Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tautech]

Sillycon die layouts sporting a tennis racquet in one corner have been laid out by a certain Mike from Florida.
Must see if I can find the pics he sent me.

As attached. Top left is Mikes racquet signature.

[mnementh]

You can't play video games on the cheap office/fleet-duty monitors. If you're lucky they're good for 60hz. Even at that pitiful refresh rate, they tear and blur like crazy. You don't always get a good monitor by throwing money at the problem; but unless you win the closeout lottery, you don't get good without paying a fair bit for it.  Same is true of most TVs... they make horrible monitors in most cases, even for game consoles.

mnem
moo. or don't.

Maybe I worded that badly last night, I haven't played any really modern PC games, the last PC game I tried was a version of Sega rally, this gave the motion sickness problem on the 24" Samsuck LandfillMaster monitor, that came new with a PC I had built about 15 years ago. A free game some years later had the same effect, as did an update to the MMORPG (aka time-sponge) I played on & off for many years (thankfully there was a option to disable the camera shake effect in that). Youtube videos where no gimbal or imagine stabilisation was used, can have the same effect, as I mentioned some TV programmes & films can have this shit forced on you too.   
I can only view or play for a short time (say 10mins) before it becomes a potential vomit problem. 

I never had this problem with the various 14" port-a-bile CRT based TVs and numerous game consoles I have (Dreamcast, Xbox, Gamecube & Wii). The Wii was the second last one I bought, Nintendo turned evil & blocked the Gamecube code disc, bastards, therefore I ended up buying a second hand Gamecube to carry on with the older games, I completely lost interest in consoles soon after that.
No one else in family seems to get motion sickness problem with screens, it's just me.

I've no need or space for anything larger than the 24" monitor, anything in this size or smaller seems to be low quality shite these days, for both TVs & monitors. I'll be using the repaired LandfillMaster till it dies completely, will probably go with dumpster find or cheap used monitors then.
Still haven't replaced the GPU due to overpriced cards, following the chipageddon shortages, the only game I really want to play is Shenmue III, maybe need to bring a CRT monitor back from storage.

David

No, I get you... I had the same problem with every VR headset I ever tried up to the Oculus DK2 with 90Hz OLED display. Just minutes and . I tried a prerelease DK2 at PAX jeebus...10 years ago maybe? Immediately signed up and got mine about 6-7 months later. That display was a game changer; tho it wasn't until like the 3rd go-round of FW updates that the fringe-ghosting was cured to the point it didn't make my eyes bleed cry involuntarily.

This is also why I've always advised fellow gamers to spend mostly on the GPU and the display... those are the big investments; dig deep, until it hurts. Skimp on RAM and CPU if need be; those can be upgraded much less painfully and then the old flipped for a much better share of what you paid.

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

On the annual suspension renovation subject, the car's now been supplied with new front ABS rings, new front right sensor, new front control arms, and been bolted together and test driven. Both ABS and traction control improved back to working, and handling also restored.   

Remaining are rear shocks and springs, oil change and MOT.

* makes sign of the cross*

"Dominy, Dominy, Dominae... grace of God go with you my son on all your travels... may you return with a clean MOT and enough money left over for a cold one at the pub on your way home."

At which point he'd have a bigger cost, the drink driving fine. Sweden's BAC limit is 0.02%, which is the rough equivalent of drinking a 1/4 pint (imperial) of beer. So no cold one on the way home from doing anything in the car.

[mansaxel]

On the annual suspension renovation subject, the car's now been supplied with new front ABS rings, new front right sensor, new front control arms, and been bolted together and test driven. Both ABS and traction control improved back to working, and handling also restored.   

Remaining are rear shocks and springs, oil change and MOT.

* makes sign of the cross*

"Dominy, Dominy, Dominae... grace of God go with you my son on all your travels... may you return with a clean MOT and enough money left over for a cold one at the pub on your way home."

At which point he'd have a bigger cost, the drink driving fine. Sweden's BAC limit is 0.02%, which is the rough equivalent of drinking a 1/4 pint (imperial) of beer. So no cold one on the way home from doing anything in the car.

Yup. One needs to be careful. Not all are. We recently tailed an US-import pickup truck all over the road while talking to the police because it was driven most likely under influence. We reported where the driver stopped and got out.  Another time I sat in a traffic jam and watched, to my horror how a bottle was passed between driver and passenger in the car behind me. Also had a long conversation with the police on that, reporting things as when they were opening a new bottle et c. In the end the police encouraged me to carefully follow it to establish where they went; I tried but did not want to break as many rules as they did..

[Cerebus]

Even before I got this far down the thread I'd remembered that there was a thing for a while of taking the caps off ceramic packaged CMOS DRAM and using them as camera sensors. Saw one on a BBC micro once. A web search turned this up
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/
Mind you back then a 64k DRAM chip wasn't cheap.
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/

Yes we had one of those at my school which was discarded. Think it was Beebug or WE branded. I wrote a motion detector using pixel averaging for it in BBC BASIC with a little bit of 6502 assembly. It wasn't much use for anything else

Circa 1982-83 shot of bd139 at work on a fresh beeb . My poor father never got near it.



Where did all that hair go...

Heh, I know that feeling. Also 1983, a still from one of my rare acting appearances:



That's me on the left* with, yes, lots of hair.

*Kind of obviously if you recognise the other two and know I'm a bloke.

[med6753]

New York airshow. 3 years ago. Most recent pix I have. Hair present then. Hair present now.

[BU508A]

Wow looks beautiful.. must have cost a fortune to assemble/manufacture ! 

If you like to watch pictures of semiconductor dies, then you should check out Richis Lab.

Here is an example from a Motorola 2N3055 transistor. What I really like about those pictures about power transistors is that one can see the barrier layer, because Richi is driving them in reverse mode and then the B-E diode becomes a Zener.



B-E diode working as a Zener at 300mA:

OK just sacrificed a 2N3055 and tried the same experiment. Doesn't work, die doesn't light up. VERY disappointed !     

Maybe it can't be seen with the naked eye, or it needs a long exposure time to gather sufficient light, or it requires a special version of the 2N3055, I don't know.
All I can say it that it didn't work on my particular transistor, and I now have one less 2N3055, he died for nothing. I am sad now.

I have to correct myself regarding the B-E diode is becoming a Zener. This is only partially true. The main effect is, that the B-E diode is working in avalanche mode. Depending on the materials being used, the produced light can be anything from IR to blue (SiC for example). Richi states, that the light can be visible to the naked eye, but it is mostly very dim. So, if you want to see this effect, it is perhaps a good idea to sit in a dark room for about 10 minutes so your eyes can adapt to the darkness and then try again.

Here is a discussion about the glowing effect of B-E diodes working in avalanche mode:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/transistors-die-pictures/msg3068740/#msg3068740

[mansaxel]

Some TE discussion for a change:

This ad https://www.tradera.com/item/340198/542487628/spectrumalalysator-tektronix-7613 purports to offer a 7613 mainframe with a 7L3 SA. It's being sold as faulty, and will need repair. Some of the powered up pics are possible clues to the fault, but I know next to nothing about the 7000 series.  Seller states "HV present, but the rest does not work so well. For starters, a liberal amount of contact cleaner will be required." The price is interesting, even if it will go up 100x, but I'd like some opinions on possible faults, so I know if it's worth fighting for.

[bd139]

Some TE discussion for a change:

This ad https://www.tradera.com/item/340198/542487628/spectrumalalysator-tektronix-7613 purports to offer a 7613 mainframe with a 7L3 SA. It's being sold as faulty, and will need repair. Some of the powered up pics are possible clues to the fault, but I know next to nothing about the 7000 series.  Seller states "HV present, but the rest does not work so well. For starters, a liberal amount of contact cleaner will be required." The price is interesting, even if it will go up 100x, but I'd like some opinions on possible faults, so I know if it's worth fighting for.

This picture will show your future life if you buy it:



(me inside a 7L12)

Choose wisely. It is both rewarding and hell equally so. And that's just the SA plugin. The mainframe, being storage, is likely to require a lot of cleaning and a whole bunch of new caps.

And yes, I would buy it.

[med6753]

Some TE discussion for a change:

This ad https://www.tradera.com/item/340198/542487628/spectrumalalysator-tektronix-7613 purports to offer a 7613 mainframe with a 7L3 SA. It's being sold as faulty, and will need repair. Some of the powered up pics are possible clues to the fault, but I know next to nothing about the 7000 series.  Seller states "HV present, but the rest does not work so well. For starters, a liberal amount of contact cleaner will be required." The price is interesting, even if it will go up 100x, but I'd like some opinions on possible faults, so I know if it's worth fighting for.

It looks like flood gun store mode is working as indicated by the bright screen. But there is no trace. That could be anything as a possibly as simple as the trigger set to "Normal" rather than "Auto".

It's a tough call. 

Edit...I have a non storage but similar 7603N and re-capping the PSU was a beast. Getting to old cans off the circuit board required cutting.

[mnementh]

On the annual suspension renovation subject, the car's now been supplied with new front ABS rings, new front right sensor, new front control arms, and been bolted together and test driven. Both ABS and traction control improved back to working, and handling also restored.   

Remaining are rear shocks and springs, oil change and MOT.

* makes sign of the cross*

"Dominy, Dominy, Dominae... grace of God go with you my son on all your travels... may you return with a clean MOT and enough money left over for a cold one at the pub on your way home."

At which point he'd have a bigger cost, the drink driving fine. Sweden's BAC limit is 0.02%, which is the rough equivalent of drinking a 1/4 pint (imperial) of beer. So no cold one on the way home from doing anything in the car.

Yup. One needs to be careful. Not all are. We recently tailed an US-import pickup truck all over the road while talking to the police because it was driven most likely under influence. We reported where the driver stopped and got out.  Another time I sat in a traffic jam and watched, to my horror how a bottle was passed between driver and passenger in the car behind me. Also had a long conversation with the police on that, reporting things as when they were opening a new bottle et c. In the end the police encouraged me to carefully follow it to establish where they went; I tried but did not want to break as many rules as they did..

Wow... way to murder a joke. 

The whole notion of a clergyman... err, dwagon... suggesting a drink on the way home...  that was like the joke. He would suggest such a thing because it is the draconically correct thing to do.   

mnem
Never said he had to be the one driving home if he did stop for a cold one, either... 

[mnementh]

From the "TODAY I..." Dept...

Today I made a slack-tube manometer from bits of a brake bleeder kit because... the HVAC tech they sent out didn't have one, or even the usual low-pressure diaphragm manometer to confirm that the upstairs AC unit we have frosting up was delivering somewhere close to expected airflow at the supply plenum. 

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Some TE discussion for a change:

This ad https://www.tradera.com/item/340198/542487628/spectrumalalysator-tektronix-7613 purports to offer a 7613 mainframe with a 7L3 SA. It's being sold as faulty, and will need repair. Some of the powered up pics are possible clues to the fault, but I know next to nothing about the 7000 series.  Seller states "HV present, but the rest does not work so well. For starters, a liberal amount of contact cleaner will be required." The price is interesting, even if it will go up 100x, but I'd like some opinions on possible faults, so I know if it's worth fighting for.

This picture will show your future life if you buy it:



(me inside a 7L12)

Choose wisely. It is both rewarding and hell equally so. And that's just the SA plugin. The mainframe, being storage, is likely to require a lot of cleaning and a whole bunch of new caps.

And yes, I would buy it.

Nice Ragu DMM you have there. 

mnem

[nixiefreqq]

ok.........picture to prove the freq once had hair.   circa 1980 on the loyalsock trail in sullivan county.

my recollection is that the next morning we had to belly slide out on a pond and break a hole in the ice to get cooking water.

edit  just noticed it says june 80.  that must be when the film was finally developed, because the hike was probably in feb.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Looking at all those nasty pictures and, erm, sort of heated "discussions", here is some contrary programme from Qwertee (NAWTS):

Hey! They have one for BD139 too!
https://www.qwertee.com/product/scarlet-chaos-784

[cyclin_al]

There are issues with more active pixels on the same size sensor. One that a lot of people miss is dynamic range. A small active area (pixel) is both less sensitive and saturates at a lower level. The ratio of active area to dead space (interconnects readout circuitry etc) goes down too. These can be fudged with processing but the raw data is still poorer. You really notive these effects when using imaging sensors for measurement purposes.
More is not automatically better

All that is true but for photographic purposes it's not really the limiting factor. Almost any reasonably modern sensor intended for photographic use can beat film in terms of dynamic range. However the ability to shift gain (aka alter the equivalent ISO number) on digital sensors tends, I suspect, to mean that this isn't always taken advantage of by being operated at the optimum exposure whereas with film you were forced to.

With the sensor disposed of the limiting factor becomes the lens in front of it and there's no doubt that this is what makes the most difference. People are quite often surprised to find that a digital photo of mine that they like, that beats their jigapixel digital picture, was made with a humble 17 year old, 6 megapixel Nikon D70. Of course the secret is that it was made with a decent lump of glass in front of the sensor with perhaps twice the resolving power of the lens on their latest Apple/Samsung/Whatever with a much more modern, better, and higher resolution sensor.

I actually had a D70. Nice camera

Completely agree. I'm going to be honest and say I rather like the modern smartphone cameras. You can get some shockingly good results out of them but the lack of glass is mostly what kills them for me. I missed a lot of opportunities. So I traded someone else's kidney for some mirrorless kit 

Similarly, still using a D90 here.  I would add some more glass in the telephoto range; useful when living next to farm fields.  However, the limited budget for TEA is not leaving much left over for glass 

[AVGresponding]

Wow looks beautiful.. must have cost a fortune to assemble/manufacture ! 

If you like to watch pictures of semiconductor dies, then you should check out Richis Lab.

Here is an example from a Motorola 2N3055 transistor. What I really like about those pictures about power transistors is that one can see the barrier layer, because Richi is driving them in reverse mode and then the B-E diode becomes a Zener.



B-E diode working as a Zener at 300mA:

OK just sacrificed a 2N3055 and tried the same experiment. Doesn't work, die doesn't light up. VERY disappointed !     

Maybe it can't be seen with the naked eye, or it needs a long exposure time to gather sufficient light, or it requires a special version of the 2N3055, I don't know.
All I can say it that it didn't work on my particular transistor, and I now have one less 2N3055, he died for nothing. I am sad now.

Chances are it's well towards the red end of the spectrum, maybe even into the near IR.

Two things to try: Run it as close as you can to its limits (more V and/or I means more emissions), and try pulsing it at a few Hz, that should make it easier to see.

[BU508A]

ok.........picture to prove the freq once had hair.   circa 1980 on the loyalsock trail in sullivan county.

my recollection is that the next morning we had to belly slide out on a pond and break a hole in the ice to get cooking water.

edit  just noticed it says june 80.  that must be when the film was finally developed, because the hike was probably in feb.

Hmm, that photo reminds me about a show, where a man decided to marry live together with a bear in the mountains.

 

[bd139]

Looking at all those nasty pictures and, erm, sort of heated "discussions", here is some contrary programme from Qwertee (NAWTS):

Hey! They have one for BD139 too!
https://www.qwertee.com/product/scarlet-chaos-784

Perfect 

[bd139]

ok.........picture to prove the freq once had hair.   circa 1980 on the loyalsock trail in sullivan county.

my recollection is that the next morning we had to belly slide out on a pond and break a hole in the ice to get cooking water.

edit  just noticed it says june 80.  that must be when the film was finally developed, because the hike was probably in feb.

Hmm, that photo reminds me about a show, where a man decided to marry live together with a bear in the mountains.

 

Ugh I remember watching that at my grandmother's house on her black and white television. You posting it invoked some good memories. I loved that television. It was a tube stuffed one, I think from Ferguson and was getting more than a bit cranky by the 80s. When the inevitable channels zonked out, she used to hit it with a walking stick until it worked again. I'm not talking about a little poke but more like a golf swing. The cabinet had chunks missing out of it.

When it was eventually beyond economical repair i.e. someone gave her one with transistors for nothing in which cost less than than the repair was going to cost, I was all ready to pounce on it for parts. But no, having filled her entire kitchen with smoke from a transformer fire a few weeks before, I was banned from anything high voltage. I watched it being carted out onto the street for the rag and bone man and suffered disappointment for days 

[med6753]

ok.........picture to prove the freq once had hair.   circa 1980 on the loyalsock trail in sullivan county.

my recollection is that the next morning we had to belly slide out on a pond and break a hole in the ice to get cooking water.

edit  just noticed it says june 80.  that must be when the film was finally developed, because the hike was probably in feb.

Hmm, that photo reminds me about a show, where a man decided to marry live together with a bear in the mountains.

 

And he would be able to confirm that the bear does indeed shit in the woods. 

[BU508A]

New York airshow. 3 years ago. Most recent pix I have. Hair present then. Hair present now.

Fixed that for you. 

Thanks to bd139 which he helped me getting rid of a brain fart. 

[med6753]

LMAO. Cute. 


I'll resist the temptation to kill both you. Today.

Tomorrow may be a different story. 

[DC1MC]

No Motherfaker, but Interfaker  for our German members who want to interfak serial interfakes !!!

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/modular-technology-interfaker-mt25-tester-fuer-v-24-und-rs-232/1995924726-168-7982

[McBryce]

Same kid? The glasses...the hair. 

Humourous, but the subtitles have absolutely nothing to do with what he is actually saying and from what he's saying, it sounds like he is trying to get an online game to work, not register for any sort of classes.

McBryce.