster oven...
...and you will be too, very soon." 

The vast majority of the time, it's either in my head or under my breath.  Once in a blue moon, it slips out past my lips.  Thankfully, I have long relationships with my customers.  If they hear it, I simply apologize and move on.  Haven't been reported yet and I have only been at it on this job since 2004.

[Zucca]

On a seperate note, do you happen to know if BMW had a systems hiccup the other day, possibly related to the clocks changing? On Saturday mine was claiming that it was overdue for a service and an inspection "since <whatever date> 2023" (i.e. overdue 'since' more than a year in the future). On Sunday, both those messages had disappeared. I can't help thinking that the clocks changing in Europe between Saturday and Sunday wasn't mere coincidence.

Despite these discouraging suggestions...

I DID developed a system for BMW, which funny enough is the only one that can detect future DTCs.
My tool is now been used across the globe and people write me email thanking me "and my team"    for the nice work.

Long story short, I can't imagine what happened in your car, but if it is not gone, I would not think about it too much.
PS: you are a smart guy...

[Zucca]

@Vince

Next project

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/255457979028?hash=item3b7a7b6a94:g:d8IAAOSwHk9iQJUK

Merci 

[AVGresponding]

TE incoming      

This was mentioned, by specmaster I think AVGresponding :  www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Model-61-Leakmeter-/373981737310

I went for it as if it does still have the radioactive source in it I know how to deal with it. And i was cheap 

Hey... I think I saw that thing just recently... *sound of muffled grunting and ruffling through papers*

Oh, yeah... here it is...




mnem
"Don't cross the streams. That would be... bad."

Technically, the Proton Pack would have more in common with a hydrogen fuel cell. Radioactive sources produce free neutrons, not protons...