Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Oh, and my daughter is cute. 

'nuff qualification, ain't it so?

Damn skippy.

mnem

[mnementh]

Robert, you jumped into an existing conversation where both 3-wire and 4-wire cord installation were being discussed. You did not specify which you were talking about, nor does your diagram state any such thing clearly.

Yet when I try to clarify, and completely non-confrontationally explain what we were talking about vs what you were talking about, you take offense.

Dood... seriously. Nothing I said deserved that level of response.

mnem
*toddles off to do something... else*

1/The sketch shows 4 wires going to the dryer
2/ The described fault can only happen if the earth and neutral are connected at the dryer so it must be a 4 wire cord
3/ the same issue applies for any equipment if you connect the neutral and protective conductor including 3 wire 110V or european style 240V 3 wire.

How much detail did I have to give?

Obviously it was not obvious what you were talking about, or we wouldn't be having this misunderstanding. There was never any intent to demean, trivialize or in any way attack you here. 

We are not inside your head Robert, we don't all always know what you're talking about. You tend to take shortcuts in the discussion and in this case also the drawing that reflect what you're thinking about, and assume everyone else knows what you mean. ie: including the terminal strip and not including a nonexistent GND as I did would have gone a lot further towards clarifying.

The nature of this medium means you do have to be more specific and more detailed than with "in person" conversations; we don't have the benefit of body language, tone of voice, or facial expression to help us understand what you mean. Even the point of the conversation where you jump in makes a difference here.

At this point all I can do is chalk this one up to misunderstanding and the nature of the medium as above; I encourage you to do the same, as I never wanted to fight about any of this. 

mnem
I think I'm gonna go color some My Little Ponies with my daughter... we NEVER argue when we're doing that...

Well you seem to be the only person who had a problem with it. You have still not accepted that I'm correct in saying that a connection between protective ground and neutral in ANY appliance (note: being able to connect them together means both protective ground and neutral conductors must be present) poses a risk of overloading the appliance cord if the neutral goes open elsewhere in the system.
This applies to 110V (NA) and 240V (EU) single phase as well as the specific case of a USA 220V split phase dryer where there appears to be a historic practice that makes the incorrect connection more likely by providing a link wire.
You did not try to explain the problem, you tried to dismiss it by changing the conditions i.e going to a "3wire" dryer connection.
I was not knocking the USA electrical just show the issue which is not obvious.
I'm done on this one.

Now that you've had your final word on it, and demanded that you be right; why thank you Lord Robert, for the privilege of dropping an idiotic argument where we were both right, and nobody said you were wrong.

Jeezus H. Christ a-hoppin' on a pogo stick...

mnem
Go ahead. Be offended. You're looking to be.

[mnementh]

I just plug my dryer in the wall 

As one does when the normal outlet can supply adequate power. A BS1363 outlet not on ring mains will happily supply a little bit over 3KW; that's ~26A at 120V...

240-ish volt Dryer circuit over here is 30A, 240-ish volt Range circuit is 50A. Both use a dedicated dual breaker with internal common trip. Standard 125-ish volt household outlet is rated 15A/1875W, and we also have a standard for 125-ish volt 20A/2500W.

And none of those household plugs qualify as a lethal weapon in most use cases. Our Range/Dryer plugs are as bad as yours, tho... 

mnem
Honestly, I don't know why it isn't a "thing" you hear about in the news all the time; murdering people with those monstrous things...

You don't hear about electrocution deaths caused by "13A" plugs in the news is because they don't happen. Sockets and plugs properly designed and built to the british standard are very safe despite the "high" voltage.
We do have problems with cheap appliances, plugs, adaptors ets that are fubamentallly unsafe and having a 240V supply DOES increase the risk when these fail. 
A US Split-Phase  220V system is NOT as dangerous as the UK 240V because ther is still only 110V to "ground" and ground is the most likely return path through a human.
The british system uses  similar Split-Phase" system in high risk areas like construction power tools. That is even safer as it is a 55V-0-55V system with transformers so only 55V to ground.
We also have rules on electrical outs and lights in bathrooms etc. At least our sockets don't need regular replacement like most NEMA 5-15 outlets.

And here we go again... you jumping in the middle of another conversation without knowing what the fuck the other participants were talking about.

I was talking about the fact that your household plugs and our Dryer/Range plugs, when applied properly on a suitable piece of electrical cord, more than reasonably constitute a +3 spiked mace in melee combat.

And I am amazed we don't hear about people being clubbed to death with them on a regular basis.

mnem

[Robert763]

That's fine and dandy but I like UF4007 more. It's the same 1A/1000V but fast. Just put 3 in series for a cheap & very sturdy 3kV diode and can run in the kHz, easy. Need a 1N4007 replacement? Still can do with these....

Might be some marginal use cases where they don't work as well, V_F looks to be quite a bit higher at max I_F, and maybe the capacitance too.

There is another issue with fast rectifiers - noise. A fast rectifier can generate switch-off transients that have harmonics well into the VHF range. I've had broadcast FM reception wiped out by a bridge rectifier that used fast diodes. Fix was to put a 1nF capacitor across each diode. Even regular diodes can cause issues at HF. You sometimes see capacitors across brodge rectifiers in professional radio receivers.

[25 CPS]

They stood up to my high school electronics class ... I was definitely one of the gentler students (ie. with half a clue what I was doing, instead of no clue).  I want one only for that reason.  This US price is getting more reasonable, but the cross-border shipping kills the deal...

You had electronics in high school?! Jealous

It was the last year they offered that class.  The future was bleak.  The real problem was too few students willing to be labelled as geeks and sign up for the class.
My darkest moment now is that I was far too naive to realize the opportunity when they cleared out the room at the end of the year... I could have brought a lot of that gear home for free.

-- coulda shoulda woulda didn't[/s] 

*raises a paw*   Ummm... wood shop, machine shop, and motorhead shop too... 

Wood shop, electrical and drafting were a combined course.
Electronics was in the last year.

Machine shop, welding shop and automotive shop were another combined course, but I was discouraged from joining the grease monkeys.  Opportunity lost ... could have been useful had I known better.

The high school I went to had an electronics class but I didn't take it because they didn't allow students to use capacitors which is...kind of limiting.

I did take the intro to shop in Grade 9 which had a rotation through the wood shop/welding shop/metal and machine shop.  They also had an automotive shop with a bunch of classes.  Unfortunately, I stopped there too since my parents were insistent I not take any of that stuff because they wanted me to go to university.

This was all before the Mike Harris cuts that closed down a lot of shop home ec etc. type classes.

[25 CPS]

Truthfully, ever since it became clear my messages were vanishing into nowhere, I have been thinking about ordering the U1253B package from Transcat since that'd come with a warranty, current calibration, fresh OLED display, plus the carry case etc.

Order placed.  I also ordered a bunch of miscellaneous things I needed that weren't enough to get above the free shipping threshold so that took care of all that.

"Message Again"  It wouldn't be much effort to type something and hit send but I'm not even sure I'm going to bother.

Now I'm tempted to hit the "Message Again" button and send a note saying I bought a new U1253B since he didn't get back to me.

Agilent isn't the current brand name and even then Keysight isn't as widely known as Fluke, and he's got the listed the U1253B at what I'd consider a fairly reasonable price for what it is, but that means it's priced well above the cheap DMMs people flip all the time.  Have fun shifting it.  Could've had cash in hand a week ago.

Hopefully the design of the 1253B is significantly improved over the 1253A that Dave did a teardown of way back when; the continuity function in particular was garbage, and the general design of the front end wasn't great.

I have a U1253b and they are a nice meter, BUT the oled display has a nasty tendency to fade, I believe esp if hot, humid and exposed to light,.
The meter turns on quickly, is nice in the hand (like 87v) and inside the display has a great viewing angle - much better than lcd. Rechargeable batteries are a bit of a PITA.
My go to HH DMM now is a Hioki.

The current OLEDs supposedly have longer lifespans than the ones used in the U1253A version of the meter.  The other big thing compared to LCD besides viewing angle is OLED continues working effectively in the cold.  LCD displays can start freezing up and be very slow to respond and become nearly impossible to read and I ran into some problems with that doing outdoor work in the winter.

It isn't just a problem with multimeters.  I have a Canadian Tire air pump and it's got digital controls with an LCD readout that shows you what pressure you've set it to pump to or what your tire pressure currently is.  It's great because you dial in the tire pressure you need and then push the start button and it stops automatically once it gets there.  Unfortunately, adjusting the settings or doing a straight pressure check and reading the number off the display doesn't work so well in winter.  And this is in southern Ontario too which arguably doesn't even get winter in any meaningful way compared to the rest of Canada.

[mnementh]

Vince are you watching the big race 24 hrs of Le Mans while you're sorting diodes? 

Not until the last hour or so, which when things get interesting and they're showing the reruns of the best "incidents" of the day... the rest of the time, that shit'll put yer ass to sleep unless you're actually there. 

mnem
*virtual  *

[mnementh]

Yeah electrical safety here is probably the best on the planet. My oven is plugged into a standard socket to give you an idea. (2.5kW single oven).

British mains plugs have been iterated on for decades and are incredibly robust. Never seen a problem with one unlike the US ones which seem to melt every two minutes.

The problem with your wiring and our wiring (at least from tales I've heard) is the same as over here; a lack of adherence/enforcement: The fact that existing wiring is often "grandfathered" and doesn't need to be changed by law, even for many rental properties. 

To further exacerbate matters, because of this you can have mixed ring topology and star topology, and still have point-to-point over there too.

I'm not claiming our "standards" are in any way better... the house I'm living in is a textbook example: we have mixed cloth covered 12-2 W/G, ROMEX 12-2 W/G, and cloth-covered 12ga 2 & 3 conductor in BX cladding, with and without a GND wire. 

So essentially 4 "standards" of wiring, and most of the time, you don't know exactly what you're dealing with until you pop a cover.   

Oh, and as I mentioned before, one original (well, probably retrofit 40-60 years ago) CB panel and another that was installed with the two AC units 20-30 years ago... and I've already found at least one outlet in the kitchen that gets sourced from the latter - right between two that are sourced from the "original" CB panel.

What the fuck good is any electrical standard if it isn't globally enforced...? Then it's just like the Pirate Code; more a set of guidelines, really...

mnem
Electrical "Standards":   

[Neomys Sapiens]

Some hand tools also included.
The bright one has no name.

That is an offset screwdriver, with the blades in 45° interval positions in order to need less space to re-engage the screw.

[bd139]

Yeah electrical safety here is probably the best on the planet. My oven is plugged into a standard socket to give you an idea. (2.5kW single oven).

British mains plugs have been iterated on for decades and are incredibly robust. Never seen a problem with one unlike the US ones which seem to melt every two minutes.

The problem with your wiring and our wiring (at least from tales I've heard) is the same as over here; a lack of adherence/enforcement: The fact that existing wiring is often "grandfathered" and doesn't need to be changed by law, even for many rental properties. 

To further exacerbate matters, because of this you can have mixed ring topology and star topology, and still have point-to-point over there too.

I'm not claiming our "standards" are in any way better... the house I'm living in is a textbook example: we have mixed cloth covered 12-2 W/G, ROMEX 12-2 W/G, and cloth-covered 12ga 2 & 3 conductor in BX cladding, with and without a GND wire. 

So essentially 4 "standards" of wiring, and most of the time, you don't know exactly what you're dealing with until you pop a cover.   

Oh, and as I mentioned before, one original (well, probably retrofit 40-60 years ago) CB panel and another that was installed with the two AC units 20-30 years ago... and I've already found at least one outlet in the kitchen that gets sourced from the latter - right between two that are sourced from the "original" CB panel.

What the fuck good is any electrical standard if it isn't globally enforced...? Then it's just like the Pirate Code; more a set of guidelines, really...

mnem
Electrical "Standards":   

Problem with standard is they evolve, sometimes because the standards body feel like they need to do something to continue to exist. Occasionally they find a flaw in a standard and instead of coming up with a fix or a patch and enforcing it they rewrite the standards and sell a lot of courses and books. At least that’s how it works here.

This ends up with the shit show we both have. But most modern installations and refits here that weren’t performed by the lowest bidding moron are actually quite good. My place included. Mine was a shit show left from when they built it in 1954 so it got ripped out 

[25 CPS]

Finally managed to get all the footage edited and posted on YT of the Steam Gala. Don't know what I did wrong last time, but only the first few minutes of the compilation worked  The footage shown is a sample of what happened between 1:42pm and 6:36pm. The day started at 10:00am but the car park was rammed so I went to the airfield first.

Very nice.  Did I spy one of the two 1959 stock units that London Underground painted in old Northern Line colours in the corner there a couple of minutes in?

@bd139 You said that you wanted to visit this sometime, all you need to do is to jump on a Central Line tube to Epping on a day when the EOR line is running, where when you arrive there will old routemasters or possibly and or RTs to take you to North Weald station where it all begins from.

https://www.eorailway.co.uk/

How do they manage the heritage steam operation where the line meets London Underground at Epping?  Has it been completely severed?

[Atomillo]

Today's was the only hamfest here in Spain that I'm aware of, and it is very close to where I live (it's located in Cerdanyola). The past two years it was cancelled due to COVID, but this was marketed as being "the return of the old hamfest".

Defintely not. Might be a quarter of the amount of vendors that were present in 2019 were actually there. What's more, it is clear the organisers expected a lot more people to come, and so prepared a lot of tables which ended up being empty and just made the whole thing even more depressing.

Only one person was selling anything related to TE (one stand was just selling used consumer electronics and the rest were just second hand radios, esentially nothing relating to electronics). Covered by old and pretty worthless PROMAX and "homemade" gear, I saw an HP logo and might be due to the impulse to justify the car trip I ended up buying the whole thing.

An 8656B Signal Generator, along with a spare front panel, the original foot as well as some connectors for 100 euro. The previous owner told me that some buttons are really unresponsive and that he bought the other keyboard to change them, but that he didnt have time and that his wife though they needed the extra space. Aside from that he guaranteed me the unit worked perfectly.

I've only tested the thing up to about the 150Mhz limit of scope and seems to work great, aside from some buttons really being difficult (not pressing them but actually making them record the press) and the fan being a small jet turbine. When I turned it off I noticed a transformer buzz. Uhm, weird, it seems to still be powered on. So I take a look at the back and what I see? An "Opt 001" sticker!!

Does it make the price tag more bearable? Well I dont know... To be honest I'm still not sure whether I actually need this or not. And it's huge!! As big as an HP3455 and HP3456 together almost. I feel like might be buyer's remorse is kicking in.

[bd139]

That’s was a win for 100 eur. Surely a candidate for jammy git award 

[TERRA Operative]

Good score! A bit of deoxit and some plastic-safe grease in those switches, then flip all the leaf springs over and they will be as smooth as the day they were made.

[25 CPS]

Today's was the only hamfest here in Spain that I'm aware of, and it is very close to where I live (it's located in Cerdanyola). The past two years it was cancelled due to COVID, but this was marketed as being "the return of the old hamfest".

Defintely not. Might be a quarter of the amount of vendors that were present in 2019 were actually there. What's more, it is clear the organisers expected a lot more people to come, and so prepared a lot of tables which ended up being empty and just made the whole thing even more depressing.

Only one person was selling anything related to TE (one stand was just selling used consumer electronics and the rest were just second hand radios, esentially nothing relating to electronics). Covered by old and pretty worthless PROMAX and "homemade" gear, I saw an HP logo and might be due to the impulse to justify the car trip I ended up buying the whole thing.

An 8656B Signal Generator, along with a spare front panel, the original foot as well as some connectors for 100 euro. The previous owner told me that some buttons are really unresponsive and that he bought the other keyboard to change them, but that he didnt have time and that his wife though they needed the extra space. Aside from that he guaranteed me the unit worked perfectly.

I've only tested the thing up to about the 150Mhz limit of scope and seems to work great, aside from some buttons really being difficult (not pressing them but actually making them record the press) and the fan being a small jet turbine. When I turned it off I noticed a transformer buzz. Uhm, weird, it seems to still be powered on. So I take a look at the back and what I see? An "Opt 001" sticker!!

Does it make the price tag more bearable? Well I dont know... To be honest I'm still not sure whether I actually need this or not. And it's huge!! As big as an HP3455 and HP3456 together almost. I feel like might be buyer's remorse is kicking in.

Excellent score!  You'll enjoy the 8656B for sure.  I got my 8656B the same way before the pandemic.  Hamfest, lots of junk, one table with good equipment.   I didn't have a chance to stop at a bank machine on the way over because I was helping a friend out the morning of, so I had to go away and come back, hoping it didn't sell while I was gone.  The 8656B was still there and so were the couple of Tektronix scopes that they brought.

Ignore the buyer's remorse and enjoy the signal generator.  It's a fine piece of machinery.

[Atomillo]

Now I have one question: is it safe to put it below the stack of HP multimeters?
If so that would save a lot of space and would help me appreciate it a little bit more, as it is, I can hardly work in the "work"bench 

[tggzzz]

Well that’s basically my watch list 

About 30 Fluke 87V-EX True RMS multimeter being auctioned at Ramco on 21st June

[TERRA Operative]

Now I have one question: is it safe to put it below the stack of HP multimeters?
If so that would save a lot of space and would help me appreciate it a little bit more, as it is, I can hardly work in the "work"bench 

You could use that thing as a seat for an entire family and it wouldn't care one bit, those old HP machines are made strong. (I may or may not use some of my gear as a makeshift step to get to the top shelves.... )
You see that plastic strip along the top of the control panel? There is a groove there that interlocks with the feet of the unit put on top, they are designed to stack.

Stack it up and make a Test Equipment Tower to be proud of.

[Atomillo]

Now I have one question: is it safe to put it below the stack of HP multimeters?
If so that would save a lot of space and would help me appreciate it a little bit more, as it is, I can hardly work in the "work"bench 

You could use that thing as a seat for an entire family and it wouldn't care one bit, those old HP machines are made strong. (I may or may not use some of my gear as a makeshift step to get to the top shelves.... )
You see that plastic strip along the top of the control panel? There is a groove there that interlocks with the feet of the unit put on top, they are designed to stack.

Stack it up and make a Test Equipment Tower to be proud of.

I... I had not even realized the function of that strip. Now I feel like the HP designers were either geniuses or me just an idiot! Or both!
I will clean the buttons carefully then and put it in it's right ful place. Now that there is a place for it my remorse is fading away quite quickly. 

[Kosmic]

So, I was looking for a multimeter to put in the tool box and use for un-frequent electrical work. I currently have a cheap Mastercraft dmm (Canadian tire in-house brand made by Allsun in China) and it feel inadequate. I definitely need something that perspire professionalism and refinement. Something that will inspire pride when I finally reach in the toolbox to get the multimeter to check for power before changing a light fixture.

One of those ultra rugged DMM, waterproof and created for harsh environment would be perfect. Definitely adapted to my application.

So I got a second hand Meterman HD115B. HD stand for Heavy Duty. Spec and feature wise it's similar to the Fluke 27. Getting a Fluke 27 was an option but since it seem like everybody got one these days it would not have been super original.



Since I didn't find a lot of disassembly pictures online, I'm adding some here.








I'm a bit disappointed with the input protection. It's sold has a 1500V DC / 1000VAC meter but got 600V fuses ?  So the CATIII 1500V doesn't apply to the amp mode ? I don't understand the certification and how they pass. The water proofing seem really good though.

[TERRA Operative]

Now I have one question: is it safe to put it below the stack of HP multimeters?
If so that would save a lot of space and would help me appreciate it a little bit more, as it is, I can hardly work in the "work"bench 

You could use that thing as a seat for an entire family and it wouldn't care one bit, those old HP machines are made strong. (I may or may not use some of my gear as a makeshift step to get to the top shelves.... )
You see that plastic strip along the top of the control panel? There is a groove there that interlocks with the feet of the unit put on top, they are designed to stack.

Stack it up and make a Test Equipment Tower to be proud of.

I... I had not even realized the function of that strip. Now I feel like the HP designers were either geniuses or me just an idiot! Or both!
I will clean the buttons carefully then and put it in it's right ful place. Now that there is a place for it my remorse is fading away quite quickly. 

Here's one of my videos where I rebuild the 'Bill West' switches, might be useful to see how it's done for your machine.

youtu.be/kX8WMw0BK7w?t=815

[mansaxel]

Does it make the price tag more bearable? Well I dont know... To be honest I'm still not sure whether I actually need this or not. And it's huge!! As big as an HP3455 and HP3456 together almost. I feel like might be buyer's remorse is kicking in.

Don't listen to those enablers. I can help you with that remorse. I'll liberate you from it for what you paid. No problemo. Friends in need and all that... 

(but seriously, if you feel like it, I'm interested.)

[Atomillo]

Now I have one question: is it safe to put it below the stack of HP multimeters?
If so that would save a lot of space and would help me appreciate it a little bit more, as it is, I can hardly work in the "work"bench 

You could use that thing as a seat for an entire family and it wouldn't care one bit, those old HP machines are made strong. (I may or may not use some of my gear as a makeshift step to get to the top shelves.... )
You see that plastic strip along the top of the control panel? There is a groove there that interlocks with the feet of the unit put on top, they are designed to stack.

Stack it up and make a Test Equipment Tower to be proud of.

I... I had not even realized the function of that strip. Now I feel like the HP designers were either geniuses or me just an idiot! Or both!
I will clean the buttons carefully then and put it in it's right ful place. Now that there is a place for it my remorse is fading away quite quickly. 

Here's one of my videos where I rebuild the 'Bill West' switches, might be useful to see how it's done for your machine.

youtu.be/kX8WMw0BK7w?t=815

Yes! In fact the difference in sound is also very noticeable. Many thanks! You have a new subscriber 

[Atomillo]

Does it make the price tag more bearable? Well I dont know... To be honest I'm still not sure whether I actually need this or not. And it's huge!! As big as an HP3455 and HP3456 together almost. I feel like might be buyer's remorse is kicking in.

Don't listen to those enablers. I can help you with that remorse. I'll liberate you from it for what you paid. No problemo. Friends in need and all that... 

(but seriously, if you feel like it, I'm interested.)

Well, after the advice from TERRA now I see the HP8656B, the 55 and 56 all beautifully united... I can't let go!
But many thanks for your offer, I feel now that I was quite lucky. I have very little experience in RF things and I esentially bought it for the HP logo (surrounded by overpriced old PROMAX counters and generators I felt it deserved something better), I'm now reading threads and the manual and I'm starting to appreciate it a lot more.

[factory]

Fleabay time:

Baby ***** meter*. I notice the current input is the same as the V/Ω etc. WCPGW? The 1V check is an intriguing feature:  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185458260809

I'm currently attempting to resurrect one of those Advance DMM2 multimeters, one of the few vintage meters I have, that can also run on low voltage DC power. It be changed to 115V operation too.
The ohms range has quite a high O/C voltage of 11V.
Note: it has some unobtainium ICs inside.


A while ago I found one in the US under the Eldorado brand (model 1800), it lacks the 1V check output, but I suspect it's the same inside.


*word hidden, to avoid web-search providers from helping part poachers. 

David