Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

just a quick update: Hubby and me seem to have pulled thru. COVID tests are back to negative. Still weak and coughing our brains out tho

Welcome back, Valkyrie. Let us know when you're ready to bring the suborbital crowbar launcher back online; I have a fleaBay vendor needs a attitude adjustment. 

mnem
MAXIM 4: Close air support covereth a multitude of sins.

[mnementh]

OSmaps show interesting features that you didn't know existed.
VR stuff tends to have advertising features that you don't care exist. Plus black propaganda, fake news, and people/organisations flashing "look at me".

No contest really.

I very specifically wrote Augmented Reality, not "VR".  That is a thing, actually.

You don't have to be on the Holo-Deck to use the Tricorder.

Indeed, but there is a lot of grey overlap!

Ahem. No, there really isn't. There is similar tech involved; but the entire focus is different... specifically, it's a matter of focus.

AR's primary focus is to be inobtrusive and add information to what's out in the real world; this is what Google Glass was supposed to be shooting for. Essentially, the "SPOTLIGHT" features of a BluRay video brought to the real world all around you in real-time. If done right, it is a secondary focus to the real world events happening to you. Sortof like all the information delivery features of a smartPwn are supposed to be a secondary focus in your day-to-day life.

VR's primary focus is to completely replace your local reality with a fiction... someone else's movie or game presented (hopefully) realistically enough that you can suspend disbelief and fully immerse yourself in the fiction.

The problems arise when stupid greedy people get hold of tech like this and realize they now have another avenue to bludgeon us with commercials... that's when the lines get blurred deliberately to ensure only one thing: profit.

Just as has already happened with smartPwns and the carrier services they're tied to. 

mnem

[mnementh]

...I expect the next thing will be banning drivers from talking to passengers FFS.

I could see a lot of good coming from such a law...

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

Full circle. Thanks to the ML processor on my phone I talk to it so I don’t have to touch it.

And it works with alternative routes with trade offs and noticed traffic changes.

Traffic changes, sometimes but not always.

How does it display multiple alternative routes and the tradeoffs? How do you tell it what tradeoffs you regard as important?

And the audio integrates with the car and the built in control stalks.

Ah yes, the old voice recognition trick in which you walk up to someone's computer and say "sudo rm -rf /" 

You tell it what tradeoffs are important up front i.e. you don't want toll roads, don't like motorways etc. Then it remembers your preference. When you ask it to navigate to an address it gives you a shortest time and shortest distance option. When traffic changes it notifies you that it thinks it can save X minutes by rerouting and you can choose to accept it or decline it.

As for the voice recognition it doesn't allow you to do anything destructive by design i.e. you can't incur cost or delete things with it. That's a manual process. It's very well engineered in that respect.

I appreciate your cynical outlook on it. The ideas need testing. I am usually the first person to shred an idea that doesn't work or is stupid but these tools are significantly saving time, energy and cost or improving life in some way.

Importantly they enable me to have more time to enjoy what I want to do.

   https://xkcd.com/327/


mnem
I know just enough Kung-Fu to be dangerous.

[bd139]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

My daughter is into spoken directions on her phone, & "in a weak moment" on several occasions, I have tried to navigate by such directions (when she is in the car holding the phone).

It always freaks me out.
The thing doesn't know the difference between a huge roundabout & a tiny one, so it says things like "turn right at the second exit", when the roundabout is just a few metres in diameter, placed in the middle of a normal intersection.

It will also send you down some  40kmh "goat track", insisting it is a shorter distance, & hence "faster" than the multi-laned 100kmh controlled access highway alternative.

This sounds like the comedic "talk-ins" you get on 2m at hamfests. I actually used to drag my FT818 along just so I could listen to them getting lost and angry

[mnementh]

Life is about more than time and money.

My tradeoffs would include "having lunch at a viewpoint by a river or hill, before or after picking up some TEA", or "in order to reduce time stuck in a queue, should I deviate to pick up something at the DIY shop now or on the way back".

Both are easy to estimate with a paper map, and impossible on a satnav.

I'll take exception to this one. I do precisely this all the time. On the road even, stopped at a red light. (Yes, in a cradle on the dash) I do "search along route" for a specific shop, and it tells me exactly how far in miles and time that shop is out of my way. The rest I'd damned well better be able to do in my head.

Honestly, that usefulness (and routing/rerouting based on live traffic info) is the main reason I finally gave my standalone GPS the burial with honors it so richly earned.

Now if/when I go back to doing onsite service calls every day... it will probably get dusted off and kept handy for a backup. Nothing is more frustrating than connectivity issues when you have 25 minutes to get to a appointment you know is ~20 minutes away.

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

Police mostly have better things to do than checking stopped cars for phone activity. That comes from a police officer I know

He’s currently playing “which pikey nicked the motorbike”

I'm glad you said "mostly", right now I bet that right now there are some policemen doing just that, picking up the low fruit so to speak because it's a good revenue raiser and gets a few scalps on their belts.

I think that speed cameras need to go, and we should have more police out on the road finding speeders, those driving dangerously, including those holding their phones and using them while actually driving among other driving offences, which cameras cannot pick up. How about cyclists using footpaths, red light jumpers and even riding their bikes the wrong way whilst in a cycle lane for instance. I'm also glad that they can even be bothered to play “which pikey nicked the motorbike”, all too often these days the response is to calls for assistance to say that they will try and get someone to attend the scene of whatever it was that prompted the call in the instance.

[Specmaster]

I hope you all haven't eaten all of your popcorn yet, or perhaps you'd better stock up quickly, things are developing at a fair rate of knots and there could be some big announcements coming up in the not too distant future

[bd139]

Police mostly have better things to do than checking stopped cars for phone activity. That comes from a police officer I know

He’s currently playing “which pikey nicked the motorbike”

I'm glad you said "mostly", right now I bet that right now there are some policemen doing just that, picking up the low fruit so to speak because it's a good revenue raiser and gets a few scalps on their belts.

I think that speed cameras need to go, and we should have more police out on the road finding speeders, those driving dangerously, including those holding their phones and using them while actually driving among other driving offences, which cameras cannot pick up. How about cyclists using footpaths, red light jumpers and even riding their bikes the wrong way whilst in a cycle lane for instance. I'm also glad that they can even be bothered to play “which pikey nicked the motorbike”, all too often these days the response is to calls for assistance to say that they will try and get someone to attend the scene of whatever it was that prompted the call in the instance.

I don't agree with speed cameras being removed. They are quite effective.

However cyclists yep. At least here they have a few strategically placed fuzz who take quite a few out for red light jumping.

When I was working down in Farringdon it used to be a favourite morning activity to step out in front of them and then cross really slowly so they had to dismount rather than squeeze by. One of them had a right go at me and the person in the car opened the window and called him a "sweaty cracked cunt" which ended the argument with laughs.

Note I was a cyclist as well and I never did that and didn't ride on the pavement at all unless it was marked up that I could.

I hope you all haven't eaten all of your popcorn yet, or perhaps you'd better stock up quickly, things are developing at a fair rate of knots and there could be some big announcements coming up in the not too distant future

It's the omni-shitshow!

[m k]

...Yeah, 625 line PAL is interlaced; I was thinking that when we were talking before. 

That's another reason I decided to put a pin in this project; I'm waiting on the outcome of this eBay dispute. If I'm not keeping this turd, I think I'd much rather spend the time and brain power figuring out what went wrong with my fuckeroo UTG962E. And playing with my brand-new LeSiglent T3DSO2102. 

mnem
Never any shortage of things a tinkerdwagon needs to do...

I'm a bit interested how this scope thing finally is.
For now my guess is that this 313 vertical has nothing to do with PAL.

Is there possibly a military grade high resolution video system with small screens?
Just wondering from where HP got their idea.

Somebody should count those H-sync pulses.
625 is raw PAL and it includes blanking time.

Somebody should also adjust their scope monitor so that returning beam is visible and count how many H-lines it needs.
That much is needed over that 313.

Old Hitachi schematics has very clear horizontal timing as 41.2us.
Is it the right device for sure?

Only one google hit for CDU-10BA241, title of Hitachi schematics.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hp-871xb-vna-crt-module-capacitor-identification-help/

Much more for CDK-10BA242.
One of its CRT is 240ANB31N and earlier tube shuffle pays off.
As everybody remembers 31 is green, it continues so that 4 is white.
Tube in Hitachi schematics is 240ANB4(N).

Is this white CRT a rarity, is the whole input side of that schematics a rarity?
Maybe 546xx real H-sync is something else than 24270Hz.

According to the Wikipedia entry, there were several PAL standards; most operated at 625 lines(576 visible)50Hz while PAL M operated at 525 lines(480 Visible)60Hz. There was a "standard" called PAL-60 as well that allowed European VCRs to display NTSC VHS tapes; it was a bastard in that it misused the hardware by displaying PAL video at 60Hz with the NTSC color information, this was later promoted by video game consoles like the DreamCast.

I've read somewhere in the HP sales fluff that "waveform refresh" is at 60Hz, so I suspect it is something like that. OTOH, as they're using the PAL chip in a closed system, there's probably no reason they couldn't make their own "bastard" format at 625 lines(576 visible)60Hz... 

As for where these monitors came from... they are small open-frame industrial monitors meant for all sorts of automated manufacturing applications; usually driven by some embedded computer.

mnem
I think. As always, take anything I say with a grain of salt big enough to pickle a dragon.

All PALs are interlaced and 546xx is clearly not, or at least I've not seen a picture indicating different, there part of the picture would be dimmed or disarranged.
There's also D1-PAL, a possibly standard for digitized stuff and 720x576i, obviously not a full signal.

It's of course also possible that the scope has a crooked installation of things where composite signal is composed and taken apart inside the scope and only after that fed to monitor, since there are separated sync sync signals.
Never seen one but who knows, maybe it was a clever form of direct memory access and used chip exported all necessary signals.
On the other hand, maybe 313 is just a prank since one more or less doesn't mean a thing when the real one is 312.5 and license plate was already famous.

First stackexchange answer has a good picture of beam.
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/98922/why-there-is-625-lines-pal-in-t-v-scanning-or-odd-lines/98926#98926

Good place for PAL specs.
http://martin.hinner.info/vga/pal.html
Good picture of field selection.
http://martin.hinner.info/vga/pal.gif

TI paper has exact scope screens.
https://www.ti.com/lit/pdf/sboa109

[Vince]

TV REPAIR


OK made some progress.

Took the thing completely apart, LCD is gone, and it's sitting upright on itsedge because nowhere to lay it flat. If that damages it, too bad for him, I can't invent table space that I don't have...

So now I can see inside this thing and... uh oh.... where are the fucking LEDs, there are none ?! 

Oh.. I see....  assumed somehow it must be lie the previous TV I fixed, that had an array of LED covering the entire chassis... well no, this newer TV has no array, it's lit only from the edge, and only one single edge at that ! 

Well, it that works, I guess why not...

So now we can see we have indeed 4 independent strings, and no resistor that I can see to equalize the currents between the strings that are //, so I guess no surprise that they blew eventually...

They cut the PCB in two. Eeach bit carries therefore two strings and a 4 pin connector. Each string carries 20 LEDs.

I immediately found a dead LED in the right half of the screen, the half that didn't work, so I was happy. Was easy to spot... it's was brown / cooked...
Buzzed it with the DMM because somehow '"at rest " they drop only 0.7V. I guess the typical 3V drop is only valid once they lit up and suck lots of current.
One has to scrape the white solder mask to reveal the copper so s to make contact with the DMM probes, but it's not too bad of a job.
So I could confirm that that LED was dead, open  circuit. So I Widlerized it with side cutters, just because, then a BC558A agreed to sacrifice and donate one of its leads so I can use it to bridge the gap where an LED used to reside.
Then I plugged the TV to see what I get. Luckiiy the digital board is kind enough to accept to light up the screen even in the absence of the LCD panel...

NOw the strip with the dead / bridged LED lights up, yeah !!! 

But... it's sister string, the last one to the right... does not. So I guess there must be at least one open circuit LED in that string as well.

Also, the first two strings / Left half of the screen, that used to work... well now one of the two strings is dead now ! 

So now instead of having the left half of the panel that light up, I have now alternating stripes of lights, as you can see.

OK... more work required.... but looks like I am making progress. I can't call it an "improvement " just now since it's one step forward and one backward, but I think at least I can call it " progress ", what do you think...

So now nee do a lot of scraping so I can test all the LED's in these two dead strips, and find the dead ones....


EDIT : well we did at least now prove that the power board / LED driver was indeed fine, which was still an hypothesis / educated guess just an hour ago.... so yeah, we did at least "improve" in the "diagnostics" department, short of improving in the "fixing" department just yet....

[Specmaster]

<snip>
I don't agree with speed cameras being removed. They are quite effective.

However cyclists yep. At least here they have a few strategically placed fuzz who take quite a few out for red light jumping.

When I was working down in Farringdon it used to be a favourite morning activity to step out in front of them and then cross really slowly so they had to dismount rather than squeeze by. One of them had a right go at me and the person in the car opened the window and called him a "sweaty cracked cunt" which ended the argument with laughs.

Note I was a cyclist as well and I never did that and didn't ride on the pavement at all unless it was marked up that I could.

I hope you all haven't eaten all of your popcorn yet, or perhaps you'd better stock up quickly, things are developing at a fair rate of knots and there could be some big announcements coming up in the not too distant future

It's the omni-shitshow!

Agreed with the cameras they are quite good, trouble with them is however that there are many that are tucked away in locations where you cannot see them until the last minute, and they are usually the ones located just where the limit changes from say 40 to 30 and are designed to catch people in the process of actually slowing to new limit, the sign of which is also pretty well hidden until the last minute. That is another reason why I have the TomTom satnav as their database has the speed limits for most of the roads, and it will warn you as you approach the area where the limit change, if you're driving too fast, and also of course alert you to the speed camera, and display the speed limit. The other good thing about them is of course when you're in a average speed zone, they calculate and display what your average speed is, so you can overtake safely if you know that your average is within the limit. 

What I don't agree with is the current apparent reliance on cameras alone for policing the roads.

Regards the omni-shitshow!, it stands currently at time of this post, 32 resignations and a possible further 6 expected today and maybe more in the wings, this could be quite entertaining in its own way, I might stock up on a few beers as well 

[Zoli]

TV REPAIR
...
So now nee do a lot of scraping so I can test all the LED's in these two dead strips, and find the dead ones....

If any of your multi-meters that would lit the LED's up, that would be a great help; especially if you have sharp tips, like the Pomona 6275
/enabling

[Specmaster]

TV REPAIR

Make sure if you are able to resurrect the other strings, that your friend is well aware that he might actually spot areas of his screen that are dimmer than others, in the areas with the dead LEDs, otherwise he might not be happy with you. Short of replacing all the strings, I can see no way around that problem. Great work so far, keep it coming. 

[Cerebus]

Agreed with the cameras they are quite good, trouble with them is however that there are many that are tucked away in locations where you cannot see them until the last minute, and they are usually the ones located just where the limit changes from say 40 to 30 and are designed to catch people in the process of actually slowing to new limit, the sign of which is also pretty well hidden until the last minute.

Well, if one isn't speeding, who cares where the cameras are? And if one isn't observant enough to spot a speed limit sign or a bright yellow speed camera in a reasonably predictable place on the road in enough time to react to it safely then one certainly isn't observant enough to be in adequate control of a vehicle that is being driven over the speed limit. A traffic sergeant I used to know said he never ticketed people for mere speed, but for failing to spot that a police car was behind them when they were speeding or sitting at the side of the road while PC Plod was standing next to it in high-vis with a RADAR gun in his hand.

[bd139]

Stuck on another zoom call still. Decided to clean the 34401A. Looking pretty much factory fresh now!

[Cerebus]

Cleaning recently acquired test gear while stuck on conference calls used to be one of my vices. I now just avoid conference calls...

[med6753]

Cleaning recently acquired test gear while stuck on conference calls used to be one of my vices. I now just avoid conference calls...

No one ever calls me. Ask me if I care? 

[xrunner]

Wow! That is CLEAN! 

Stuck on another zoom call still. Decided to clean the 34401A. Looking pretty much factory fresh now!

[mnementh]

TV REPAIR

So this panel is actually designed to be able to service the LED BL array...?

HALLE-FUKKIN-LUJAH!!!

These LED arrays are driven CC in series; they separate them in banks and modulate the drive current to different zones of the screen for higher "dynamic contrast" compared from one part of the screen to other parts. I'd guess that the two banks on each side drive alternately to be able to keep dwell time lower; either that, or each bank is aligned with a different diffraction lens so it corresponds to a different quadrant of the screen. 

mnem

[Vince]

TV REPAIR

So this panel is actually designed to be able to service the LED BL array...?

HALLE-FUKKIN-LUJAH!!!

These LED arrays are driven CC in series; they separate them in banks and modulate the drive current to different zones of the screen for higher "dynamic contrast" compared from one part of the screen to other parts. I'd guess that the two banks on each side drive alternately to be able to keep dwell time lower; either that, or each bank is aligned with a different diffraction lens so it corresponds to a different quadrant of the screen. 

mnem

Well no, sorry to disappoint ! 

You must have misunderstood me.... it is just as unserviceable as the older TV I worked on. In both cases you have to crack the screen apart, peal every layer of the "sandwich", and disconnect and remove of course the LCD panel itself... which is the dangerous / tricky part.

Also in both cases the strips are held with freaking double sided sticky tape which is a nightmare.

This TV, is even worse because the strip is stuck against its heat sink, there is very limited access to get tools, unlike the older TV with the strips laying flat on the chassis, so you had ample access from all sides to pry the strips off of the chassis.

So no, sorry Dragon... still a bunch of crap I am afraid ! 

I will call it serviceable when you can replace the strips without having ti remove / disturb the LCD panel. That is, put the strips OUTside the frame, not inside..... 
... and when the strips are also fixed with screw or any method designed to be easy to get off... so no glue or tape thanks...

Of course this will never happen... at least not on consumer stuff... maybe professional fancy expensive screens are built better, I don't know...

[Vince]

TV REPAIR
...
So now nee do a lot of scraping so I can test all the LED's in these two dead strips, and find the dead ones....

If any of your multi-meters that would lit the LED's up, that would be a great help; especially if you have sharp tips, like the Pomona 6275
/enabling

Yes as I said these LEDs only drop 0.7V so I was able to test them with my Fluke 11 or any DMM just fine, no worries ! 

So, I worked on the those remaining two defective strips.

The 4th one, far right, found one open-circuit LED, bridged it, now strip works.   
Also found one that dropped only 0.5V when all the others drop a very consistent 0.77+ Volt. Strange.... maybe that particular LED is on its way out, who knows.... this repair is free and obviously comes with no guarantee ! 

Then I looked at the other string/strip, second from the left. One that was working before hmm...
Checked all the LEDs... they were ALL good ?! 
checked for bad connections between the LEDs, the connector at the end of the LED strip, then further, at the other end of the cable, where the power board plugs into... no joy, solid reliable connection.
Hmmm... so I powered the TV to measure voltages. The working strip, first from the left gets 130V, the other one gets... 0V ?! But they are both wired in // on the power board, at the edge connector !
The two strips HAVE to have the same voltage ! 

So... I guess only explanation would be a cracked solder joint on that connector on the power board  ?! 


Lemme check for that...

[Zoli]

TV REPAIR
...
So now nee do a lot of scraping so I can test all the LED's in these two dead strips, and find the dead ones....

If any of your multi-meters that would lit the LED's up, that would be a great help; especially if you have sharp tips, like the Pomona 6275
/enabling

Yes as I said these LEDs only drop 0.7V so I was able to test them with my Fluke 11 or any DMM just fine, no worries ! 

So, I worked on the those remaining two defective strips.

The 4th one, far right, found one open-circuit LED, bridged it, now strip works.   
Also found one that dropped only 0.5V when all the others drop a very consistent 0.77+ Volt. Strange.... maybe that particular LED is on its way out, who knows.... this repair is free and obviously comes with no guarantee ! 

Then I looked at the other string/strip, second from the left. One that was working before hmm...
Checked all the LEDs... they were ALL good ?! 
checked for bad connections between the LEDs, the connector at the end of the LED strip, then further, at the other end of the cable, where the power board plugs into... no joy, solid reliable connection.
Hmmm... so I powered the TV to measure voltages. The working strip, first from the left gets 130V, the other one gets... 0V ?! But they are both wired in // on the power board, at the edge connector !
The two strips HAVE to have the same voltage ! 

So... I guess only explanation would be a cracked solder joint on that connector on the power board  ?! 


Lemme check for that...

0.7V is the protection anti-parallel diode is what you've checking; if the LED doesn't lit up, is bad. And the white LED working voltage is over 3V, no exceptions, but most of them lit up just over 2.4V.
So, start checking your multi meters, which one has over 2.5V for diode testing, then redo the checking.

[Vince]

TV REPAIR
...
So now nee do a lot of scraping so I can test all the LED's in these two dead strips, and find the dead ones....

If any of your multi-meters that would lit the LED's up, that would be a great help; especially if you have sharp tips, like the Pomona 6275
/enabling

Yes as I said these LEDs only drop 0.7V so I was able to test them with my Fluke 11 or any DMM just fine, no worries ! 

0.7V is the protection anti-parallel diode is what you've checking; if the LED doesn't lit up, is bad. And the white LED working voltage is over 3V, no exceptions, but most of them lit up just over 2.4V.
So, start checking your multi meters, which one has over 2.5V for diode testing, then redo the checking.

Oh OK ! Didn't know about this built-in protection diode ! 

Thanks for that... makes more sense now...



Still, it does not explain why that bad string can have zero voltage when it's in // with the other one tat gets 1230V....
I just checked the solder joints of the connector on the power board, they looked good. Reflowed them anyway, still no joy.

Makes no sense. See picture below. There big fat traces on that connect pins 1 and 3 and 2 and 4 to // the strings. How can have 130V on a set of pins and zero (well, 1.5V right now.. better than nothing I guess !) on the other set of pins....

Think I will just bridge those pins myself to make sure they are really connected...

As for DMM's, I don't have fancy modern ones that can test white LEDs.
When I checked the LEDs in that older TV last time, what I did was simply use my lab power supply, plenty of voltage there...
I do have sharp / SMD probes, helps a lot getting good connections when testing the LEDs after having scraped the white solder mask.... Cheap Ebay probes but they work just fine....

[Vince]

OK I tested again all the LEDs in that string, this time with my lab supply... I can light them up white now, so I am 100% sure they work.... and they do, all of them.