Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Vince]

Pfff.... Just as I hit "reply" to open a composing window, I didn't even get the time to write the first word that... POWER OUTAGE !   

Lasted 1H30min, oh boy. Heat wave here, today is the worse/hottest/peak day of the wave, 40°C, middle of the afternoon... so the worst of the worst... I guess the transformer in the local power substation got too hot    Happens once every other year, but I have enough of it... this house in becoming will have a battery pack and an inverter to maintain house services during an outage or spurious/split second power cut. I need reliable power in this freaking house.... the fridge and freeze do too ! 

Anyway... I meant to post about this puppy below... just popped up on Leboncoin.

https://www.leboncoin.fr/collection/2178065855.htm

One of those once in a lifetime opportunities, good luck finding another one of those, I guess.

It's a lovely, pristine, compact, super cute Nixie DMM !
Made by Schneider, model MN124.
Believe it or not, Google found a marvelous, top quality 45 page manual for this thing, with all the specs and schematics in high resolution 

And the specs really surprised me ! Such an old and small/compact Nixie DMM, what do you expect for specs ?

Measures voltage from 200mV up to 1,000V  with an accuracy (on all ranges), of freaking 0.05% !!!  Are you kidding me ?!

Measures resistance as well, same accuracy.

Even can measure current, only one range though, high sensitivity : 200uA full scale, so 100nA resolution (4 digit 2,000 count display)
That too  is nice, very low current could be interesting as well...

Can do DC and AC !

Wow... 1,000V 0.05% Vdc, could measure accurately all the power rails in my old glowing Tek scopes with that things, would be cool !

Needless to say it's an exotic piece so I will never find another one.

So.... WANT !!!

But.. other than no money, problem is the guy sells this as part of an indivisible lot of 4 vintage TE pieces, and local pick-up only as well... and of course he lives at the other end of the country, in Douai, near Lille, close to the Belgian Border.  The guys in London are literally 3 times closer to that seller than I am ! 

But it's such a beautiful and interesting piece ! It's worth making an effort to get it, no ?

The other 3 TE in the lot are not totally worthless. A couple sig gens, one from Philips the other from CRC / Schlumberger. Then a Ferisol RF Voltmeter, good for 10MHz, lovely meter scale with a mirror and large font, in perfect condition (the scale I mean).

In the past I have had a few successes convincing sellers that state they won't ship... to ship.

Maybe I could try my chance, and one of you could buy it ? Then when I get a job I would buy it back from you 

Of course he doesn't want to ship because he wants to sell only the lot, not detail.  But... the NIxie DVM is very small/ compact, very easy to package and cheap to ship... so that's one argument.
Of course that means his lot is amputated of 25% of its contents, so will be harder to sell, he will think... so he would need to lower the price of the remains.... so it's about offering him enough for the DVM that he would want to consider it.  4 TE for 70 Euros, that's 17.5 Euros per TE. So maybe we can offer say I don't know, 30 Euros. Still affordable for such a nice piece (condition and specs and cuteness ), yet makes up for almost half of the price of the entire lot.... sure enough he can sell the remaining TE for more than 35 Euros...

I don't know..... I just want this cute high spec little Nixie DVM, I want it....it's just irresistible, isn't it  

[xrunner]

Pfff.... Just as I hit "reply" to open a composing window, I didn't even get the time to write the first word that... POWER OUTAGE !   

Lasted 1H30min, oh boy. Heat wave here, today is the worse/hottest/peak day of the wave, 40°C, middle of the afternoon... so the worst of the worst...

Welcome to my world. 41 C last week, and coming again soon. Par for the course here. 

[bd139]

I live in the hottest part of the UK and our local record is 38.1oC. Hit 34oC yesterday and that wasn’t even really bothering me.

But 41, fuck that 

[AVGresponding]

Pfff.... Just as I hit "reply" to open a composing window, I didn't even get the time to write the first word that... POWER OUTAGE !   

Lasted 1H30min, oh boy. Heat wave here, today is the worse/hottest/peak day of the wave, 40°C, middle of the afternoon... so the worst of the worst... I guess the transformer in the local power substation got too hot    Happens once every other year, but I have enough of it... this house in becoming will have a battery pack and an inverter to maintain house services during an outage or spurious/split second power cut. I need reliable power in this freaking house.... the fridge and freeze do too ! 

Anyway... I meant to post about this puppy below... just popped up on Leboncoin.

https://www.leboncoin.fr/collection/2178065855.htm

One of those once in a lifetime opportunities, good luck finding another one of those, I guess.

It's a lovely, pristine, compact, super cute Nixie DMM !
Made by Schneider, model MN124.
Believe it or not, Google found a marvelous, top quality 45 page manual for this thing, with all the specs and schematics in high resolution 

And the specs really surprised me ! Such an old and small/compact Nixie DMM, what do you expect for specs ?

Measures voltage from 200mV up to 1,000V  with an accuracy (on all ranges), of freaking 0.05% !!!  Are you kidding me ?!

Measures resistance as well, same accuracy.

Even can measure current, only one range though, high sensitivity : 200uA full scale, so 100nA resolution (4 digit 2,000 count display)
That too  is nice, very low current could be interesting as well...

Can do DC and AC !

Wow... 1,000V 0.05% Vdc, could measure accurately all the power rails in my old glowing Tek scopes with that things, would be cool !

Needless to say it's an exotic piece so I will never find another one.

So.... WANT !!!

But.. other than no money, problem is the guy sells this as part of an indivisible lot of 4 vintage TE pieces, and local pick-up only as well... and of course he lives at the other end of the country, in Douai, near Lille, close to the Belgian Border.  The guys in London are literally 3 times closer to that seller than I am ! 

But it's such a beautiful and interesting piece ! It's worth making an effort to get it, no ?

The other 3 TE in the lot are not totally worthless. A couple sig gens, one from Philips the other from CRC / Schlumberger. Then a Ferisol RF Voltmeter, good for 10MHz, lovely meter scale with a mirror and large font, in perfect condition (the scale I mean).

In the past I have had a few successes convincing sellers that state they won't ship... to ship.

Maybe I could try my chance, and one of you could buy it ? Then when I get a job I would buy it back from you 

Of course he doesn't want to ship because he wants to sell only the lot, not detail.  But... the NIxie DVM is very small/ compact, very easy to package and cheap to ship... so that's one argument.
Of course that means his lot is amputated of 25% of its contents, so will be harder to sell, he will think... so he would need to lower the price of the remains.... so it's about offering him enough for the DVM that he would want to consider it.  4 TE for 70 Euros, that's 17.5 Euros per TE. So maybe we can offer say I don't know, 30 Euros. Still affordable for such a nice piece (condition and specs and cuteness ), yet makes up for almost half of the price of the entire lot.... sure enough he can sell the remaining TE for more than 35 Euros...

I don't know..... I just want this cute high spec little Nixie DVM, I want it....it's just irresistible, isn't it  

Do eeeeeeet!

[Neomys Sapiens]

Coming to me from the UK: I just won another item for which I had been looking for a long time!

The Fluke SV225 is the newer variant of the special test leads (designation?) that were intended for use with the 27/AN, but it can be used with other meters as well. It puts a PTC load across the input in order to eliminate stray voltages.

[xrunner]

I live in the hottest part of the UK and our local record is 38.1oC. Hit 34oC yesterday and that wasn’t even really bothering me.

But 41, fuck that 

Yea it's bad. Makes me wonder how pioneers could take it without ice water or AC. But then they couldn't wish for better because it didn't exist so its just reality. I don't think we'd survive very long if went went back in time being spoiled as we are. 

[bd139]

I live in the hottest part of the UK and our local record is 38.1oC. Hit 34oC yesterday and that wasn’t even really bothering me.

But 41, fuck that 

Yea it's bad. Makes me wonder how pioneers could take it without ice water or AC. But then they couldn't wish for better because it didn't exist so its just reality. I don't think we'd survive very long if went went back in time being spoiled as we are. 

Yeah I always consider the moment that America goes down the shitter will be when there is no AC for some reason or another. It'll start with the Karens and finish with the Cleetuses 

It'll probably be initiated by someone firing up their Tek tube scope collection all at one time 

[Robert763]

Was someone looking for a vintage Solartron AC converter manual?

/www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275343613462

[Vince]

I live in the hottest part of the UK and our local record is 38.1oC. Hit 34oC yesterday and that wasn’t even really bothering me.

But 41, fuck that 

Yea it's bad. Makes me wonder how pioneers could take it without ice water or AC. But then they couldn't wish for better because it didn't exist so its just reality. I don't think we'd survive very long if went went back in time being spoiled as we are. 

Yeah I always consider the moment that America goes down the shitter will be when there is no AC for some reason or another. It'll start with the Karens and finish with the Cleetuses 

It'll probably be initiated by someone firing up their Tek tube scope collection all at one time 

You mean you want to pay me a visit ?! 

40+ scopes including 25 tube Tek scopes running at the same time, in my small living room yes that would be some serious heat pretty fast ! 

[Vince]

Anyway... I meant to post about this puppy below... just popped up on Leboncoin.

https://www.leboncoin.fr/collection/2178065855.htm

One of those once in a lifetime opportunities, good luck finding another one of those, I guess.

It's a lovely, pristine, compact, super cute Nixie DMM !
Made by Schneider, model MN124.

Do eeeeeeet!

Can"t hear you, say again please ??

OK that sounded like some kind of encouragement I guess... 


Will message the guy and try to convince him to do what he explicitly stated he does not want to do... will probably get called names " CAN'T YOU FUCKING READ OR WHAT? RETARD !!! "

... but it's worth the risk 

[mnementh]

mnem

[tggzzz]

Was someone looking for a vintage Solartron AC converter manual?

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275343613462

Mine's an LM1477, but that's for an LM903

[mansaxel]

TE Arrivals: 5245L manual, original paper, from DE. Marked "TAC SAT COM" in pencil so probably has heard a thing or two...

Will try to Discord myself tonight.

TE is practical when fixing things with cars examples:

• I just realised I've got a canned ABS sensor harness, and the accompanying connector! A year or so ago, I swapped out the cam timing solenoid on my last car, and fitting the new replacement part required some harness work. The new solenoid has a different connector. Now, luck has it so that the solenoid cable connector fits with the connector from the ABS sensor harness, which means I've got a matching ABS connector pair. I'm going to use them to build a sensor signal sampler, with a BNC jack on, so I can look at the signal with a scope or similar.   
• The second example is a bit more prosaic. I've torn down the inner cladding on the driver door on two cars today, in order to remove a broken speaker and to get hold of a replacement. Sadly enough, the intended replacement is about as broken as the replaced one. The one I wanted to get rid of has severed its foam surround completely, and the voice coil had jumped out of  the gap. It could be convinced to go back in with some careful violence. But the surround is a non-starter. The intended replacement is just frozen in the gap.  Found a pair online, BIN, for 41 money including shipping. 
  
  But! The TE part? Yes, the wiring harness in the door is strange and needed ringing out. Metrahit to the rescue!

[tggzzz]

I live in the hottest part of the UK and our local record is 38.1oC. Hit 34oC yesterday and that wasn’t even really bothering me.

But 41, fuck that 

Yea it's bad. Makes me wonder how pioneers could take it without ice water or AC. But then they couldn't wish for better because it didn't exist so its just reality. I don't think we'd survive very long if went went back in time being spoiled as we are. 

Yeah I always consider the moment that America goes down the shitter will be when there is no AC for some reason or another. It'll start with the Karens and finish with the Cleetuses 

It'll probably be initiated by someone firing up their Tek tube scope collection all at one time 

I've heard it said, only slightly tongue in cheek, that A/C made the South USA inhabitable.

But the USA is a land of surprises. Until the early 20th century there was a thriving trade exporting ice from New England to the Caribbean and even as far as India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade

[mnementh]

I live in the hottest part of the UK and our local record is 38.1oC. Hit 34oC yesterday and that wasn’t even really bothering me.

But 41, fuck that 

Yea it's bad. Makes me wonder how pioneers could take it without ice water or AC. But then they couldn't wish for better because it didn't exist so its just reality. I don't think we'd survive very long if went went back in time being spoiled as we are. 

Yeah I always consider the moment that America goes down the shitter will be when there is no AC for some reason or another. It'll start with the Karens and finish with the Cleetuses 

It'll probably be initiated by someone firing up their Tek tube scope collection all at one time 

mnem
*cringe*

[mnementh]

I live in the hottest part of the UK and our local record is 38.1oC. Hit 34oC yesterday and that wasn’t even really bothering me.

But 41, fuck that 

Yea it's bad. Makes me wonder how pioneers could take it without ice water or AC. But then they couldn't wish for better because it didn't exist so its just reality. I don't think we'd survive very long if went went back in time being spoiled as we are. 

Yeah I always consider the moment that America goes down the shitter will be when there is no AC for some reason or another. It'll start with the Karens and finish with the Cleetuses 

It'll probably be initiated by someone firing up their Tek tube scope collection all at one time 

I've heard it said, only slightly tongue in cheek, that A/C made the South USA inhabitable.

But the USA is a land of surprises. Until the early 20th century there was a thriving trade exporting ice from New England to the Caribbean and even as far as India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade

In Tejas, AC is no luxury; it's survival gear for sure... There's a reason it's called the "Energy Corridor", and not just the oil that used to be there. 

mnem
 

[factory]

Was someone looking for a vintage Solartron AC converter manual?

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275343613462

Mine's an LM1477, but that's for an LM903

That's much earlier, it's the AC convertor used with the LM902.2, an antique DVM with projection displays. The LM901 was the first digital voltmeter they made, first sold in 1959 and their history states, they were working on the DVM in 1958, around the same time as NLS.

David

[xrunner]

I've heard it said, only slightly tongue in cheek, that A/C made the South USA inhabitable.

But the USA is a land of surprises. Until the early 20th century there was a thriving trade exporting ice from New England to the Caribbean and even as far as India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade

In the Old South before AC you had different houses. They would have had large windows to let air flow through the house. Also a large covered porch where you could hang out and sit in whatever breeze was available.

Houses now aren't made that way (because of AC). It would be an oven in no time if the power went out here right now and you'd have to leave eventually. Or have a generator handy to run some sort of window AC for as long as you had fuel. 

[nixiefreqq]

got the hp54657a hpib port to talk using the ke5fx gpib toolkit  in 7470 plotter mode.

meh.   would rather just take a pic of the 54601a screen.

but a least it proved the port works.

[mansaxel]

If you press the "CAL 10192" button you will find out if the hazmat still contains sufficient electrickery.

Before spelunking, let it warm up, input a known DC voltage, and twiddle the two front panel trimpots. RTFM to find whether the input should be shorted or open.

My new treasure takes a long time to settle on the AC ranges, and you have to use intelligence to estimate whether th RMS circuit is overloaded. The hint for that is that there are many more AC ranges than DC ranges.

If I push that button, the voltage comes up, and can be poked at with the trimpot. I can get it up to 1,02V, at least. It screams bloody murder and overload on any DC range except the last two. Perhaps not when shorted. I suspect a silly high input impedance. And contact cleaner deficiency.

Yes it has high input impedance on all DC ranges, apart from 100V & 1kV, those are 10MΩ. AC is 10MΩ or 1MΩ depending on range.

<snip nice pics, thanks!>

Hmm, The Fine Manual is absent here. And IIRC I tried a couple times searching for it, but to no avail. Does anyone have a lead on docs?

The impedance being that high, yes, that's definitively something which will overload at a gnat's fart or similar, unless loaded.

[Specmaster]

I think that you would have to have some sort of death wish if you attempted to fire up and use any amount of tube based Tek or other scopes in such a heatwave with or without AC. In fact if there was a lot of people attempting such folly the grid might crash out considering the extra loading with all the AC's being on as well. So in many ways, the modern scopes are better because of their considerable less energy consumption.

Talking about scopes, this might interest you all. 

[Cerebus]

if the marten which sneaked in howls in agony and leaves, then it was tuned quite right.

Why... What'd Martin do...?

We've talked aboot this before, Valkyrie; we do not electrocute fellow TEAs... at least not without asking first.   

mnem
Besides... it's more fun to watch them do it themselves...   

You've stoatally misread that. You could have weasely got it right if you'd learned to spell. 

[factory]

If you press the "CAL 10192" button you will find out if the hazmat still contains sufficient electrickery.

Before spelunking, let it warm up, input a known DC voltage, and twiddle the two front panel trimpots. RTFM to find whether the input should be shorted or open.

My new treasure takes a long time to settle on the AC ranges, and you have to use intelligence to estimate whether th RMS circuit is overloaded. The hint for that is that there are many more AC ranges than DC ranges.

If I push that button, the voltage comes up, and can be poked at with the trimpot. I can get it up to 1,02V, at least. It screams bloody murder and overload on any DC range except the last two. Perhaps not when shorted. I suspect a silly high input impedance. And contact cleaner deficiency.

Yes it has high input impedance on all DC ranges, apart from 100V & 1kV, those are 10MΩ. AC is 10MΩ or 1MΩ depending on range.

<snip nice pics, thanks!>

Hmm, The Fine Manual is absent here. And IIRC I tried a couple times searching for it, but to no avail. Does anyone have a lead on docs?

The impedance being that high, yes, that's definitively something which will overload at a gnat's fart or similar, unless loaded.

Manuals for uncommon Solartron TE are quite hard to find, much like some others British TE manufacturers. There is however someone over on the UK vintage radio forum, that might have the LM1604 (without AC option) manual, if that helps.
https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showpost.php?p=920523&postcount=11

I've only got manuals for the 1420 & 1440, I do have a few catalogs & brochures dating from the 1980s & all the way back to the early 1960s, but there is a noticeable gap in these, I haven't got any that cover the 1619/1620 & A2xx series DVMs.

David

[AVGresponding]

Discord is up

[m k]

Pfff.... Just as I hit "reply" to open a composing window, I didn't even get the time to write the first word that... POWER OUTAGE !   

Few days ago I finally installed an old UPS that has been around to check how it is.

Few hours later we had a power cut of few seconds, UPS worked.
I've done few lotteries.