Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

While not TEA pricing, £650 is not that extreme for a working Fluke 8920x. It is a thermal TRMS meter and they are very few and far between if you want a new one. The Flukes are generally newer than the obvious alternative the HP 3403C

Well I think if I was after a new one I'd probably start at the application and work back. The bandwidth on the Fluke isn't that great at 11MHz. If you need to push it past the 11MHz on the 3403C then the 2% after 10MHz might be better served with a well terminated 2GS/sec digital scope and some measurement averaging  . Below 11MHz, interesting market gap for new stuff 

RF is a different matter though ...

[Robert763]

And where are you going to get a 2Gs/s 14 bit 'scope for £650 ?
Most 'scopes are useless for precise amplitude measurement. 8 bits is ~ 0.5% error.

[bd139]

And where are you going to get a 2Gs/s 14 bit 'scope for £650 ?
Most 'scopes are useless for precise amplitude measurement. 8 bits is ~ 0.5% error.

You’re not measuring amplitude. You’re integrating and interpolating samples.

[mnementh]

My 2 pesos worth on "current smartpwn" debate:

Nature of my work requires that I have a reasonably modern phone and able to check into a dozen different clients' networks using whatever app or portal they demand, or I just don't get the gig. In my experience, when your phone is a tool, you use it up, wear it out in 2-3 years, by which time the manufacturer has stopped security updates (unless you have an expensive name-brand's flagship model-there you can usually expect another 2-3 years) and the battery is going weak anyways, so overall it's just time to chunk it and look for something newer. Hell, for a while there I was doing hazardous duty work in construction sites, commercial renovations and DC refreshes. I destroyed a handset every 6 months or so: It was just another consumable supply; the cost of doing business. 

That's why I look for either 2-3 models down from top of the line on a name-brand, or look for one of the Chinesium manufacturer's flagship models; those will usually be best bang/buck and you can count on them to be usable tech for 2-3 years.

Difference at this stratum is entirely the peen of having a Pixel or a iPwn; for which you typically pay twice what the Chinesium counterpart costs. If you really need to use your smartPwn as your mobile office, then there's no choice: you get a flagship iPwn, Samsung or Pixel. These are the smartPwn designers that listen to professionals and give them what they want.

That said... all phones connect to a service run by the worst pirates on the face of the planet: International Telecom providers. While your best chance of mitigating personal security and privacy risks come from choosing a manufacturer with a vested interest in keeping your business yours (this is pretty much Apple and only Apple, I'm afraid), if you admit to yourself that the big security hole really is the carrier, then the bottom line is the bottom line: how much smartPwn can I get for a price I can afford and just use the damned thing to get my work done?

I've been using smartPwns made by BLU for almost a decade now... ever since I bought 3 of them borked on fleaBay for $50 and fixed up 2 working ones. When those 2 died after almost 2 years, I started buying new off Amazon. There were some concerns about FW security when I first started using those fixed up ones; shortly after that Huawe/ZTE were banned, but Florida-based BLU went balls-deep on damage control and have been using Google-produced OTA FW since. That's why I've stayed with them.

TL/DR: A SmartPwn is a tool, just like any computing device. Some people don't need that tool; they just need a phone. Some people don't have that luxury; as with computers, in order to do their job they need one that is current in both software and hardware.

As we in here know better than most, computing is an area where the current tech is evolving at breakneck speed. Today's state of the art is no longer state-of-the-art in 6 months, and in 36 months, it is positively archaic. Suck it up and admit that. Now you need to determine where on that bell curve the people you work for... or those you want to work for... reside and do their work.

All this arguing over how horrible it is that our old phones are nothing more than a paperweight doesn't change the fact that they are in fact a paperweight.

A smartphone is NOT a combination wrench. Expecting it to work 10 years later the same as it did when it was new is ridiculous. The services it depends on are constantly changing, and demanding that the manufacturer keep updating it when those services also depend on new hardware... it's deluding yourself.

Deal with it or be left behind. Homo sapiens connexa is the present and the future.

mnem
 

[factory]

Turds of the day...

Damp shed victim. Layer of ultra-crunk on it... only starting at £42 inc delivery 

OK, the display and multimeter parts have different model numbers, but it doesn't look like they are modular???

They are actually modular. You pull two plastic strips out from the bum end and it splits into two. I think there’s a centronics connector in there.

Wasn't there a advert calling them "snap-on" modules or something, posted recently?

I've got a broken pair of these, currently thinking that might be too much for spares, but I do know that just the shipping cost from the USA by regular post, is more than that one would cost. 

David

[mnementh]

Pork Loin roast for dinner:

Meat's been tenderized with a Jaccard, then Teryaki rubbed in and seared under the broiler on top of a bed of carrots. Add chopped veggies, my favorite red seasoning (Red bell pepper, garlic, onions) and a few onion rings for looks, and time for the ol' Texas crutch: cover everything with tented aluminum foil and crimp tight around the edges of the pan, then in the oven at 250° Funkenstort until internal temp hits 180-190°.

mnem
Happy COLONIAL REVOLT DAY everybody!!!   

[mnementh]

Just finished 3rd coat on the Anniversary Project table. This was a heavy "pour coat" to get some "self-leveling" action. I'm not exactly sure how it will work out; I've seen videos with mixed results.

Now I just have to ignore the damned thing til tomorrow.

mnem
*wibble*   

[tggzzz]

Turds of the day...

Damp shed victim. Layer of ultra-crunk on it... only starting at £42 inc delivery 

OK, the display and multimeter parts have different model numbers, but it doesn't look like they are modular???

They are actually modular. You pull two plastic strips out from the bum end and it splits into two. I think there’s a centronics connector in there.

Wasn't there a advert calling them "snap-on" modules or something, posted recently?

I've got a broken pair of these, currently thinking that might be too much for spares, but I do know that just the shipping cost from the USA by regular post, is more than that one would cost. 

David

Yes, but those 1990-0325 dot displays are so much nicer (and rarer) than these grossly overpriced displays https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255612224623

[bd139]

 

<——— profile photo

[Specmaster]

<SNIP>
It's not a luxury in 2022. It's one of the main interaction points of society and an expectation.

I'd rather have a newer phone (under 4 years old iPhone) than a better car if I had the choice.

Well how can I put this delicately, you claimed many times here in this thread that you're a cheapskate, well that would seem from the above that you're a cheapskate by choice when it suits you. For many people, they don't have that choice, they are cheapskates through necessity, so a newer phone is a luxury for them.

Many need a car and also need that car to be reliable if they live in the sticks, whereas you are living in perhaps the best city in the UK for public transport options and best fares, so you could, as you have said before, manage without a car at all. That is far from being a reality across most of the UK, where public transport is not seen as a public service, but a profit generator for the wealthy owners. If a service is not being profitable, it suffers a drastically reduced service, even down to sometimes a single service a day or even weekly with the local authority subsidizing it.

That situation was bad enough for some really rural areas when it was the National Bus Company, like it was when I worked on the buses, but since deregulation and subsequent privatisation, the only thing that matters is pure profit and that really was the time when it became far cheaper for most people, especially those with families, even those in large towns, to convert to becoming car owners.

With the UK's track record for deregulation and then eventual privatisation, that even gave a massive boost to mobile phone uptake as when they sold off the British Telecom, it was the death for loads of public boxes (something I remember only too well) I used to have to phone in to H/O at times during the working day while out on the road to reply to pager messages. That caused the company to drop pagers and go with car phones, so we could be conducted directly by either H/O or customers because it was not always possible to find either a phone box that worked or one that didn't already have a massive queue of other sales reps / customer service engineers all waiting to use it to respond to their pages, all while keeping a beady eye open for the dreaded yellow jackets (traffic wardens) or the Police who would regularly move us on because we were causing obstruction to the flow of traffic.

If you didn't work in an industry where that was the normal practise, then you really have zero idea just how fraught those times were.

If companies also perceive that Android is a serious threat to their security, then let them issue iPhones / Blackberries to their staff. I have never known a company that actually expected their staff to provide a mobile phone, it was always a company asset and had to be handed back upon leaving their employment and strictly NO private calls were allowed.

[Peter_O]

Sometime it's the basics.
After 9 years of heavy use the first switches in my remote switch box of 2x8 multiple sockets started sparking badly, despite rated for 16 Amps.

Fortunately they were still avalable and the connectors are spade plugs.
Good for the next 9 years.

[Kosmic]

While not TEA pricing, £650 is not that extreme for a working Fluke 8920x. It is a thermal TRMS meter and they are very few and far between if you want a new one. The Flukes are generally newer than the obvious alternative the HP 3403C

Well I think if I was after a new one I'd probably start at the application and work back. The bandwidth on the Fluke isn't that great at 11MHz. If you need to push it past the 11MHz on the 3403C then the 2% after 10MHz might be better served with a well terminated 2GS/sec digital scope and some measurement averaging  . Below 11MHz, interesting market gap for new stuff 

RF is a different matter though ...

The Fluke can reach 20MHz on the 20V to 20mv ranges. The -3dB point is apparently at 40MHz.

[PA0PBZ]

@Vince, do you have a camera and microphone that you can connect to your pc? If so, there's no need to use a phone: https://www.microsoft.com/fr-fr/microsoft-teams/log-in

[Specmaster]

<snip>

On cars there are diminishing returns on fuel cost and repairs. You end up paying more keeping something which is why I got rid of that fucking awful Fiat and will be getting rid of my Citroen soon.

Edit: rise in fuel prices = inefficiency liability.

This might make you rethink that strategy

[Robert763]

And where are you going to get a 2Gs/s 14 bit 'scope for £650 ?
Most 'scopes are useless for precise amplitude measurement. 8 bits is ~ 0.5% error.

You’re not measuring amplitude. You’re integrating and interpolating samples.

  As you are integrating digitally you have to digitise the AMPLITUDE at adequate resolution. As it may not be noise you are measuring you can't average to fudge the results get an extra bit or two of resolution.

[bd139]

<snip>

On cars there are diminishing returns on fuel cost and repairs. You end up paying more keeping something which is why I got rid of that fucking awful Fiat and will be getting rid of my Citroen soon.

Edit: rise in fuel prices = inefficiency liability.

This might make you rethink that strategy

LOL no. 19-23 mpg. In no way that makes sense. Even in America.

[bd139]

And where are you going to get a 2Gs/s 14 bit 'scope for £650 ?
Most 'scopes are useless for precise amplitude measurement. 8 bits is ~ 0.5% error.

You’re not measuring amplitude. You’re integrating and interpolating samples.

  As you are integrating digitally you have to digitise the AMPLITUDE at adequate resolution. As it may not be noise you are measuring you can't average to fudge the results get an extra bit or two of resolution.

Oversampling. Higher resolution, reduces noise. I’m not saying you sample one cycle. The bolometer has a response time and lag example. It’s doing some averaging too

[Vince]

Dragon : bon appétit ! 

Phones : here, and for my job, it's not at all like that. Employers are not allowed to force you to use your personal phone or computer or internet connection or anything that's yours.

If tehy want to be able to contact you by phone, or expect you to do something with a phone, they have to buy one and allocate it to you. Of course the work phone stays at work and if they call you at 17h01 when your official working hours end at 17h00, too bad, empliyer can't expect you to answer the phone, you are supposed to have already left your desk and stored the phone in a drawer.

Of course employers are cheap, so they never gave me a smartphone. Only a dumb 5 Euros phone, that's all they want to pay. Plus they are so crap that the sound is horrible and cuts all the time, it's painful at best. Even airbus doesn't use them to contact us, they just catch me in the workshop when they see me that's all. If it can wait a few minutes, they just call my manager instead, who will then send me an e-mail. Yes Airbus could send me an e-mail directly, to save time, but it's not how it works.

I understand that for hugh value highly technical jobs like you people do, you might be expected and required to have a fancy smartphone. But my line of business is hardly as shiny as yours, A quality inspector here is not much better considered than an illiterate worker on an automotive assembly line, that puts wipers on cars all day long all year long.

Here unless you are a manager, a white collar, you just don't exist basically...

Now as a quality inspector I am in between white and blue collar, I guess. I don't get my hands dirty and I have a desk and computer, but I reside and work all day long in the workshop...
I am a kind of hybrid ! 


I hope Dragon enjoyed his meal. As for me I ahve already finished my pasta with grated cheese. The latte costing3 times more than the pasta, I ought to use less of the stuff if I want to save money 

[factory]

Yep BD it's old, as I said the phone is from 2012 so 10 year old now  !

Yes they sent me an e-mail with a link / "invite "to join the meeting. I clicked on that, it then asked me to install the app. I click to do that, it opens up the " Android Store " , which then immediately says, in red letters : " Sorry your phone is not compatible with this version of the app ".

Well too bad !!! 

Yeah you are a "0.5% user". No one cares about you any more. Literally. Have to keep the plates spinning. 3 years old or newer oldest these days. I cycle mine out every 2 years.

It gets worse... as far as I can see the Barclays banking app only works on iPones, not on Androit.

And my phone is a phone, not a minaturised Merlin Tonto / ComputerPhone / One-per-desk nor an HP OmniGo 700LX

I've not had that problem, as I've never used mobile banking apps, don't want them on my phone, it only gets used for the verification of web based stuff.

My Sony XZ2 Premium still runs fine, despite being an old model when I bought it 2½ years ago, I suspect the 6GB of RAM helps, the cheaper phones I had before always seem to run out of RAM & ran like a snail.
Shame new phones with 4/6GB RAM options, only seem to be stocked in 4GB, I'm currently looking to find a lower cost replacement for my Dad, he's still running an ancient Samsuck phone, which is too old to use apps.

David

[Vince]

@Vince, do you have a camera and microphone that you can connect to your pc? If so, there's no need to use a phone: https://www.microsoft.com/fr-fr/microsoft-teams/log-in

Nope, neither mic or camera. I understand every laptop these days has that, but I have a proper desktop computer not a laptop....

That's OK, if they fail me because I don't have the latest smart phone, their loss. I know what the market is like here, what kind of people / profile they can hope to find. There aren't that many people on the market and with my profile even less so. Which is why they bothered contacting me even though I am soon to be 45 yo which is by HR standard here, well past the  expiry date. They only take 20 yo kids at minimum wage usually, not old experienced guys like me, because we know the industry and they just can't manipulate us like they do with the kids, over and over again.

It's a crap company that pays even less than my previous crap company... even if they hire me, salary will be so shit that I would still be searching for something else and would leave them in 6 or 12 months or whatever.

They want me ? Cool, I am available. They don't want me ? Good luck finding a better deal here and now, I will go work for someone else....
Zero stress, all these subcontractors are crap, don't pay, treat you like shit, never a raise, and fire you as soon as they see fit, no matter how good you have served them.
None of these companies are worth losing sleep over. None.

It's not like I were a high flying design engineer with a suit and tie, high pay, working on a state of the art guidance system for the latest fancy anti-ship missile... no, I am just a humble quality inspector, not the same planet / league.

[med6753]

Sometime it's the basics.
After 9 years of heavy use the first switches in my remote switch box of 2x8 multiple sockets started sparking badly, despite rated for 16 Amps.

Fortunately they were still avalable and the connectors are spade plugs.
Good for the next 9 years.

Holy crap. That far exceeds the maximum number of interconnected wires per box as per the USA electrical code. That would never get UL or Canadian CSA approval here. 

[mnementh]

Dragon : bon appétit ! 

Phones : here, and for my job, it's not at all like that. Employers are not allowed to force you to use your personal phone or computer or internet connection or anything that's yours.

If tehy want to be able to contact you by phone, or expect you to do something with a phone, they have to buy one and allocate it to you. Of course the work phone stays at work and if they call you at 17h01 when your official working hours end at 17h00, too bad, empliyer can't expect you to answer the phone, you are supposed to have already left your desk and stored the phone in a drawer.

Of course employers are cheap, so they never gave me a smartphone. Only a dumb 5 Euros phone, that's all they want to pay. Plus they are so crap that the sound is horrible and cuts all the time, it's painful at best. Even airbus doesn't use them to contact us, they just catch me in the workshop when they see me that's all. If it can wait a few minutes, they just call my manager instead, who will then send me an e-mail. Yes Airbus could send me an e-mail directly, to save time, but it's not how it works.

I understand that for hugh value highly technical jobs like you people do, you might be expected and required to have a fancy smartphone. But my line of business is hardly as shiny as yours, A quality inspector here is not much better considered than an illiterate worker on an automotive assembly line, that puts wipers on cars all day long all year long.

Here unless you are a manager, a white collar, you just don't exist basically...

Now as a quality inspector I am in between white and blue collar, I guess. I don't get my hands dirty and I have a desk and computer, but I reside and work all day long in the workshop...
I am a kind of hybrid ! 


I hope Dragon enjoyed his meal. As for me I ahve already finished my pasta with grated cheese. The latte costing3 times more than the pasta, I ought to use less of the stuff if I want to save money 

I think you're going to find in this current round of job-hunting, as I did decades ago, that the entire world is moving to a "gig economy".

In the real world, you are your primary employer. If you don't provide adequately for your employee (you), s/he is not going to get the decent-paying jobs, and neither of you are going make good money. And quite rightly; you have nobody but your employer (you) to blame.

The "gig economy" just makes thinking this way a necessity, where once upon a time we had the luxury of wandering aboot and hoping we find a nut like the proverbial blind squirrel, or hoping a friend drops something in your lap.

Well, my friend... your friend did just that...now you need to step up your game and be the employee your primary employer (you) and your potential new employer need you to be.

There has to be a way for you to attend this meeting. Even if you have to book a slot at the library and use one of their PCs, or beg a friend (or even a enemy ) to let you use a modern computing device.

Otherwise, you're just another proverbial buggy-whip manufacturer, obsoleting yourself out of the workplace.

Good luck, my friend.

Now get the fuck out of your employee's way and let you get this job!!!

mnem

[Cerebus]

Happy COLONIAL REVOLT DAY everybody!!!   

And a Happy Treasonous Traitor's Sedition Day to you too.

[mnementh]

       BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

mnem
Aye... I cannae deny it; may as well embrace it and enjoy the party. 

[med6753]

Happy COLONIAL REVOLT DAY everybody!!!   

And a Happy Treasonous Traitor's Sedition Day to you too.

Oh go piss up a rope.