Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mansaxel]

At the home level, I have a chance to look at some Cisco 7301, TP-Link TL-R600VPN and Juniper SRX240.  Any recommendations on these?

The real reason for visiting this particular seller is for HPAK E3611A and E3612A PSUs.  (I already have a E3610A).
It could be dangerous to the budget, as they also have a Rosenberger 32W100-016 RF Connector Torque Wrench, and some GPS timing antennae, plus others.
We will see what I come home with...

I will probably spend far more than what I made from selling off the tractor forklift attachment ... 

Ohh.

I think the 7301 is close to the perfect home nerd router. 7300 series run pretty much the same code as the Swiss knife 7200, but they lack the slots one does not need anyway. Only 3 Gig ports, with SFP slots as well. Nice. 

Having said that, the SRX 240 probably packs more punch that might make it useful as one-box solution.

[(hp)] supplies are addictive...

[McBryce]

They sometimes just go bang when you turn them on. Usually when some ham has been inside them so med is fine because he's not a ham 

And now for something completely different. Poked the Z50 out of the window with the 250mm lens on it.



Need. More. Zoom. This could get expensive 

Back in my Pentax 35mm SLR days I used to have a 500mm f8 mirror (catadioptric) lens that I'd use with a 2x adaptor to make up an effective 1000mm f16 lens for astrophotography.

It was when using that I discovered that it was quite easy on a clear winter's night to get the silver oxide SR44 batteries in the camera cold enough that they'd stop working. (It's quite common when taking astrophotographs to let your camera and lenses cool down for a while before starting so they don't become the source of a heat haze of rising warm air.)

Yes can see how this degrades into another rabbit hole of zoomage  . I looked at the Nikon Z telephotos and they ain’t cheap. The top one is £13k!

I could see the haze through this trivial setup which was slightly annoying. Also the lens has a very effective image stabiliser in it but it drifts slightly so being mirrorless if you zoom in with the viewfinder you have to fight the stabiliser a bit to stay on the objective. If you turn the stabiliser off it’s even more difficult and it’d have to go on a tripod with a remote shutter and then, yep the moon is moving visibly so it’d keep buggering off.

I actually had an ancient Practika in the 90s that used mercury batteries. That was even worse because on a hot day the crappy LDR used for metering went intermittent. Ugh. Loved the camera though. That and Ilford 400 B&W out on a day out in London was great fun.

Telephoto is an extremely expensive way to do astrophotography. Lumps of polished glass are much more expensive than curved mirrors. Get yourself something like this: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07KV1ZLW2/ref=asc_df_B07KV1ZLW21655229660000 (they start at around €200) and an SLR adapter. You get much better pictures for a fraction of the price.

McBryce.

[Specmaster]

While I do appreciate the irony of being bitch-slapped with my own emojis... I do have to say just once: I'm really getting tired of being blamed for it when med decides to be a dick to me. If I let it slide, he gets away with it. If I call him on it, then I get blamed for it just as bad as him. It's a lose-lose situation for me.

I really thought we were better than the usual 12-year-old playground politics of Furkbook and the like.

Cheers,

mnem
I'm all out of pithy comments.

You got the same PM as I did from the boss to knock it off. I am complying. Apparently you can't let go.

It wasn't a PM, it was a public notice and FIW I certainly never saw the dwagons post as being aimed at you or anyone in particular Mike, it was just a grumble at the status quo that we are all suffering from, the racket of profiteering by big oil, so unless you happen to own a big oil company then NO it was not about you at all.

[Saskia]

you can easily sink tens of thousands into astrophotography.

Other news:
the WPC pinballs have an electrical rating of 230V / 5 A. So a 1200VAC transformer should do the trick.
still digging thru my stuff, hoping that it will eventually turn up. I found a predecessor (late Sys 11 transformer), but this may be difficult to adapt.

[BU508A]

While I do appreciate the irony of being bitch-slapped with my own emojis... I do have to say just once: I'm really getting tired of being blamed for it when med decides to be a dick to me. If I let it slide, he gets away with it. If I call him on it, then I get blamed for it just as bad as him. It's a lose-lose situation for me.

I really thought we were better than the usual 12-year-old playground politics of Furkbook and the like.

Cheers,

mnem
I'm all out of pithy comments.

You got the same PM as I did from the boss to knock it off. I am complying. Apparently you can't let go.

It wasn't a PM, it was a public notice and FIW I certainly never saw the dwagons post as being aimed at you or anyone in particular Mike, it was just a grumble at the status quo that we are all suffering from, the racket of profiteering by big oil, so unless you happen to own a big oil company then NO it was not about you at all.

Injuries done on all sides do keep hurting for a long time and make it hard to forget and forgive.

[Specmaster]

While I do appreciate the irony of being bitch-slapped with my own emojis... I do have to say just once: I'm really getting tired of being blamed for it when med decides to be a dick to me. If I let it slide, he gets away with it. If I call him on it, then I get blamed for it just as bad as him. It's a lose-lose situation for me.

I really thought we were better than the usual 12-year-old playground politics of Furkbook and the like.

Cheers,

mnem
I'm all out of pithy comments.

You got the same PM as I did from the boss to knock it off. I am complying. Apparently you can't let go.

It wasn't a PM, it was a public notice and FIW I certainly never saw the dwagons post as being aimed at you or anyone in particular Mike, it was just a grumble at the status quo that we are all suffering from, the racket of profiteering by big oil, so unless you happen to own a big oil company then NO it was not about you at all.

Injuries done on all sides do keep hurting for a long time and make it hard to forget and forgive.

True very true, but I fail to see how this went so wrong, especially when Mike himself posted a grumble about the cost of fuel and I quote

 "My world is shattered with a reality kick in the arse. I've pretty much accepted that to fill up the CR-V with gas requires a mortgage. What I didn't expect that today it cost me over $50 USD just to fill up the Civic. 

I know...."welcome to my world". Well, screw that. "Beam me up Scotty. I don't want to be here."  "

What we all need here now is less  and a lot more of 

[tggzzz]

So who would like a "Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) and 7B53A" for £1. The picture shows a clean 7633 storage scope with 4 traces.

It is only 10 miles from bd, and will be easy to transport in a car.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/hobbies-collectibles/tektronix-7603-oscilloscope-7a18-2-and-7b53a/1434985945

[Vince]

FRIDGE !


Oh no.....just woke up... fridge temperature after a good night of sleep is now... MINUS 4°C instead of  PLUS 4°C !!
Okay I set the temlperature knob at 6 on a scale of 7 as a starting point to then adjust as required but hell, even then, should not be THAT cold in there !

So I progressively, slowly turn the knob  to a lower / hotter setting and... no go, the compressor doesn't want to stop !

This new / NOS replacement thermostat is kaput ! All that work to try to get it to fit. 3+ weeks running my home made timer ... for nothing !

Can't afford to buy a 20 Euros brand new one, I mean a "fresh' one not 20+ year old stock, so I will try that mechanical timer daddy just sent me.
Fridge was working just fine with a fixed duty cycle of 25%, running 15 minutes every hour, so will do that again.
Might buy a fresh thermostat once I find a job... or not, because we all know there is nothing more permanent than a temporary fix that works....

No, I don't think it's a wiring issue, been studying the thing and the fridge for long enough, and the defrost mode and light work just fine. This thermostat is just kaput.

[med6753]

While I do appreciate the irony of being bitch-slapped with my own emojis... I do have to say just once: I'm really getting tired of being blamed for it when med decides to be a dick to me. If I let it slide, he gets away with it. If I call him on it, then I get blamed for it just as bad as him. It's a lose-lose situation for me.

I really thought we were better than the usual 12-year-old playground politics of Furkbook and the like.

Cheers,

mnem
I'm all out of pithy comments.

You got the same PM as I did from the boss to knock it off. I am complying. Apparently you can't let go.

It wasn't a PM, it was a public notice and FIW I certainly never saw the dwagons post as being aimed at you or anyone in particular Mike, it was just a grumble at the status quo that we are all suffering from, the racket of profiteering by big oil, so unless you happen to own a big oil company then NO it was not about you at all.

Just to set the record straight it was a public admonishment and a more strongly worded private PM.

There will be no further comment from me.

[Vince]

FRIDGE !


Oh no.....just woke up... fridge temperature after a good night of sleep is now... MINUS 4°C instead of  PLUS 4°C !!
Okay I set the temlperature knob at 6 on a scale of 7 as a starting point to then adjust as required but hell, even then, should not be THAT cold in there !

So I progressively, slowly turn the knob  to a lower / hotter setting and... no go, the compressor doesn't want to stop !

This new / NOS replacement thermostat is kaput ! All that work to try to get it to fit. 3+ weeks running my home made timer ... for nothing !

Can't afford to buy a 20 Euros brand new one, I mean a "fresh' one not 20+ year old stock, so I will try that mechanical timer daddy just sent me.
Fridge was working just fine with a fixed duty cycle of 25%, running 15 minutes every hour, so will do that again.
Might buy a fresh thermostat once I find a job... or not, because we all know there is nothing more permanent than a temporary fix that works....

No, I don't think it's a wiring issue, been studying the thing and the fridge for long enough, and the defrost mode and light work just fine. This thermostat is just kaput.

Strange... after a few minutes of me lowering the thermostat setting to 4 instead of 6 on, the compressor did eventually stop.... why does it take time to react...don't get it. Still think it's fucked up but I will give it a chance and keep it under observation throughout the day before I decide to put it back on a timer...

Given that the thermostat is new but probably 25 years old sicne my dad retired a while ago now... maybe the thermostat needs some "exercising" to recover from it's long storage ? It's a mechanical device after all... the internals maybe need a few on/off cycles to get back into shape, might get better and better over a few days.... I don't know....

[Specmaster]

So who would like a "Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) and 7B53A" for £1. The picture shows a clean 7633 storage scope with 4 traces.

It is only 10 miles from bd, and will be easy to transport in a car.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/hobbies-collectibles/tektronix-7603-oscilloscope-7a18-2-and-7b53a/1434985945

I doubt it is just £1. Yes the headline says that and is a common ploy on these types of sales platforms, but read a bit further on and it reads thus.

"Description

Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) dual trace amplifiers and 7B53A dual time base.

All working. Available to serious considerations, don't be shy.

Ad ID: 1434985945"

The £1 is safe to say, is like the opening bid in an auction, but when I see that last bit mentioned, I switch off and move on.

[Specmaster]

<snip>

Just to set the record straight it was a public admonishment and a more strongly worded private PM.

There will be no further comment from me.

Sorry about that, but I can only respond to what I can see. 

[bd139]

So who would like a "Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) and 7B53A" for £1. The picture shows a clean 7633 storage scope with 4 traces.

It is only 10 miles from bd, and will be easy to transport in a car.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/hobbies-collectibles/tektronix-7603-oscilloscope-7a18-2-and-7b53a/1434985945

On it 

Once I’m off the bloody phone 

[Specmaster]

So who would like a "Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) and 7B53A" for £1. The picture shows a clean 7633 storage scope with 4 traces.

It is only 10 miles from bd, and will be easy to transport in a car.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/hobbies-collectibles/tektronix-7603-oscilloscope-7a18-2-and-7b53a/1434985945

On it 

Once I’m off the bloody phone 

Its a big old boat anchor that you will also have to move to your new flat whenever that is.

[tautech]

So who would like a "Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) and 7B53A" for £1. The picture shows a clean 7633 storage scope with 4 traces.

It is only 10 miles from bd, and will be easy to transport in a car.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/hobbies-collectibles/tektronix-7603-oscilloscope-7a18-2-and-7b53a/1434985945

On it 

Once I’m off the bloody phone 

Its big old boat anchor that you will also have to move to your new flat whenever that is.

Quick fix and flip on this one I bet. 

[bd139]

Nah I want a couple of 7000 series plugins and this is a convenient mainframe for them as it’s storage based.

[tautech]

Nah I want a couple of 7000 series plugins and this is a convenient mainframe for them as it’s storage based.

And the modern LCD instrument isn't ? 

[Atomillo]

So who would like a "Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) and 7B53A" for £1. The picture shows a clean 7633 storage scope with 4 traces.

It is only 10 miles from bd, and will be easy to transport in a car.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/hobbies-collectibles/tektronix-7603-oscilloscope-7a18-2-and-7b53a/1434985945

I doubt it is just £1. Yes the headline says that and is a common ploy on these types of sales platforms, but read a bit further on and it reads thus.

"Description

Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) dual trace amplifiers and 7B53A dual time base.

All working. Available to serious considerations, don't be shy.

Ad ID: 1434985945"

The £1 is safe to say, is like the opening bid in an auction, but when I see that last bit mentioned, I switch off and move on.

Yes, in the equivalent spanish platform (Wallapop) a lot of the times things are advertised as being 1 euro (and so when you search for price or relevance they always come up first) and in the text they say they "accept offers".

Presumably they do this to to make a very biased auction system. Whenever you do a reasonable offer they often say "well I've just received -outraugeous price- from some other guy but for him I would have to ship the item which is incovenient, can you do any better?". If you tell them to go to ship the item a lot of the times they will play the victim and even lower the price.

Just don't bother with these "I accept offers" kind of things.

[Saskia]

Quick-E-Project:
Get a Starship Troopers pinball back to life.
Suspect 2 blown Mosfets. Don't want to swap them without having to, so it will be in-circuit check for short first. Also need to check if coil is shorted or not.
Apart from that: need to do all the wiring stuff. If it comes back up then it will have survived the gruesome transport/unloading.

I expect to be able to finish the task this evening.
Expecting a playfield VUK protector for my roadshow pb to come in tomorrow. This will be next in line for mounting/fixing. Want to get this up and running. This is my 2nd fav.

After that: clean the Dracula PB, service it, bring it back to life.
Once that is done: Flintstones PB, do complete service (clean playfield, change rubbers, lamps, verify nothing broken)
Then: Fishtales - attach new backbox decals, swap out backbox. Bring it to life, start thinking about cabinet overhaul.
Then: Judge Dredd: bring it to life.
Then: repair my all time favorite. Twilight Zone. Fix a short under the playfield (locate it first ... uuuuuuaaaaaahhhh)
Start assembling Terminator 2 cabinet
Hope to find that 12835 transformer somewhere (I still have not lost hope) ...

Then: repair Grand Lizard Sys 11 pb.
Huge pinball projects:
Rebuild Earthshaker PB
Rebuild Jokerz! pb
Rebuild T2 from scratch
Rebuild High Speed PB from scratch.

Retire. Or start with the arcades ...

All of them need serious woodwork. This is where the Festool stuff comes in.

[bd139]

Nah I want a couple of 7000 series plugins and this is a convenient mainframe for them as it’s storage based.

And the modern LCD instrument isn't ? 

Yeah got one of those 

But it doesn’t take 7000 plug-ins 

[tggzzz]

Heads up for Brits living in or close to Highbridge, Somerset, you might want to jump on these quickly, I would personally would but way too far away for me.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/2-sonartron-digital-valve-voltmeters-and-3-avometers/1434901970

I have already been in contact

Did you get them or what?

The seller is busy tomorrow (oops today).

So does that mean that you haven't sealed the deal yet then  Well worth taking a risk on IMO, quick before someone else beats you to it.

Just arranged to pick them up tomorrow. On Friday I may be able to a post a picture that is as offensive as that 80yo female.

Not picking up the Tek scope nor sig gen nor megger

[med6753]

So who would like a "Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) and 7B53A" for £1. The picture shows a clean 7633 storage scope with 4 traces.

It is only 10 miles from bd, and will be easy to transport in a car.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/hobbies-collectibles/tektronix-7603-oscilloscope-7a18-2-and-7b53a/1434985945

On it 

Once I’m off the bloody phone 

Its a big old boat anchor that you will also have to move to your new flat whenever that is.

How will you handle future boat anchor purchases if you get rid of your car?

Hello Uber? 

[Saskia]

Will Uber do Pinball transports ? Asking for a friend ...

[tggzzz]

So who would like a "Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) and 7B53A" for £1. The picture shows a clean 7633 storage scope with 4 traces.

It is only 10 miles from bd, and will be easy to transport in a car.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/hobbies-collectibles/tektronix-7603-oscilloscope-7a18-2-and-7b53a/1434985945

I doubt it is just £1. Yes the headline says that and is a common ploy on these types of sales platforms, but read a bit further on and it reads thus.

"Description

Tektronix 7603 Oscilloscope 7A18(2) dual trace amplifiers and 7B53A dual time base.

All working. Available to serious considerations, don't be shy.

Ad ID: 1434985945"

The £1 is safe to say, is like the opening bid in an auction, but when I see that last bit mentioned, I switch off and move on.

The "Available to serious considerations" puzzled me, but your explanation is plausible.

Two other things puzzled me. The bloke knows how to turn it on and gets 4 traces but thinks it is only worth £1, and he confuses 7603 vs 7633.

[bd139]

You have to put a price in on gumtree.

It’s what it is in the picture. Nothing more. No description should be considered.