Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[VK5RC]

Re bsl and type 2 DM, often your worst bsl is around 11AM, the normal morning ~0700 cortisol surge, is probably responsible. Dietary indiscretion can alter that though.

Exercise can be your friend as exercising muscle doesn't need the insulin /glucose cell membrane transporter to get glucose from blood to muscle 👍

[Ice-Tea]

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.

Yeah, sorry about that 

Was this one any cheaper and did you get a proper 746A to go with it?

Well, funny story that, but not really. I mistyped my max bid so, erhhh,.... No. And no HV section.

What are the problems with it?

Frequency seems right... Lower ranges are reactive but are way to low. Can't activate 10V range. 100V range is MIA.

[Cubdriver]

The HP 6177B DC Current Source I mentioned the other day arrived well packaged and undamaged by its journey.  It's pretty grubby looking, and will need some serious cleaning to pretty it up.


I was concerned because there was a bunch of wax on the bottom cover, and it was a bit of a challenge to get the cover off as it was held by the coagulated wax that had set up along the bottom edge of the rear panel.  It appears to have come from the transformer, so I suspect that things got very hot at some point - this had me very concerned that it would be DOA as a result.


Regardless, I powered it up with the Sencore Powerite and it wasn't drawing excessive current, so I scrounged the first power resistor I could find (330 Ω) and hooked it up.  A quick test had it putting ~6.6V across the resistor at 20 mA, so it appears to be at least somewhat functional.  I've downloaded the manual and will go through it more thoroughly in the coming days.




A few more pics are at https://pmanning.smugmug.com/Electronics/HP-6177B-050-V-0500-mA-DC-Current-Source

-Pat

[Peter_O]

Just wanted to look around at discord and tried to register for an account.

But obviously I'm to old to manage the capcha. Not able to identify bicycles, water planes nor trucks. 
Or maybe I'm a machine and should just join my TE on the shelf, then do the final shutdown? 

Edit: Did a little research. Problem seems to be common. Advice is to reset lots of stuff on the system: change IP, delete all cookies, bla bla ...; basically they suggest to do a fresh and complete windows reinstallation before able to use discord. What a crap. 

Ok. This world machine is indifferent about mine beeing human or machine by telling me my mind or the world might be indifferent about bicyles or water planes. Maybe i should just try to cross the river Elbe by bike today afternoon? 

What will happen? Place your bid:
a - the bike will swim
b - the bike will fly
c -captcha will be asking to mark submarines next time

Think I'll just stay away from that kind of badly implemented sh... .

[bd139]

That does happen occasionally. Give it a couple of days and try again. Some algorithm broke somewhere.

[bd139]

Here we go again. Another win. Fluke 75 for £25 inc delivery. Fingers crossed it isn't rotten to death on the inside.

I rather like these. I had my father's 77 for many years which I utterly wore out.





Will look good next to the 25 

[mnementh]

Just wanted to look around at discord and tried to register for an account.

But obviously I'm to old to manage the capcha. Not able to identify bicycles, water planes nor trucks. 
Or maybe I'm a machine and should just join my TE on the shelf, then do the final shutdown? 

Edit: Did a little research. Problem seems to be common. Advice is to reset lots of stuff on the system: change IP, delete all cookies, bla bla ...; basically they suggest to do a fresh and complete windows reinstallation before able to use discord. What a crap. 

Ok. This world machine is indifferent about mine beeing human or machine by telling me my mind or the world might be indifferent about bicyles or water planes. Maybe i should just try to cross the river Elbe by bike today afternoon? 

What will happen? Place your bid:
a - the bike will swim
b - the bike will fly
c -captcha will be asking to mark submarines next time

Think I'll just stay away from that kind of badly implemented sh...

Are you trying to do your business through a VPN...? It seems lately, everything on the intardnet gets huffy about that. Particularly Google.

mnem
fuck those traffic lights anyways.

[mansaxel]

Here we go again. Another win. Fluke 75 for £25 inc delivery. Fingers crossed it isn't rotten to death on the inside.

I rather like these. I had my father's 77 for many years which I utterly wore out.

Yeah, -- providing they're in good shape -- they're boringly dependable and reliable. Encompassing the best of Fluke.

[Cerebus]

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

There is a hierarchy of X-proofness that I have garnered from my real-life experience over the years. I don't propose to list it in full here, but an excerpt, in order of increasing required robustness would include: X such that X is in the ordered set {..., squaddie, policeman, musician, drummer, actor, postman, ..., AvE, Dave, ...}

[Robert763]

I think I just stuck my nose in a very deep, dark rabbit hole 
I just aquired a 3D printer.......
Well at least it was free. Appeared on Trash Nothing locally. It's an early RepRap a Mendel by the look of it. Needs a bit of work.....

[Specmaster]

Here we go again. Another win. Fluke 75 for £25 inc delivery. Fingers crossed it isn't rotten to death on the inside.

I rather like these. I had my father's 77 for many years which I utterly wore out.





Will look good next to the 25 

So it was you who won it then, now I don't feel so bad at forgetting to bid on it after all 

[Cerebus]

I used to know someone who was part of the early RepRap team. A chap by the name of Vik Oliver. I remember him talking to me about RepRap when they were at the first few prototypes stage when he was still here in England (He emigrated to NZ in around 93/94). Realising that it was that long ago that 3D printing first started to catch the enthusiast's imagination surprises me.

[Specmaster]

Here we go again. Another win. Fluke 75 for £25 inc delivery. Fingers crossed it isn't rotten to death on the inside.

I rather like these. I had my father's 77 for many years which I utterly wore out.

Yeah, -- providing they're in good shape -- they're boringly dependable and reliable. Encompassing the best of Fluke.

Yep, thats another reason I'm hanging onto my 27s, there almost nuke proof.

[mansaxel]

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

There is a hierarchy of X-proofness that I have garnered from my real-life experience over the years. I don't propose to list it in full here, but an excerpt, in order of increasing required robustness would include: X such that X is in the ordered set {..., squaddie, policeman, musician, drummer, actor, postman, ..., AvE, Dave, ...}

I would like to propose adding "Engineering student" pretty early in the set.  Having peripheral experience from the sound and lights department at a student union, I argue that the sheer ingenuity in inventing new ways to break things counts for a suitable placement.

[Neper]

Just wanted to look around at discord and tried to register for an account.

Have you tried using another browser?

I had the same trouble wth Paypal which was much more of a nuisance right in the middle of Corona when one couldn't just hop out and buy something. Eventually found out that it only didn't work in Firefox but was fine with Safari.

[Specmaster]

I think I just stuck my nose in a very deep, dark rabbit hole 
I just aquired a 3D printer.......
Well at least it was free. Appeared on Trash Nothing locally. It's an early RepRap a Mendel by the look of it. Needs a bit of work.....

Trash Nothing is good, I actually pick up a fair bit of stuff via that route, some of it requires some repairs but a lot is working perfectly, the best thing I got is a perfectly good Panasonic DMC-FZ200 bridge camera, case, batteries and memory card 

[bd139]

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

There is a hierarchy of X-proofness that I have garnered from my real-life experience over the years. I don't propose to list it in full here, but an excerpt, in order of increasing required robustness would include: X such that X is in the ordered set {..., squaddie, policeman, musician, drummer, actor, postman, ..., AvE, Dave, ...}

I would like to propose adding "Engineering student" pretty early in the set.  Having peripheral experience from the sound and lights department at a student union, I argue that the sheer ingenuity in inventing new ways to break things counts for a suitable placement.

As a former engineering student, I can confirm this inane ability to fuck up stuff 

[mnementh]

I think I just stuck my nose in a very deep, dark rabbit hole 
I just aquired a 3D printer.......
Well at least it was free. Appeared on Trash Nothing locally. It's an early RepRap a Mendel by the look of it. Needs a bit of work.....

   

If this is your first... I'd recommend putting it on the shelf forgetting you ever saw it and getting something more noob-friendly. I'm not sure you can even strip it for usable parts... maybe a stepper or two; but not likely even a civilized controller on the thing, most likely a RAMPS 1.2 or older.

The Mendel is an invitation to misery; everything wiggles and wobbles because it's literally made of TinkerToy bits and design.

It was a groundbreaking something decades ago. Nowadays... not even equivalent to a Model T.

I know you're a engineer... and I know you probably figure you can figure anything out. I was the exact same way when I started in 3DP; I had a lot of experience building jigs and material-handling with 8020 extrusion, so I figured a cheap kit like the Tevo Tarantula would be a piece of cake.

So-o-o-o-o not the case.     I mean... if you're not a 3DP noob and you're looking for a challenge, the Mendel will certainly provide it...

mnem
The 1st mantra of 3DP: Build it straight and square, straight and square, straight and square... 

[mnementh]

Here we go again. Another win. Fluke 75 for £25 inc delivery. Fingers crossed it isn't rotten to death on the inside.

I rather like these. I had my father's 77 for many years which I utterly wore out.

Yeah, -- providing they're in good shape -- they're boringly dependable and reliable. Encompassing the best of Fluke.

   

Oooh... that reminds me; I meant to link bd139 to this:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3800609/#msg3800609

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3802706/?topicseen#msg3802706

The 27A/N Kit with his/hers Probulators... mans do you know, did that guy sell out of 'em?

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

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

There is a hierarchy of X-proofness that I have garnered from my real-life experience over the years. I don't propose to list it in full here, but an excerpt, in order of increasing required robustness would include: X such that X is in the ordered set {..., squaddie, policeman, musician, drummer, actor, postman, ..., AvE, Dave, ...}

I would like to propose adding "Engineering student" pretty early in the set.  Having peripheral experience from the sound and lights department at a student union, I argue that the sheer ingenuity in inventing new ways to break things counts for a suitable placement.

As a former engineering student, I can confirm this inane ability to fuck up stuff 

And remember, we all go on learning, so in a way we're always students. Some more than others. 

[Vince]

Tek RM17 scope repair update


Well it's fixed but I need to tidy up the replacement of the 3 section electrolytic can cap in the power supply, that was causing the pre-amp to misbehave.

Papa Smurf would just solder the new caps underneath the chassis and leave the old can in place, for convenience, but I thought I would use that scope as an opportunity to see if I can do something cleaner.

I would like to remove the old can, and make a little PCB with the same shape as the old mounting plate that's bolted to the chassis. Either made of metal or insulated depending whether you want the common of the cap, to be floating, or connected to the chassis / ground.

It would also be a good exercise to get more time on Kicad, to help me learn it, as I am trying to.

So I go to remove that cap. Desoldering the 3 wires from it was the easy part...

Then you need to get to the two nuts that hold it to the chassis..... first there is this big trim pot that's in the way, so you need to desolder it from the ceramic strip, then remove the two screws that secure its mounting bracket to the chassis, and get that assembly out of the way.

Then you still can't get access to the top nut because a harness is right above it. So you try to lift it a bit and get a spanner on the nut... but you can't use the ring part of the spanner, cause the spanner can't get of course flat enough because of all the stuff surroundng the bolt. So you can only use the open ended part, at an important angle, and with only 60° angle resolution you can't really get it on there, it's not fun.
But... you only need to work it a little bit, just enough to loosen the nut. Then you can finish the job from the other side of the chassis, with the screw head... but well, that's only possible if you have a LONG / non standard screw driver, because the caps are tall and right next to the chassis sides which are tall. Luckily I had recently bought a long one, well, 150mm, longest I found at the local H/W store, in anticipation for adjusting a particular trimmer in my Rochar Nixie DMM, where you need a long reach to set one of the trimmers.

So I could get that top nut eventually.

So then the bottom nut... oh, it's even worse. Even the open end of the spanner can't be maneuvered on the nut, so you do need to get a socket on the nut... but there are components soldered "in the air" together, right above that nut !   So need to desolder that first and carefully bend the components a bit to get them out of the way. Then I could get a socket on it.... of course freaking Imperial size, but I did get a set of Imperial spanners and sockets,  5 years ago when I restored my first Tek scope 

So I had at long last that cap on the bench, phew.

But still not out of trouble. I now need to remove the mounting plate from the cap, so I can take measurements.

So I need to desolder the plate from the cap, one tab. It's twisted / locked as well. So you first need to remove allll the solder from it, if you want to have a chance of being able to straighten that tab so it can hopefully get out of the slit in the mounting plate, that it was inserted into.

So I need to hold that cap firmly while I am working on it.... but I don't have a vice ! Well I do, but I can't use it because its C clamp does not open wide enough, so it's unable to grab the edge of the bench. So it's useless.
So had to hold that cap onto the bench with two fingers while using the other fingers to hold the solder wick, and the iron in the other hand. But... iron was not powerful enough  (50Watt Weller Magnastat) to melt BOTH the solder on the tab AND the wick together. Without wick, I could melt the solder. But as soon as I applied the wick, too much thermal mass, iron quit.
Added some flux, helped, eventually managed to pull that mounting plate off the cap, phew.

Then I will have to do it all in reverse when in installing the new cap(s).

It's a lot of fun.... probably why Smurf in Chief doesn't bother....

But it's an exercise, I want to do it at least once, then decide if I want to keep doing that or not. But at least it will give me some experience and new options for future can cap replacements. Having more options in your tool box is never a bad thing, is it...

OK so now the challenge is to draw the outline of the mounting plate in Kicad !!! 

I need to draw circles, and draw tangents to connect them together so I can draw the ovoid outline of the plate. Then the cap has 3 sections / terminals in it, so I need to arrange the 3 terminals in an equilateral triangle shape, and be able to rotate that triangle at a random but accurate angle so I can line it up as required.

I am not even sure Kicad PCB editor can do that ?! 
I guess I will find out....
Maybe you can do it in a mechanical CAD program, and import the DXF file into Kicad ?! 
I see the new Kicad v6 is out now. Maybe it has more drawing options / tools / wizards than the latest v5 I am using currently.

Oh boy, wish me luck !!! 

So I need :

- A more powerful soldering iron

- A small vice that can be quickly and easily be secured to the bench.

- A PhD in Kicad PCB design to be able to draw the shape that I need to draw.... and then hope that JLCPCB or else, will be able to route it / cut it out....


19H45 here, time to go cook something to eat.

[mansaxel]

The 27A/N Kit with his/hers Probulators... mans do you know, did that guy sell out of 'em?

Actually no; I went on.

Looking back, I find that seller offering only one loose 6KV probe, nothing else. So, yes, they sold out.

[Martin.M]

you need a 1G Ohm Pen ?

one I can give :-)

now I continue with my Rock`n Roll Problem ( https://www.wellenkino.de/video/dreher-test-1a.mp4  )

- Martin -

[med6753]

Tek RM17 scope repair update

....snip


It's a lot of fun.... probably why Smurf in Chief doesn't bother....

But it's an exercise, I want to do it at least once, then decide if I want to keep doing that or not. But at least it will give me some experience and new options for future can cap replacements. Having more options in your tool box is never a bad thing, is it...

OK so now the challenge is to draw the outline of the mounting plate in Kicad !!! 

I need to draw circles, and draw tangents to connect them together so I can draw the ovoid outline of the plate. Then the cap has 3 sections / terminals in it, so I need to arrange the 3 terminals in an equilateral triangle shape, and be able to rotate that triangle at a random but accurate angle so I can line it up as required.

I am not even sure Kicad PCB editor can do that ?! 
I guess I will find out....
Maybe you can do it in a mechanical CAD program, and import the DXF file into Kicad ?! 
I see the new Kicad v6 is out now. Maybe it has more drawing options / tools / wizards than the latest v5 I am using currently.

.....snip

Correct. If I can leave the original can in place and install new capacitor on a terminal strip under the chassis I will. But if there's no room under the chassis the can is pulled and capacitors mounted top side on terminal strips like this....

[mansaxel]

I am not even sure Kicad PCB editor can do that ?! 
I guess I will find out....

At least it can get close. This is like 15 minutes and it's really ugly. But yes, you can do it.  I tried to follow your measurement notes. 

Obvious improvements:

• Select metric in the drawing (or convert your metric measurements back to the Freedom Units  Tek used)
• Measure more carefully and compare with original.
• Select capacitor footprints that actually correspond to the ones you're using
• Same but for solder turrets / tags.
• Re-do the horrible ground mask.