Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Did I heard someone said pliers?     

Why do I have a sudden hankering for caramel apples and Jolly Ranchers...? 

mnem
mmmm.... carbo-plier-ates... 

[mnementh]

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 

   No it's not safe to stack equipment.     I'd never stack more than 10 items. I can't reach any higher 

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

That right there is a prime example of type 5 JENGA...

mnem
...and dammit, now I wanna mug you for that 54645D.

[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.

mnem
May as well pull up a comfy chair and have a taco... you're fucking doomed.

Oh god... I'm too young (and broke) for this!

[VK5RC]

The mail has been delivered.







Verrah naace....

-Pat

Ooooooooooh, they do look very sweeeeeeet👌😁

[Cubdriver]

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.

mnem
May as well pull up a comfy chair and have a taco... you're fucking doomed.

Oh god... I'm too young (and broke) for this!

Fear not - in what seems like the blink of an eye, you’ll be old and broke, like the rest of us are.   

-Pat

[TERRA Operative]

Oh god... I'm too young (and broke) for this!

These excuses are not acceptable, your petition for mercy is DENIED! 

[med6753]

Fear not - in what seems like the blink of an eye, you’ll be old and broke, like the rest of us are.   

-Pat

Call me old again and I'll beat you with my cane and run over you with my walker. 

[Cubdriver]

Did I heard someone said pliers? 

Those look like the pliers and cutters that were in my tool box 25+ years ago when I worked for Bal-Tec (they were based in Liechtenstein).  Recently got a set of the PB Swiss screwdrivers I had back then, but will try to resist searching for the pliers/cutters (for now, anyway…). I’ve blown my tool budget for the moment.

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

Fear not - in what seems like the blink of an eye, you’ll be old and broke, like the rest of us are.   

-Pat

Call me old again and I'll beat you with my cane and run over you with my walker. 

You’ll have to catch me first!!       

-Pat

[med6753]

Fear not - in what seems like the blink of an eye, you’ll be old and broke, like the rest of us are.   

-Pat

Call me old again and I'll beat you with my cane and run over you with my walker. 

You’ll have to catch me first!!       

-Pat

Not a problem my boy. "Old age and treachery always beats youth and speed" 

[Cubdriver]

Fear not - in what seems like the blink of an eye, you’ll be old and broke, like the rest of us are.   

-Pat

Call me old again and I'll beat you with my cane and run over you with my walker. 

You’ll have to catch me first!!       

-Pat

Not a problem my boy. "Old age and treachery always beats youth and speed" 

LOL - one of the guys on Miata Net back in the day went by Age & Treachery Racing.  Twenty plus years down the road, I probably qualify for the team.  I’m not sure where time goes, but as life moves on wherever it is it’s going there at a rate not to my liking!

-Pat

[Cubdriver]

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 

No it's not safe to stack equipment. 
I'd never stack more than 10 items. I can't reach any higher 

And Murphy guarantees that, no matter what order you stack them in, it will be the one at the bottom that will need to be repaired.   

-Pat

[Neomys Sapiens]

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 

No it's not safe to stack equipment. 
I'd never stack more than 10 items. I can't reach any higher 

And Murphy guarantees that, no matter what order you stack them in, it will be the one at the bottom that will need to be repaired.   

-Pat

You just gave me an interesting idea for mechanical or mechatronics design. The StackJack(TM). Sold in sets of four. The solution of a problem or a recipe for desaster?
 

[bd139]

That reminds me of the time I had to go stick some ram in a box in a data centre. As it was fully managed we found out when we got there all they had was telecoms racks and there was a huge pile of DL380’s stacked on top of each other. Mine was at the bottom. We jacked 9 machines up carefully with 4 people and a pile of Oreilly books and slid the node out carefully while everything was live.

It can be done 

[Robert763]

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 

No it's not safe to stack equipment. 
I'd never stack more than 10 items. I can't reach any higher 

And Murphy guarantees that, no matter what order you stack them in, it will be the one at the bottom that will need to be repaired.   

-Pat

You just gave me an interesting idea for mechanical or mechatronics design. The StackJack(TM). Sold in sets of four. The solution of a problem or a recipe for desaster?
 

Already available from your local building supplier. 4 strongboys and support jacks
https://safefence.co.uk/strongboy-lintel-support.html
Used to support brickwork when installing a window or door in an existing wall.

[TERRA Operative]

That reminds me of the time I had to go stick some ram in a box in a data centre. As it was fully managed we found out when we got there all they had was telecoms racks and there was a huge pile of DL380’s stacked on top of each other. Mine was at the bottom. We jacked 9 machines up carefully with 4 people and a pile of Oreilly books and slid the node out carefully while everything was live.

It can be done 

As someone who's day job is in a datacenter, I feel this.

A sneaky peek at some of the shit that exists out there..... last week I had to lift a couple of live Juniper (crap!) routers up in the racks to fit servers underneath, while live and serving traffic. A couple years of connections, disconnections and general 'not my job' fuckery...
This one isn't a big router by any stretch of the imagination (we have some DWDM's and stuff that are serving in the terabit range now), but basically each port is a 100G connection.

(With a co-worker expressing the general sentiment at the whole situation... )


So, if you come to Tokyo and download your WiniOS updates, Netflix, whatevers, etc, etc and it's nice and fast, you're welcome. If it's slow, don't blame me, I've already knocked off for the day! 

[bd139]

That one looked painful  . Nice job though 

[TERRA Operative]

It was a bit stressful, but luckily the two routers are each side of a redundant connection, so I could briefly disconnect a connection as needed one-by-one, one side at a time to untangle things without disrupting the downloading of cat pictures and porn..... 

It was a rush job (as always seems to be the case lately.....  ), but as we had a few hands on deck, I was able to concentrate on the fkng fibres and get things neat while the others installed the new gear.






And now y'all know why I come home to sit in front of a soldering iron to calm down....




Because I'm a masochist. 

[mansaxel]

As someone who's day job is in a datacenter, I feel this.

A sneaky peek at some of the shit that exists out there..... last week I had to lift a couple of live Juniper (crap!) routers up in the racks to fit servers underneath, while live and serving traffic.

You have kind supervisors. I recently wrote updated installation instructions for optical fibre at work, as part of us shopping for a new contractor doing audio, video and data cabling installs:

When running patch fibre between equipment and ODF or between ODF's the use of inline couplers is prohibited; the patch cable shall be one unbroken length.

Have I broken this rule? Yes.
Do I want my contractors doing it? Hell, no! 

I also now require reports with microscope pictures of every ferrule connected. There's so much contamination in our patch panels from people plugging dirty fiber connectors that we're running short on some stretches from all the decommissioned pairs.

[tggzzz]

Oh god... I'm too young (and broke) for this!

The evidence is against you, I'm afraid.

"Give me the strength to fight the things that should be changed, the serenity to accept those that cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference".

[tggzzz]

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 

No it's not safe to stack equipment. 
I'd never stack more than 10 items. I can't reach any higher 

And Murphy guarantees that, no matter what order you stack them in, it will be the one at the bottom that will need to be repaired.   

-Pat

You just gave me an interesting idea for mechanical or mechatronics design. The StackJack(TM). Sold in sets of four. The solution of a problem or a recipe for desaster?
 

Already available from your local building supplier. 4 strongboys and support jacks
https://safefence.co.uk/strongboy-lintel-support.html
Used to support brickwork when installing a window or door in an existing wall.

When I replaced a rotten wooden lintel, I used two acroprops and another lintel. Experienced builders just remove the lintel knowing the brickwork won't collapse immediately.

[tggzzz]

That reminds me of the time I had to go stick some ram in a box in a data centre. As it was fully managed we found out when we got there all they had was telecoms racks and there was a huge pile of DL380’s stacked on top of each other. Mine was at the bottom. We jacked 9 machines up carefully with 4 people and a pile of Oreilly books and slid the node out carefully while everything was live.

It can be done 

When, as a schoolkid, I went around the inside of the Heathrow control tower, I was horrified that I had to be careful not to catch on the cables dangling between racks of equipment. It looked a bit like TERRA Operative's pictures.

I doubt I'd be able to do that at Swanage nowadays

[med6753]

That reminds me of the time I had to go stick some ram in a box in a data centre. As it was fully managed we found out when we got there all they had was telecoms racks and there was a huge pile of DL380’s stacked on top of each other. Mine was at the bottom. We jacked 9 machines up carefully with 4 people and a pile of Oreilly books and slid the node out carefully while everything was live.

It can be done 

When, as a schoolkid, I went around the inside of the Heathrow control tower, I was horrified that I had to be careful not to catch on the cables dangling between racks of equipment. It looked a bit like TERRA Operative's pictures.

I doubt I'd be able to do that at Swanage nowadays

Similar experience. Had an uncle who worked as a controller for the main ADC (think that's what it's called) on Long Island, NY which controlled all the air traffic in the metro NYC area. He brought me in for a tour and I had free reign to wander the facility on my own, including main computer room and main power room. Try that today. 

[med6753]

It was a bit stressful, but luckily the two routers are each side of a redundant connection, so I could briefly disconnect a connection as needed one-by-one, one side at a time to untangle things without disrupting the downloading of cat pictures and porn..... 

It was a rush job (as always seems to be the case lately.....  ), but as we had a few hands on deck, I was able to concentrate on the fkng fibres and get things neat while the others installed the new gear.






And now y'all know why I come home to sit in front of a soldering iron to calm down....




Because I'm a masochist. 

The IBM Z Series is designed where you can pull a defective node with power up and system running (somewhat degraded of course) and then install new node and seamlessly bring it up. Has it actually been successfully done in a customer facility? No clue. If we had a bad node in system's test we changed it under power off conditions.   

[TERRA Operative]

Yeah, the big Cisco routers we use in the DDoS mitigation systems (they were actually used to sink a bunch of traffic from some of the biggest DDoS attack ever, and I installed it! couple million dollars in equipment.... ) No pics though, the equipment and connection details are all hush hush for obvious opsec reasons) are the same.

Get approval from the nerds above, pull the blade and slide the new one in. But it only really works on redundant systems so things can fail-over to the still-working gear while you do the swap.