Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[xrunner]

Filing Category: Oddball Chinese supplier names

Received: Yesterday

Reason needed: SMA bulkhead connectors for a project

[Specmaster]

Please will you two stop it, AVGresponding and mnementh, yes it is extremely hot and peoples fuses are shortened as a result, this is not normal behaviour and you both know this to be true. If we keep on this current tack there is a good chance that we will be heavily monitored and that will effect almost everyone here negatively as we would not be able to deviate of the core topic and that truly would be a backward step.

So please, make it up and lets move forwards. 

[Zucca]

UK gang!!!!

What are you waiting for???

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/fs-tdk-lambda-gen-60-55-0-60v-dc-0-55-a-3-3-kw-power-supply/new/#new

A three phase supply........

Even in Italy I have 3PH 380VAC... Germany did a wonderful job in wiring up their grid. The three phases there are almost everywhere.
I would like to buy it a play with a 220VAC to 3phases 380VAC VFD... if I would be in UK.
Not trying to push it, I am so surprised it is still dancing for sale and nobody has bought it already.

[mnementh]

PS:-Chrysler had a penchant for recycling model names, so the Aussie Charger shares its name with the Dodge car of the same name, & very little else. The Dodge is a bit more urbane, & not quite so "hardcore" as the Oz one!

You mean like this? 

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang_Mach-E

This makes my skin crawl; feels like the Capri-body Mustangs all over again. And they actually thought they might get away with calling it "Mach 1".   

mnem
*toddles off to the tooth-manglers*

[Specmaster]

This is where I'll be tomorrow, for the first time in about 5 years since I was last there.

Live feed

[Specmaster]

Words fail me, blithering idiots.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1547246036523048962

[xrunner]

Words fail me, blithering idiots.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1547246036523048962

Reminds me of this thread at times ...

[AVGresponding]

Is it wrong of me that my nickname for "Twitter" is "Twatter"?   

[bd139]

Words fail me, blithering idiots.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1547246036523048962

Reminds me of this thread at times ...

Yes we've been drowning in mud mostly today. In a moment of delirium caused by an hour of JIRA ticket shuffling earlier I decided I'm not talking about anything other than TE on here any more. Cars, computers, politics, crazy people, dick swinging, petty arguments can fuck off. They detract from the good things in life like scopes, signal sources and that bacon smell when you solder your fingers to something.


And on that note, still arguing with test-equip over this ROM. I have decided that life is too short for this crap, have opened a claim and am working out how to burn 74S267's at the moment and will load the damn code in myself.

To do this I figure the best approach is to read the existing ROM out first and validating that I've got as much as I can out of it. I'm down one address pin but I worked out that if I read it and assume that's 0 then I can at least validate half my burned ROM's address space is fine. I am now attempting to do the following:

1. Order some bits. Have a medium shopping list.
2. Use a cheap arse arduino clone to read the ROM out into PC and diff it with the one I have to validate I reverse engineered it properly.
3. Add some switching magic for the burn voltages and an external power supply to burn the new ROM. Check it carefully with a scope.
4. Burn new ROM and validate.

[Specmaster]

Words fail me, blithering idiots.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1547246036523048962

Reminds me of this thread at times ...

Yes we've been drowning in mud mostly today. In a moment of delirium caused by an hour of JIRA ticket shuffling earlier I decided I'm not talking about anything other than TE on here any more. Cars, computers, politics, crazy people, dick swinging, petty arguments can fuck off. They detract from the good things in life like scopes, signal sources and that bacon smell when you solder your fingers to something.
<snip>

I wonder how long that will last, I was told that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[mnementh]

Is it wrong of me that my nickname for "Twitter" is "Twatter"?   

I find the simple abbreviation Twit similarly viscerally satisfying. 

mnem
*at the dentist for the first time in 3 years*

[tggzzz]

Please will you two stop it, AVGresponding and mnementh, yes it is extremely hot and peoples fuses are shortened as a result, this is not normal behaviour and you both know this to be true. If we keep on this current tack there is a good chance that we will be heavily monitored and that will effect almost everyone here negatively as we would not be able to deviate of the core topic and that truly would be a backward step.

So please, make it up and lets move forwards. 

Me too, or +1, or is that just too Eternal September?

[med6753]

Words fail me, blithering idiots.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1547246036523048962

Reminds me of this thread at times ...

Yes we've been drowning in mud mostly today. In a moment of delirium caused by an hour of JIRA ticket shuffling earlier I decided I'm not talking about anything other than TE on here any more. Cars, computers, politics, crazy people, dick swinging, petty arguments can fuck off. They detract from the good things in life like scopes, signal sources and that bacon smell when you solder your fingers to something.


And on that note, still arguing with test-equip over this ROM. I have decided that life is too short for this crap, have opened a claim and am working out how to burn 74S267's at the moment and will load the damn code in myself.

To do this I figure the best approach is to read the existing ROM out first and validating that I've got as much as I can out of it. I'm down one address pin but I worked out that if I read it and assume that's 0 then I can at least validate half my burned ROM's address space is fine. I am now attempting to do the following:

1. Order some bits. Have a medium shopping list.
2. Use a cheap arse arduino clone to read the ROM out into PC and diff it with the one I have to validate I reverse engineered it properly.
3. Add some switching magic for the burn voltages and an external power supply to burn the new ROM. Check it carefully with a scope.
4. Burn new ROM and validate.

Fucking amen. Something I've tried to encourage but then I get dog piled for trying to direct the thread to my own selfish needs which is completely untrue.

And since I have no time today to work on the 465B re-cap this mostly likely will be my one and only post.

Finally......you notice then whenever this thread goes off the rails it's always the same common denominator?

[Cerebus]

If that doesn't work, you can always just glue some gears on it and call it SteamPunk; it's already got that industrial-revolution-era patina. 

mnem
No mercy; no regrets. 

Brilliant!!  That gives me a great idea!   

Behold!!!



  <runs for cover>

-Pat

Hey Pat, you should check if you still have the handwritten receipt for that lampholder and lamp and check the signature on on. If the signature reads Thomas Alva Edison you'd make a mint from it at auction. 

[Cerebus]

UK gang!!!!

What are you waiting for???

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/fs-tdk-lambda-gen-60-55-0-60v-dc-0-55-a-3-3-kw-power-supply/new/#new

A three phase supply........

Even in Italy I have 3PH 380VAC... Germany did a wonderful job in wiring up their grid. The three phases there are almost everywhere.
I would like to buy it a play with a 220VAC to 3phases 380VAC VFD... if I would be in UK.
Not trying to push it, I am so surprised it is still dancing for sale and nobody has bought it already.

The three phase is what kills interest in it. You just won't see a three phase installation anywhere in the UK where the demand is for less than ~125A single phase. It's just how the power company has always done it. Three phase installations outside of industry or large buildings are very rarely seen. It costs a small fortune to get a three phase supply installed anywhere that wasn't planned with a 3 phase supply ab initio. It almost always entails significant streetworks (of the digging variety) which puts a several thousand pound price tag on even the most trivial work.

[BU508A]

Me too, or +1, or is that just too Eternal September?

From the old usenet days it is AOL for "me too".

[Cerebus]

1001 uses for spare packing foam No. 1002:



Cobbled together with hot melt glue a couple of years back to keep my drink cold during similar unseasonable weather to that which SE England is currently experiencing.

[Specmaster]

<snip>

Fucking amen. Something I've tried to encourage but then I get dog piled for trying to direct the thread to my own selfish needs which is completely untrue.

And since I have no time today to work on the 465B re-cap this mostly likely will be my one and only post.

Finally......you notice then whenever this thread goes off the rails it's always the same common denominator?

Yeah, well comments like that don't exactly help the healing process. It takes all kinds to make a well-rounded group and that I believe we have largely achieved that in general, but it only takes a slight misunderstanding for it to kick off sometimes. When that happens, it is a good idea if one or both parties can turn the other cheek before it escalates out of hand, and then it can be forgotten.

[TERRA Operative]

Repair time!

My Japanese friend who runs a ryukan (small Japanese hotel) and some AirBnB houses got this bit of Japan-specific electrical test gear that needed repair.
It had panel-mount shrouded male banana jacks and the cables had female inline sockets for some weird reason...
Couldn't source replacements for them (3 of 4 were broken with age and use), so I swapped them with female shrouded banana sockets from Cal-test and male shrouded banana plugs from Stabuli.

It does the usual earth-leakage breaker test, but also tests another bit of electrical safety gear that AFAIK is specific to Japan.
Basically, if you have a wooden house or structure and want to rent it out, you need a current transformer around the mains as close to where it meets the building as possible, that is then connected to a little box inside with an alarm.
It detects any imbalance in the power coming in compared to what's going out (perfect balance means zero current in the CT of course) and it will blast an alarm if there is an imbalance detected.

Why not just use an earth leakage breaker? Well that comes down to a peculiarity of cheap Japanese construction, and shitty electrical standards along with earthquakes etc.

Inside the exterior walls of wooden houses, steel mesh or chickenwire (sometimes galvanized iron sheeting) etc is used to give the outer layer of render/plaster something to bite to and hold the wall together in an earthquake. Even if the render cracks, the metal mesh prevents the render from flaking away from the wall and hitting you on the head. Then a bit of caulking has it sealed back up again.

Now, imagine what would happen over a couple decades of earthquakes if a cable were to wear through and make electrical contact with that mesh inside the wall...
Imaging if that wire was the main feed from the meter to the switchboard, i.e. completely unprotected by breakers or fuses.

The mesh, if given a path to earth (likely), will heat up like a toaster and burn your wall from the inside out and you wouldn't even know until it's too late.

This CT safety device will blare an alarm to alert you of this fault.

The tester I just fixed is used to simulate a fault to test the operation of this safety device.

[mnementh]

...Looked in again (Amazon Prime Day), found this UNI-T UTi120S IR Camera...

Sub-$200 for a 120x90 IR Resolution model seems too good to be true; that's almost usable resolution for our kind of troubleshooting. What's the gotcha? Something horrible, like it's really inaccurate, or 2 seconds per frame update...?

mnem
*toddles off to do a Time Machine on his MacPro*

It's a rebadged (and re-coloured) HTi HT-04 which you can normally buy for even less. The refresh rate is 6Hz by the way.

McBryce.

Uggh. Even worse than I feared. Glad I didn't have the money then. 

mnem
balls.

[Robert763]

UK gang!!!!

What are you waiting for???

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/fs-tdk-lambda-gen-60-55-0-60v-dc-0-55-a-3-3-kw-power-supply/new/#new

A three phase supply........

Even in Italy I have 3PH 380VAC... Germany did a wonderful job in wiring up their grid. The three phases there are almost everywhere.
I would like to buy it a play with a 220VAC to 3phases 380VAC VFD... if I would be in UK.
Not trying to push it, I am so surprised it is still dancing for sale and nobody has bought it already.

The three phase is what kills interest in it. You just won't see a three phase installation anywhere in the UK where the demand is for less than ~125A single phase. It's just how the power company has always done it. Three phase installations outside of industry or large buildings are very rarely seen. It costs a small fortune to get a three phase supply installed anywhere that wasn't planned with a 3 phase supply ab initio. It almost always entails significant streetworks (of the digging variety) which puts a several thousand pound price tag on even the most trivial work.

Exactly that.
There is 3 phase in the street but not in the house. If I could get an extension lead from two neigbours I'd be set though 
EV's and non-gas heating is driving  three phase supplies for some new build housing though.

[25 CPS]

Searching for equipment pretty broadly by manufacturer name to see what turns up locally can cause some frustration.  A lot of Hickock products were manufactured under license here by Stark.

The result:  Tons of merchandise from the Ironman movies with the occasional piece of interesting electronics mixed in.

[factory]

TEA

Anyone in UK @BD139 want a thermal TRMS meter?
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403774543294

Already seen it. At that price, no 

I am after a decent 3400A but the other seller who had one didn’t want to shift it at the price I wanted to pay. I can afford to wait

Much prefer this one, but the seller didn't respond last year, when I enquired about shipping a counter, so no point asking again. https://www.ebay.de/itm/225070026339

 I do have a 3403A bought from the USA, condition is not quite as nice, not helped by crap packing.

Not having much luck ATM, trying to persuade US sellers to add international shipping either. 
One such example, seller name "globalmachinesales" they are not interested in "global" as only US shipping is advertised and definitely not interested in "sales" as they can't be bothered answering either of the two messages I sent. 

David

[mnementh]

You may well be right, istr the last stuff made here was the Vivaro van, and they maybe did announce its imminent demise/offshoring. Bloody scandalous is the murder of our car manufacturing industry.

Most of it actually deserved it.

Ouch, that hurts. We did at one time have an industry that was highly prized, but we got complacent and let the world overtake us instead of making them play catchup.

No worse than over here. We almost had a paradigm shift with GM and Saturn; the SL1/SL2s were a real contender with Corolla and Camry for the kind of "10 years, zero-hassle" car ownership mansaxel speaks to in a later post. Then things looked really promising with the EV1, which people loved so much GM had to send out bounty hunters to get them all back.

Then GM discovered a loophole in the gas guzzler tax, so axed the EV1, and soon followed Saturn itself. And now we have effing EV Hummers & Hybrid Escalades instead. 

It's kindof telling that Toyota can bring plants over here to comply with ever-increasing trade imbalance legislation, and still whoop our butts building their vehicles with our own workers and supply chain infrastructure.

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

There is 3 phase in the street but not in the house. If I could get an extension lead from two neigbours I'd be set though 
EV's and non-gas heating is driving  three phase supplies for some new build housing though.

You might need quite long extensions, from what I can make out (from observing single phase power failures) the phases down my street change about every six houses.