Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Vince]

What's the problem with Digikey/Mouser?
Even here in Japan I get free 3-5 day shipping when I fill my cart to $50 worth of stuff, which isn't hard to do at all....  

Because it's 20 Euros flat fee from what people said, but when I did a dry run, simulating an order, at the very last step of the ordering process out of the blue they said  "There is an extra 10 Euros fee for France".
So 30 Euros of fees for 5 or 10 Euros of caps, erm no, I am not that rich.

Weird.
When I go to Digikey.fr, once I add around the magic US$50 to the cart it tells me I get free shipping. I didn't go through to selecting the shipping method though as I don't have a French address to try.

I have only a few caps to order, I am nowhere near the 50 USD or Euros mark 

[KG7AMV]

@tautech

Most the time used on the bench bit sometime pull them down. I can drop the shelf if need be.  But i am working on another bench which will have a better work flow and ergonomics. I have the steel just have to get the time to get it built.

[mansaxel]

Ok impressed with this for < £40 (via Amazon). Solid, good seal. I'm not taking it to the ocean so should be good.

Yes, we've bought a 100 or so for work; not this exact one, but something pretty similar. We're very happy. 

I've got my Opticks kit in one, Wandel & Golterman light source and meter, a "Careful with that axe Eugene" microscope (optical, so not safe for lit fiber) and the cleaning kit needed for successful termination of fibre, like Cle-Top  ferrule cleaner, One-Click jack cleaners, IPA, 1,25mm and 2,5mm cleaning tips, and so on. I'd like to get a camera microscope, and very much a fusion splicer, but both those  are serious money.

[mansaxel]

What's the problem with Digikey/Mouser?
Even here in Japan I get free 3-5 day shipping when I fill my cart to $50 worth of stuff, which isn't hard to do at all....  

Because it's 20 Euros flat fee from what people said, but when I did a dry run, simulating an order, at the very last step of the ordering process out of the blue they said  "There is an extra 10 Euros fee for France".
So 30 Euros of fees for 5 or 10 Euros of caps, erm no, I am not that rich.

Nobody said that. What we said was that once you get to 50€, ex VAT, shipping is free. At checkout, VAT is slapped on, and then that is all you pay.  The customs agreements for France and Sweden are identical; all my Mouser shipments have gone through CDG (and yes, the rest of France insists that Depàrtement 75 is not France, but here in VAT and customs, it is.) so I have a hard time understanding why you seem to be put off by one of the best deals for hobbyist supply there is, globally.

[AVGresponding]

[Vince]

Simple, 60 Euros minimum order way more than I need most of the time.

I agree it's a good deal and would use it if it made sense, but for small orders like I have most of the time, it does not make sense.

I rarely have to order 60 Euros or anywhere near that. If I had say 45 Euros to order OK sure I would order some more stuff to get to 60, but here I only need a few caps so it makes no sense.

It's not like I ran a business and regularly ordered more than 60 Euros of stuff. I don't. At all.

It always a few caps here, a few resistors there, so  shipping cost or minimum order is always the deciding factor.

[TERRA Operative]

What's the problem with Digikey/Mouser?
Even here in Japan I get free 3-5 day shipping when I fill my cart to $50 worth of stuff, which isn't hard to do at all....  

Because it's 20 Euros flat fee from what people said, but when I did a dry run, simulating an order, at the very last step of the ordering process out of the blue they said  "There is an extra 10 Euros fee for France".
So 30 Euros of fees for 5 or 10 Euros of caps, erm no, I am not that rich.

Weird.
When I go to Digikey.fr, once I add around the magic US$50 to the cart it tells me I get free shipping. I didn't go through to selecting the shipping method though as I don't have a French address to try.

I have only a few caps to order, I am nowhere near the 50 USD or Euros mark 

Aaahhh, well you're just not trying hard enough! Time to buy some stock parts!  haha

[Specmaster]

Found a page on Ebay UK that says there is indeed a deal with the EU, where Ebay collects the VAT. The price shown on a UK ad includes VAT and Ebay gives it back to EU. It's transparent for the buyer in France/Europe. They say it's possible that the carrier fucks up and charges the buyer for VAT, hence VAT is being paid twice, but Ebay says if this should happen, we can send them a copy of the carrier VAT paper work, and they would refund the buyer.

So sounds good so far... as far as VAT goes. Now need to figure out the duty taxes part, what happened to that...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/listings/default/vat-obligations-uk-eu?id=4650


EDIT : some googling/reading later.... OK I give up, no UK anything for me... please get back on-board so we can buy stuff from you again 

Don't you see any sellers offering shipment via eBay Global Shipping...? That resolves the entire issue, as eBay handles it all. 

I do wish eBay would make that a filter... it would make life so much easier. Alas, just like Wally Wurlld, they really don't seem to care how much of their customers' time they waste. 

mnem
*back out into the fray*

I have no experience or particular knowledge of this GSP thing, as I seldom buy from non-EU countries on Ebay, but will keep that in mind 

Vince, GSP works really well, both for the buyer and the seller. I've brought from the USA a few times using GSP and for some strange reason, I sell almost 50% of my items to overseas buyers through the GSP scheme.

[Ice-Tea]

Calling death at 21.15. Power rail stuck at 0.5V (hello there mr. diode!). Impacted board dead as a knob. One floor down a few IC's that light up like a christmas tree on the FLIR.

I'm done.

[Vince]

What's the problem with Digikey/Mouser?
Even here in Japan I get free 3-5 day shipping when I fill my cart to $50 worth of stuff, which isn't hard to do at all....  

Because it's 20 Euros flat fee from what people said, but when I did a dry run, simulating an order, at the very last step of the ordering process out of the blue they said  "There is an extra 10 Euros fee for France".
So 30 Euros of fees for 5 or 10 Euros of caps, erm no, I am not that rich.

Weird.
When I go to Digikey.fr, once I add around the magic US$50 to the cart it tells me I get free shipping. I didn't go through to selecting the shipping method though as I don't have a French address to try.

I have only a few caps to order, I am nowhere near the 50 USD or Euros mark 

Aaahhh, well you're just not trying hard enough! Time to buy some stock parts!  haha

I do plan on stocking some components to progressively replace my old salvaged components with fresh ones, with intact/long leads and have a bit of every value. But, money.

Bottom line is I got fired last August, my last paycheck is long gone and with only 1100 Euros per month worth of unemployment benefit, it doens't even pay for the bills.
I needed the time to do the most urgent jobs in the house, so I can live in it. But now it's done, I have run out of money, simple...  so it's time to start searching for some job....

... then I will be able to buy some  stock of caps and resistors and whatnot. But for now, spending 60 Euros for a few caps is just complete suicide. I am not suicidal. Very depressed, yes. but suicidal not just yet...

The yellow axial caps I know I can afford to stock a bit on them because they are used all over the place when restoring old glowing Tek instruments.
So I don't mind if the Ebay sellers sell them in lots of 5 or 10, because the price per cap is reasonable and I will always make use of the extra caps sooner or later.

Once I get a job I will buy a complete 1R to 10M E24 metal film 1% resistor kit....     In just the past few weeks working on my old TE I had at least 3 times failed to have the proper value resistor, and was stuck, having to either make a montage of several resistors to get something close enough.... or sometimes even that, was not possible 
One can't do much without at least a complete resistor kit in his lab

[factory]

Ebay UK question :

Still working on my on-line shopping for axial caps to complete the recap of my Tek 180A Time Mark Generator.

Have now given up on the usual big retailers and instead now focus on Ebay sellers.

The best deals I find are in the UK go figure.
For example, but just an example, this one :

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/254131317731?hash=item3b2b682be3:g:elAAAOSwyWxb159l

Question : of course I would say no no no no no to any UK seller because of import related taxes and fees and other rip off that you only realize the extent of once you receive the parts and someone somewhere asks to pay this or that or else...

But... but... on Ebay, ads from UK vendors since Brexit used to clearly specify at the top of the page, how much it would cost for import duties and taxes, so at least you had the information to make a decision.  But... on this ad, and others from the UK, I don't see that anymore ?! It just says "shipping XX Euros to France ", and that's all. As if the UK suddenly moved back to Europe ??

SOOO : I am tempted, but it's too good to be true of course, so I am wary !   Or, have Ebay or the UK at large made some kind of business agreement with the EU to simplify buying stuff (at least on Ebay ?) from the UK ?

EPay only seem to show the price including import charges these days, they seem to collect the tax on all items below a certain value (can't remember the limit), which speeds up delivery & hassle from Parcelfarce & Royal Fail. I did note the import charges can be found by going to "order details" and clicking on "view tax invoice".
And when listed in the correct category, you don't get charged VAT on manuals anymore, in the past GSP & postage companies/couriers would charge anyway, even though they shouldn't have. 

When I use third party sites to view geoblocked ePay listings, the prices are shown without tax etc.

David

[factory]

Bleh. Misbehaving 745A AC calibrator. Anyone desperate for a project?

Bought the one from PP last year, seem to remember I got bid up a bit as Ice didn't recognise my username on there. Was this one any cheaper and did you get a proper 746A to go with it?
What are the problems with it? mine has some voltage ranges that just go to max power, with some distortion, a couple of ranges do work fine though, not had enough time or space to work on it though.
Anyone got a 740B they don't want? still trying to find that I can afford, have the input & output boxes & manual already.

David

[factory]

Want, but geoblocked as usual. 

https://www.ebay.de/itm/374063979985

David

[Vince]

Wow I would not mind it either ! 

Looks the business, never seen one of these before.... 6 digits Nixie DMM, beautiful... and that last tube that displays units and multipliers, lovely as well !

Why couldn't one of our German cousins buy it for you and ship it to the UK  ?!

At 110 BIN price, it's quite a bargain for such a nice machine... so it's worth adding some more for shipping and taxes and what not....

[factory]

The BIN price is far higher than 110, but still less than that one in Israel, they don't take sensible offers.
https://www.ebay.de/itm/115132259360

David

[factory]

Not had much luck today, got the Tek 2245A out to check the recently arrived hp 208A oscillator, the thing seems to have some kind of brain rot problem with the "uncal" lights stuck on, maybe I should have got rid of it after I repaired the last problem.


OK get out the 2456B, at least that still works, the supposed working hp 208A was connected to the 110V stepdown transformer & powered up, apart from some thrashing about of the meter needle for a few seconds, it does nothing and outputs nothing, hardly surprizing given it contains the infamous tin whisker type package, four legged transistors.

While I had the scope out I gave the hp 3310A a quick check, as I haven't used it for a while, that also seems to have developed a new fault too, the sine function is very borked.



David

[Vince]

The BIN price is far higher than 110, but still less than that one in Israel, they don't take sensible offers.
https://www.ebay.de/itm/115132259360

David

I saw "110" but it was in German so maybe that meant "Start price" not BIN...

.. auction has already ended though, so clearly someone thought 330 Euros was still a good deal.... admittedly it is, conmpared to that other one at 4 times the price that you linked to !

[factory]

I thought it would go quickly, but not quite that fast, seems prices are still crazy high in Germany, they used to make very little.

David

[Vince]

While I had the scope out I gave the hp 3310A a quick check, as I haven't used it for a while, that also seems to have developed a new fault too, the sine function is very borked.

David

Triangle looks fine so the core of the instrument is working well... problem is limited to sine wave, so should not be too difficult to fix ?

I just had a quick look at the schematic... really very quick look, I gave up as the scans are all over the place, what a jigsaw puzzle.

First thing I would do is sort out the schematics ! put the puzzle back together so it can be printed as it was presented originally.

Hopefully you will share your troubleshooting... we will call that Factory_Blog Inc. 

[factory]

Had a look at my previous repair notes from 2012 (back when I did things like that), three transistors in the PSU had failed, two shorted (Q18, Q20) & one open (Q24), thankfully it came with a manual, with lots of handwritten voltages (mostly way out) from whoever owned it (and gave up on it) before me.
A cheap & nasty jukebox karaoke machine was silenced  , to provide the required 2N3904/6 transistors.

Some old teardown pictures below, the PSU board is four layer, main board might be too looking at the pictures.





The sine output shown on one of the 140A scopes.


Your right Vince, must be mostly working, as the Sine is shaped from Triangle, that narrows it down a bit, to ten transistors spread over two boards.


David

[tggzzz]

Uxbridge? Ask bd nicely

My thoughts exactly. Uxbridge is one of my old stomping grounds but I live on the other side of London now, Anders could probably get there faster himself than I could.

BD on the other hand is about a 15-20 minute drive away... 

It’s a possibility. Forward shipping would be a problem though because I have SFA boxes what with them all having stuff in them for moving 

Wouldn't need a box. Seriously. They are squaddie-proof, as shown in https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/fluke-8125a-military-dmm-teardown/msg2540745/#msg2540745

Put tape over the clasps and handle to keep them flat, and stick the address and postage on the box. Job done.

[mansaxel]

Simple, 60 Euros minimum order way more than I need most of the time.

I agree it's a good deal and would use it if it made sense, but for small orders like I have most of the time, it does not make sense.

Many small orders together will quite fast go beyond the 50€ plus VAT mark. If you say as you do you're not a business, then things can wait. Use that to advantage.

[GreyWoolfe]

Today must be off topic day? Lemme add to it.

I finally did it, after days of putting it off. I'm now fully insulin dependent. Got brave enough to do the self injection. And the worry was for nothing. You don't even feel the needle. Checking your blood sugar with the plunger in the finger hurts more. Luckily I'm on a 24 hour insulin. One injection per day. The joys of getting old. 

I got the "pen" type injector which makes it so much simpler but it still sucks.

I use the Accu-Chek fastclix.  6 needles in 1 cylinder and adjustable tension so it doesn't really sting much.

Congratulations, I think 

Yea, thanks....I think.  The oral meds (Metformin) ain't working no more so my only alternative was to go on low dose insulin. And I refused to pay the budget busting costs for the "Name Brand" oral meds which I could have tried. I'm not wildly out of control with my blood sugar. It's averaging about 149 mg/dL fasting. Should be no more than 120 mg/dL or ideally 100 mg/dL or less. And with my revised and strict diet I've already lost weight and within 6 pounds of my goal of 170 - 175 pounds. But it's a constant watch and battle.

I am typically in the mid 90's to mid 100's myself fasting.  I check once a day, morning one day and evening next day, rinse and repeat.  I wish Medicare would allow me to check twice a day like I did on my old insurance.  I keep a spreadsheet with monthly worksheets to track my blood sugar and weekly weight watchers weigh in., been doing it for over a year know.  The spreadsheets really help me keep things in perspective.  If I am up more than I like, I add a note on the line as to why my blood sugar was what it was.  Still have a LONG way to go on the weight loss.  Would like to lose another 60 pounds which would get me to about 190 on my 6 foot tall frame.  No hurry to get there, it's taken a year to lose the 130 pounds I have lost so far.  Eating healthy has really become habit forming.  We had a yard sale today, was bored at about 10:00 and did some boredom eating- a fresh green pepper for the crunch factor I needed.

I hope the low dose works perfect for you, med.  Hope you also don't get the sugar cravings that other insulin dependent diabetics that I know go through.  Also glad to see the diet thing is working for you.  Mrs GreyWoolfe and I have failed at too many diets, never going down that road again.

[syau]

What's the problem with Digikey/Mouser?
Even here in Japan I get free 3-5 day shipping when I fill my cart to $50 worth of stuff, which isn't hard to do at all....  

Because it's 20 Euros flat fee from what people said, but when I did a dry run, simulating an order, at the very last step of the ordering process out of the blue they said  "There is an extra 10 Euros fee for France".
So 30 Euros of fees for 5 or 10 Euros of caps, erm no, I am not that rich.

Weird.
When I go to Digikey.fr, once I add around the magic US$50 to the cart it tells me I get free shipping. I didn't go through to selecting the shipping method though as I don't have a French address to try.

I have only a few caps to order, I am nowhere near the 50 USD or Euros mark 

Aaahhh, well you're just not trying hard enough! Time to buy some stock parts!  haha

Nowadays getting parts (especially semiconductor) that have stock is difficult. Either no stock or unrealistic minimum order.

[mnementh]

I am typically in the mid 90's to mid 100's myself fasting.  I check once a day, morning one day and evening next day, rinse and repeat.  I wish Medicare would allow me to check twice a day like I did on my old insurance.  I keep a spreadsheet with monthly worksheets to track my blood sugar and weekly weight watchers weigh in., been doing it for over a year know.  The spreadsheets really help me keep things in perspective.  If I am up more than I like, I add a note on the line as to why my blood sugar was what it was.  Still have a LONG way to go on the weight loss.  Would like to lose another 60 pounds which would get me to about 190 on my 6 foot tall frame.  No hurry to get there, it's taken a year to lose the 130 pounds I have lost so far.  Eating healthy has really become habit forming.  We had a yard sale today, was bored at about 10:00 and did some boredom eating- a fresh green pepper for the crunch factor I needed.

I hope the low dose works perfect for you, med.  Hope you also don't get the sugar cravings that other insulin dependent diabetics that I know go through.  Also glad to see the diet thing is working for you.  Mrs GreyWoolfe and I have failed at too many diets, never going down that road again.

Are glucometers/supplies a controlled product over there? Here you can buy a complete kit from Amazon for $20-30 delivered. I've used several different ones over the last decade; as part of my personal PM I record BP and blood glucose morning and bedtime for a week every 3 months.

mnem
*toddles off to ded*