Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Vince]

Wow, think I found an interesting one here !

Just starting on sorting 60 or so DIL8 packages here.

I found an IL300-F ... an opto-coupler. OK no big deal but... that's no ordinary photo-coupler, look at the datasheet, that's one hell of a fancy one !

Just search this forum for IL300 for quite a lot of information on this device. I use it all the time for isolating audio. See schematic with some real data.:

(Attachment Link)

Thanks, a real world example is always nice. Oh, so I was right then, this coupler is indeed special/exotic and it is a celebrety ! OK I will keep mine then 
I have only one of them, just one....

[Vince]

Now I think or it, one big advantage of punches is that you can make any shape you want, not just round holes... so it opens up an entire new world of possibilities 
You could make a hole with a flat, to fit pots and keep them from spinning round and round, or anything... as long as someone somewhere sells the shape that you want...

They used to be quite common - you could get punches for the classic potentiometer with flat, D connectors, IEC inlets, and so on. Last time I bought some sheet metal punches the ones for anything other than purely round and rectangular holes seemed to have disappeared off the lists of the moderately priced manufacturers and I didn't look at the extortionately priced ones.

Made obsolete in industry by laser cutting and CNC routing.
I've bought a 2mm laser cut panel with D shaped holes for less than a blank panel by the equipment case OEM

Ah yeah, laser cutting... but I hope prices have come down at least, at least an order of magnitude for x1 quantities / prototype since I last looked 15 years ago, where some German company wanted 100 Euros for a small piece of sheet aluminium with a square cut in it for an LCD, and a couple holes for knobs, forthe project I was working on... and they dared bragging about how "affordable" they were, at that ! 

[Vince]

Geez, I take a day out (Sunday) to attend an air show and when I get back I find you guys have generated 5 whole pages of input to wade through  . Air show was OK but could have been better, the best part of an hour just to gain entrance to the show ground caused by bad event planning  Flying started at 14:00, so we had 5 hours to kill before the display and all the time the sun was shining nicely. Just after the show started, it became very overcast with black storm clouds photography became a waste of time, then it started to rain, so we went and sat in the car and watched the Grand Prix on the car's inbuilt TV. The Grand prix was just 30 mile west of our location, and they had a beautiful but drama filled day. 

Sounded like a lot of fun !

Better luck next time, which I guess will be soon, there is always a plane flying somewhere !

[BU508A]

Now I think or it, one big advantage of punches is that you can make any shape you want, not just round holes... so it opens up an entire new world of possibilities 
You could make a hole with a flat, to fit pots and keep them from spinning round and round, or anything... as long as someone somewhere sells the shape that you want...

They used to be quite common - you could get punches for the classic potentiometer with flat, D connectors, IEC inlets, and so on. Last time I bought some sheet metal punches the ones for anything other than purely round and rectangular holes seemed to have disappeared off the lists of the moderately priced manufacturers and I didn't look at the extortionately priced ones.

Made obsolete in industry by laser cutting and CNC routing.
I've bought a 2mm laser cut panel with D shaped holes for less than a blank panel by the equipment case OEM

Ah yeah, laser cutting... but I hope prices have come down at least, at least an order of magnitude for x1 quantities / prototype since I last looked 15 years ago, where some German company wanted 100 Euros for a small piece of sheet aluminium with a square cut in it for an LCD, and a couple holes for knobs, forthe project I was working on... and they dared bragging about how "affordable" they were, at that ! 

Imagine you were employed at this company and working at this laser cutter station and want to get paid good money for your work ...

Also, this was 15 years ago, Laser cutters were much more expensive and not so sophisticated as they are nowadays.

[Specmaster]

Depends how many posts people deleted 

Revisionist bastards! 

Oh right, and you haven't played that game...... how's your halo hanging these days ? 

Nope, I've never played such trivial games, deleting posts just to get on topic of page count posted, who cares in the long run, maybe the posts that got deleted might have been of far more importance than the flash in the pan post over a page number, geez 

[wolfy007]

took a few years, but my addiction won 

[Vince]

Now I think or it, one big advantage of punches is that you can make any shape you want, not just round holes... so it opens up an entire new world of possibilities 
You could make a hole with a flat, to fit pots and keep them from spinning round and round, or anything... as long as someone somewhere sells the shape that you want...

They used to be quite common - you could get punches for the classic potentiometer with flat, D connectors, IEC inlets, and so on. Last time I bought some sheet metal punches the ones for anything other than purely round and rectangular holes seemed to have disappeared off the lists of the moderately priced manufacturers and I didn't look at the extortionately priced ones.

Made obsolete in industry by laser cutting and CNC routing.
I've bought a 2mm laser cut panel with D shaped holes for less than a blank panel by the equipment case OEM

Ah yeah, laser cutting... but I hope prices have come down at least, at least an order of magnitude for x1 quantities / prototype since I last looked 15 years ago, where some German company wanted 100 Euros for a small piece of sheet aluminium with a square cut in it for an LCD, and a couple holes for knobs, forthe project I was working on... and they dared bragging about how "affordable" they were, at that ! 

Imagine you were employed at this company and working at this laser cutter station and want to get paid good money for your work ...

Also, this was 15 years ago, Laser cutters were much more expensive and not so sophisticated as they are nowadays.

Well I am sure the Chinese would love to be paid a good salary too when they make transistors, but their boss keeps telling them sorry th rich guys in the West don't want to pay you 10 Euros for a 2N2222 ! ...
I too would like to be paid a decent salary but that would mean Airbus pays the subcontractors much more, which then means planes would cost a lot more and that means people would have to pay a lot more to travel by plane, and they don't want to pay. So.... Vince will never get a decent salary, too bad...

Glad to hear that laser cutting services prices have become much cheaper, I shall be checking prices nowadays then, woohoo.... 

EDIT : not saying they were not right to charge so much for their service, if really it cost them that much... but just because it cost them that much doesn't mean people can afford nor justify to pay them what they ask   

[tautech]

Now I think or it, one big advantage of punches is that you can make any shape you want, not just round holes... so it opens up an entire new world of possibilities 
You could make a hole with a flat, to fit pots and keep them from spinning round and round, or anything... as long as someone somewhere sells the shape that you want...

They used to be quite common - you could get punches for the classic potentiometer with flat, D connectors, IEC inlets, and so on. Last time I bought some sheet metal punches the ones for anything other than purely round and rectangular holes seemed to have disappeared off the lists of the moderately priced manufacturers and I didn't look at the extortionately priced ones.

Made obsolete in industry by laser cutting and CNC routing.
I've bought a 2mm laser cut panel with D shaped holes for less than a blank panel by the equipment case OEM

Ah yeah, laser cutting... but I hope prices have come down at least, at least an order of magnitude for x1 quantities / prototype since I last looked 15 years ago, where some German company wanted 100 Euros for a small piece of sheet aluminium with a square cut in it for an LCD, and a couple holes for knobs, forthe project I was working on... and they dared bragging about how "affordable" they were, at that ! 

For the life of me I couldn't imagine chassis punches were obsolete so fished out an old Farnell catalogue and there they were under Hole Punches ! 
Take your pick:
https://nz.element14.com/c/tools-production-supplies/tools-hand-workholding/punch-tools/prl/results/2?st=hole%20punch
https://nz.rs-online.com/web/c/hand-tools/measuring-marking/punch-die-kits/?pn=1&searchTerm=Hole+punch

Nobody said they were cheap. 

[Vince]

took a few years, but my addiction won 

Oh ! The exact same one I saw for sale here for 20 Euros the other day ! 

Congratulations ! 

It looks in tip top shape to boot 

[m k]

WELCOME TO 5000!           
...
I think this is probably a good point to call it a night.    mnem       

Hi Dwagon,   Did you see my posts
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg4275517/#msg4275517
and
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg4275556/#msg4275556

Looks like same video scheme as the 892x series a Gondbes 8220 video converter would be my next stop.

Yup, sure did; and followed that rabbit-hole down to that LCD mod. Very tidy!

Problem is that the models we have tech ref on... the ones we've been talking about... are all proper non-greyscale monochrome monitors. Also, this family of monitors are all "1000 line" resolution (IIRC, I read that they "use" ~960 lines), so not too sanguine aboot dropping down to 800x600 resolution. 

There's a CDM-7SX191 monitor on eBay right now for $80... I've been meaning to get into one of these Chinesium video scan converters as a diag tool for a while, so that might still happen... but I think that if I were going to fix this scope, I'd prolly bite the bullet and buy that monitor.

This of course is all dependent on how my dispute resolves out.  I wanted to spend a little time tinkering just to see if there were signs of life; I was hoping it might be easy to mod the CDM-7SF191 I have in that 54600A so it thinks it's a CDM-7SX191.

I may instead try remoting into it over the RS-232 instead... in which case I'll soon be hunting down that software you posted and firing up the old WinXP Toughbook. 

mnem
 

More CRT types needed.

54600A Pixel_data and Marker_dots are already 32 levels internally, but only 2nd and 4th of Pixel_data are used externally.
So taking out all five is pretty simple but the situation should also be very clearly visible in the monitor.
Old Intensity reference pot can grant its pins.

54600A Pixel_data goes through U37 74LS194 and then HB goes to U30 74ALS08, FB does the same but first ORing Marker_dots in U31 74F32, so either will do a final FB.
All gates are used so extra chip must be added, no idea when the device is designed but 5 TTL monitor pins feels a bit too much.

nixiefreqq's neck board has 1 FET and 3 BJTs, I'd say that 5 TTL pins are not there.

Since 74S03 is the earlier model my guess is that later monitors became better and external data level reference was not needed anymore.
So comparing two datalines will tell how the situation is.

Testing with an extra *old* computer monitor should also be pretty easy, if one is available.
One gate chip is needed, old display modes were selected by swapping sync polarities.
Using only green as data is also fine.

Functional monitor is not needed if vertical line movement is possible, since its color value is different it should be very visible.
Maybe duplicating buttons of two side by side machines can do settings.

Resolution
255 V x 500 H 54600B
256 V x 500 H 54615B

54620-series
255 vertical by 1000 horizontal points (waveform area)
32 levels of gray scale

Is it really 1000 pixels?
Vertical is the same as before so monitor is probably also pretty same as before.
I tried to find some tube info but everything was too old.
So no real idea of physical resolution of those 7" mono tubes.
But it can be checked, just compare those old and new 546xx horizontal lines, 1000 res has half the pixel length.
If shorter pixel length is there then different CRT must be also present, if that is the key.

It is entirely possible I misremembered the line count on this monitor and conflated the numbers with those above. We know that the 54645A is using a PAL combi chip, so up to 625 lines (I can't remember if that's interlaced or not) to play with; so yeah, I can see those numbers being legit.

54645A and 54600A both use the same DataRay CDM-7SF191 part number. I've attached some pics. The main and CRT PCBs appear identical, even though the older CDM-7SF191 in my 54600A uses a Panasonic M18JCB34GH CRT vs the Toshiba E9054B31-CDHT CRT in my 54645A. That Toshiba CRT, however, is the same as the in the 54621D, so the CRTs in all 3 models must be interchangeable?

I'm thinking now that my original surmise is correct... provided nothing wrong with the mainboard, we should be able to get something useful on the screen with the 54621D and the CDM-7SF191 from my 54600A. Just need to see how they're modulating the brightness to get those greyscales. I guess my next step will be a breakout PCB. 

For now, tho, I've had to put it away; wifey has requested I look at the AC in our old Saturn.

mnem
 

Yes, CRTs are definitely interchangeable.

So monitor hack, shouldn't be overly difficult.

Old Hitachi/Matsushita schematics is too old and something seems to be missing but those two neck boards are very same.
Older neck board uses 74S03 as parallel inverters powering contrast trimmer directly and newer one seems to be different only from there.
Oldest has no neck board but contrast pot connection is pretty exactly same as 74S03 version of neck board.

Are all those 54620-series machines already closed.
More revealing solder side picture of neck board would be nice.

Completely forgot 54645A/D, its resolution was clear.
313 V x 512 H (pixels)

That's clearly PAL, but proportional and lowres.
Is there visible space between H-lines?
Back in the day CGA was clearly using only every other line of available physical pixels.
From pictures online there could be something missing but it is not much, dimming can reveal something but it doesn't change anything.
Full hires for PAL is 31250Hz H-sync, 31500Hz for NTSC.
Old Hitachi/Matsushita schematics has 24270Hz as H-sync and 60Hz as V-sync so 404 lines possible.

PAL and NTSC were also defined as 720 pixels wide, but no idea how much was physically available, not much more I guess.
One thing I remember though, very small pictures were exceptionally sharp.
So more than 500 was a norm already back then but no idea what was the major barrier, screen material or cathode ray energy.
FET in newer neck board indicates that rising time had a role.

From online pictures I'd say that 54600B grid is 100x60 pixels, vertical center line is around 128.
Vertical 256 must be a grid area, horizontal 500 seems to be all.
54622D pictures were pretty bad but horizontal pixel count seems to be more than those 54600Bs.

How this all then should be converted to VGA or SVGA.
Anti-aliasing is difficult when contrast is high and lines narrow.

One other thing, PAL pixel is not round, for that it needs a 5:4 screen, but that is for 576 visible scanlines.
Very nice, and clear.
What is the shape of the screen here?
Online pictures are pretty hopeless.

[Vince]

Now I think or it, one big advantage of punches is that you can make any shape you want, not just round holes... so it opens up an entire new world of possibilities 
You could make a hole with a flat, to fit pots and keep them from spinning round and round, or anything... as long as someone somewhere sells the shape that you want...

They used to be quite common - you could get punches for the classic potentiometer with flat, D connectors, IEC inlets, and so on. Last time I bought some sheet metal punches the ones for anything other than purely round and rectangular holes seemed to have disappeared off the lists of the moderately priced manufacturers and I didn't look at the extortionately priced ones.

Made obsolete in industry by laser cutting and CNC routing.
I've bought a 2mm laser cut panel with D shaped holes for less than a blank panel by the equipment case OEM

Ah yeah, laser cutting... but I hope prices have come down at least, at least an order of magnitude for x1 quantities / prototype since I last looked 15 years ago, where some German company wanted 100 Euros for a small piece of sheet aluminium with a square cut in it for an LCD, and a couple holes for knobs, forthe project I was working on... and they dared bragging about how "affordable" they were, at that ! 

For the life of me I couldn't imagine chassis punches were obsolete so fished out an old Farnell catalogue and there they were under Hole Punches ! 
Take your pick:
https://nz.element14.com/c/tools-production-supplies/tools-hand-workholding/punch-tools/prl/results/2?st=hole%20punch
https://nz.rs-online.com/web/c/hand-tools/measuring-marking/punch-die-kits/?pn=1&searchTerm=Hole+punch

Nobody said they were cheap. 

OK.... maybe if laser cutting has become super cheap, then it's more interesting than buying punches, at least not for infrequent prototype stuff.

I guess punches still makes sense for people who say build tube amps for a living, and have to make lots of hole in the chassis, and only have a very few different sizes.
For them punching makes sense financially I guess, as well as the convenience of being able to make them on the spot, no delays, no shipping, no need to make and supply a CAD drawing, just grab your chassis and punch a hole where you feel like it, right here right now.

[tautech]

However if you were into assembly, mains cable strain relief fittings, Pot indexing holes, IEC cable fittings are the common ones that would be worth owning along with a step drill.

Gunna go looking on Alibaba as to what they have there...... 

[bd139]

I can make any hole with a step drill and a beer 

Disclaimer: may not be straight or in the right place.

[THDplusN_bad]

[..]

Well my options were:

1. Trying to drive wonky GP-IB cables and devices from Visual Basic through a hooky ISA card that only worked with 16-bit windows so I had to write drivers for NT for it in a room with no natural light other than 30 minutes at lunch time as it was dark in the morning and dark in the evening. The only break being writing CoCreate workmanager's mutant version of BASIC that sort of half ran on Solaris and half on Windows. Or munging bits of Perl on a manky Ultra 2 desperately trying to replace an S390 batch job before they had to pay IBM another vat of kidneys.

2. Get paid 3x that for a trendy job at a web app startup which involved doing 2 hours of work a day in a swanky well lit windowed office in the city and spend the rest of the time pissing around, getting drunk after work and getting into the more interesting kinds of trouble 

I chose well

Sorry, laughed :-) Seems you have indeed chosen well...

[tautech]

I can make any hole with a step drill and a beer 

Disclaimer: may not be straight or in the right place.

Probably not as cheap as using one of these:
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/Tools/1017341_507613415.html?spm=a2g0o.store_pc_home.pcShopHead_697437.1_4_8

Whether they'd be any good for anything other than plastic is another thing ? 

[Specmaster]

[img width=6°°]https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/?action=dlattach;attach=1528393;image[/img]

Boy, do I loooooveee hole punches, waayyy better than nasty holesaws. 

I don't understand... must have misread your previous post... though this amp was just a very vague long term project... and now you present us with a chassis... could you have been lying to us.... no, you would not do that.

Looks very clean/professional indeed... but what machine did you use that had enough force to punch through that metal, smoothly, i a controlled manner ? Surely a flick of a hammer won't do it... do you have a press ? That would be to just as interesting to see as the resulting holes... because I sure am interested as well.... links/costs etc....

Ha, I used a sheet metal punch, to cut the holes in a chassis I've had ready and waiting for a while.

Wow a simple screw is enough for the job and get that clean a result ?! 

That's great !   

No need for a bulky expensive press than... hmm .... how appealing....

Yep, but sometimes the waste material can be a real pain to remove from the shell part of the punch 

[Specmaster]

Depends how many posts people deleted 

Revisionist bastards! 

Oh right, and you haven't played that game...... how's your halo hanging these days ? 

Oh I buried that halo 40 years ago 

mnem
What... is it crooked again...?

Its his secret signal to all the available redheads that he is on the prowl again 

[mnementh]

New video with all digits operational:


-Pat

Oooooooh...   shi-i-i-iny-y-y-y-y...

That was yummy to watch over my morning cuppa - Thanks Pat! 

mnem

[mnementh]

Now I think or it, one big advantage of punches is that you can make any shape you want, not just round holes... so it opens up an entire new world of possibilities 
You could make a hole with a flat, to fit pots and keep them from spinning round and round, or anything... as long as someone somewhere sells the shape that you want...

They used to be quite common - you could get punches for the classic potentiometer with flat, D connectors, IEC inlets, and so on. Last time I bought some sheet metal punches the ones for anything other than purely round and rectangular holes seemed to have disappeared off the lists of the moderately priced manufacturers and I didn't look at the extortionately priced ones.

Made obsolete in industry by laser cutting and CNC routing.
I've bought a 2mm laser cut panel with D shaped holes for less than a blank panel by the equipment case OEM

Ah yeah, laser cutting... but I hope prices have come down at least, at least an order of magnitude for x1 quantities / prototype since I last looked 15 years ago, where some German company wanted 100 Euros for a small piece of sheet aluminium with a square cut in it for an LCD, and a couple holes for knobs, forthe project I was working on... and they dared bragging about how "affordable" they were, at that ! 

For the life of me I couldn't imagine chassis punches were obsolete so fished out an old Farnell catalogue and there they were under Hole Punches ! 
Take your pick:
https://nz.element14.com/c/tools-production-supplies/tools-hand-workholding/punch-tools/prl/results/2?st=hole%20punch
https://nz.rs-online.com/web/c/hand-tools/measuring-marking/punch-die-kits/?pn=1&searchTerm=Hole+punch

Nobody said they were cheap. 

Yeah, I think those were "the extortionately priced ones" C was talkin' aboot.

Jeezballs... Especially compared to the prices on that AliEx store.   

Even if you only get one hole per punch, still money ahead with the Chinesium ones.


mnem
 

[nixiefreqq]

y'all got me playing with my 54622d ..... and damn it.   those squishy switches under the crt were back to being a pain in ass.

had to really mash them to get any action.  had done the carbon button cleaning with a q tip and IPA about 2 months ago and they were better.  but it did not last.

a guy on utube had success with making little aluminium tape covers for his carbon buttons.  tried his method , but it did not work for me.  despite many attempts could not get the tape to stick to the buttons.

finally tried larger rectangles of AL tape and it so far is 100% good.

my advice:

do not mess with removing the squishy rubber switch strip.  it is hard to get back into place normally, and impossible without knocking off your new AL button covers.

just use tweezers to place the AL tape rectangles over the buttons and press flat with a paper towel and your finger.  size the rectangles so that they will be captured in the cavity when the narrow piece of circuit board is back in place.

was worried that the pieces of tape would deform or move and short to the contacts on the board......but it did not happen.  just a light touch now and the switches all work.

time will tell if this fix lasts, but for now i am calling it done.

[mnementh]

Depends how many posts people deleted 

Revisionist bastards! 

Oh right, and you haven't played that game...... how's your halo hanging these days ? 

Oh I buried that halo 40 years ago 

mnem
What... is it crooked again...?

Its his secret signal to all the available redheads that he is on the prowl again 

I can still look...

mnem
And every once in a while, a little taste...   

[tautech]

Now I think or it, one big advantage of punches is that you can make any shape you want, not just round holes... so it opens up an entire new world of possibilities 
You could make a hole with a flat, to fit pots and keep them from spinning round and round, or anything... as long as someone somewhere sells the shape that you want...

They used to be quite common - you could get punches for the classic potentiometer with flat, D connectors, IEC inlets, and so on. Last time I bought some sheet metal punches the ones for anything other than purely round and rectangular holes seemed to have disappeared off the lists of the moderately priced manufacturers and I didn't look at the extortionately priced ones.

Made obsolete in industry by laser cutting and CNC routing.
I've bought a 2mm laser cut panel with D shaped holes for less than a blank panel by the equipment case OEM

Ah yeah, laser cutting... but I hope prices have come down at least, at least an order of magnitude for x1 quantities / prototype since I last looked 15 years ago, where some German company wanted 100 Euros for a small piece of sheet aluminium with a square cut in it for an LCD, and a couple holes for knobs, forthe project I was working on... and they dared bragging about how "affordable" they were, at that ! 

For the life of me I couldn't imagine chassis punches were obsolete so fished out an old Farnell catalogue and there they were under Hole Punches ! 
Take your pick:
https://nz.element14.com/c/tools-production-supplies/tools-hand-workholding/punch-tools/prl/results/2?st=hole%20punch
https://nz.rs-online.com/web/c/hand-tools/measuring-marking/punch-die-kits/?pn=1&searchTerm=Hole+punch

Nobody said they were cheap. 

Yeah, I think those were "the extortionately priced ones" C was talkin' aboot.

Jeezballs... Especially compared to the prices on that AliEx store.   

Even if you only get one hole per punch, still money ahead with the Chinesium ones.
mnem
 

Yep it's not until you go looking you realize how much cheap stuff is there.
Earlier I found nearly every shaped die you could imagine and just now found what seems like a better set although this one is not exactly cheap:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002043213080.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.55467d450vV2WO&algo_pvid=3c8dab22-9351-4742-a90e-98e800450d3e&algo_exp_id=3c8dab22-9351-4742-a90e-98e800450d3e-32&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22sku_id%22%3A%2212000018525364035%22%7D&pdp_npi=2%40dis%21USD%21%2163.99%21%21%21%21%21%40210318b916569340456164196eafc6%2112000018525364035%21sea

Anyways, there's shiploads of all different shapes and sizes available for those that can be bothered hunting them out.

[mnementh]

y'all got me playing with my 54622d ....

You horrible tease! No pics of the component side, or the main PCB... or the component side of the main PCB... 

mnem
*toddles off to polish his wood*

[nixiefreqq]

y'all got me playing with my 54622d ....

You horrible tease! No pics of the component side, or the main PCB... or the component side of the main PCB... 

mnem
*toddles off to polish his wood*

did that back on page 5002.

things move fast on this thread.

(not great pics.  but i am not a camera guy)

[mnementh]

y'all got me playing with my 54622d ....

You horrible tease! No pics of the component side, or the main PCB... or the component side of the main PCB... 

mnem
*toddles off to polish his wood*

did that back on page 5002.

things move fast on this thread.

(not great pics.  but i am not a camera guy)

How the fuck did I miss that...? 

It must've been the urethane fumes... 

Speaking of which, 2nd coat just went down on the Anniversary Project table... not sure how I like it so far. I went with warm semi-gloss to bring some color to the wood, but now thinking I maybe should've either gone hi-gloss or satin.

 

mnem
"Never judge a paint job by the first coat. Patience, youngster." ~grand-dad