Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[factory]

34401A. £250. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374184377229

Would buy it but I’ve already got a really nice one

Oops, might have accidentality hit the buy button. 

David

[25 CPS]

A month or two ago Shoppers Drug Mart priced-to-clear the 12pack Energizer Lithium AA : CAD19.49; last one I've saw two weeks ago; date on the batteries is 08-20; maybe is worth to look around?

I've got a PC Points offer for 20,000 points if I spend $75 at Shoppers today so several large packages of batteries would take me close to that and stocking up on a few other things would close the gap.  It's a one day offer that's good for today only but several of the Shoppers stores near me are open until midnight so I have some time to work with to see what I've already got on hand and to shop around and see if there are any other promotions on to find the best deal.

I need to survey the handheld equipment and build up a list of requirements.  This is going to go on a spreadsheet giving model, serial, battery requirements, last battery changeout date and next battery changeout date.  Then I'll do some shopping for what I need and formally start this up as a preventative maintenance program.

My experience is they will re-list them later on.  In fact, this same location of GCSurplus had a huge package of oscilloscopes for sale about two years ago in the midst of pandemic lock-down.  It was mentioned in this thread ... about 6 pallets if I recall.  I wonder if the same lot has been stored and then broken down into smaller lots.

Hmmmm, let me see ... 15 hours of driving one way.

EDIT:  It was March 2021 when GCSurplus had the huge package of oscilloscopes in New Brunswick, not Nova Scotia.  At the time, none of us were allowed to travel there due to lockdown.  We were discussing it when the bidding was at $200 and Kosmic was thinking of circumnavigating the travel restrictions by using a canoe    I think that lot eventually sold for $3k+... 

I remember that canoe discussion.  15 hour one way drive for you would be even longer for me.  Plus, my truck's in the garage for some nasty front end work.  A wheel bearing started going bad and then a latent defect showed up in the lower control arm when they tried to remove the wheel bearing and the control arm snapped in half.  It was a clean break too.  Everyone I've shown the pictures to came to the same conclusion that there must've been a defect when it was cast for this to happen.  Luckily it took place when it was in the shop being worked on instead of while being driven because it was probably waiting to break the next time I hit a pothole the wrong way, and there's no shortage of bad roads around here including the CAA Worst Road In Ontario which I pass over frequently.  By the time the bill comes for the repairs, test equipment, especially anything that involves a long road trip to collect, is going to be out of the question for a while.

It'll be interesting to see how many times the scopes go around before they sell though, if they don't go this time.

I think it's more "how buggered is the public transport going to be?"

I actually looked at the entrance of Bond Street tube station the other week and said fuck it and walked all the way home  (9.8 miles  )

I was wondering about the heat recently with how the deep level tube lines can be incredibly nasty during the summer.  I can't imagine how bad they are now with the heatwave.  The one upshot with the Central Line is the 92 stock has solid state propulsion.  Bakerloo and Piccadilly have to be even nastier with the 72 and 73 stock's resistive controllers throwing heat off every time a train starts and stops.

[Cerebus]

Oh those bloody posts do my head in. They installed them on the road with the local hospital which means ambulances take 10x as long to traverse it. On top of that it’s so narrow you can’t get two busses past each other now. Total fail.

What posts are these then, would they be posts to mark out the bleeding cyclists lane from vehicles?

Yep: https://goo.gl/maps/cg187YUyaSTvgEnc6

We have the same bleeding shit here, and like you the Hospital with the A&E dept is on the same road FFS. Ambulances struggle to get through the traffic and to add insult to injury, there are bus stops along the route  and most of those were in layby's, now they are in the road and block the road completely.

It's nice to know that those who design these things carefully think them through and consider the possible worst-case scenarios, isn't it?

 

-Pat

If the Ambulance Service fit nice strong cowcatchers to the front of the ambulances they could just plow themselves a clear lane when they need to. 

[25 CPS]

Oh those bloody posts do my head in. They installed them on the road with the local hospital which means ambulances take 10x as long to traverse it. On top of that it’s so narrow you can’t get two busses past each other now. Total fail.

What posts are these then, would they be posts to mark out the bleeding cyclists lane from vehicles?

Yep: https://goo.gl/maps/cg187YUyaSTvgEnc6

We have the same bleeding shit here, and like you the Hospital with the A&E dept is on the same road FFS. Ambulances struggle to get through the traffic and to add insult to injury, there are bus stops along the route  and most of those were in layby's, now they are in the road and block the road completely.

It's nice to know that those who design these things carefully think them through and consider the possible worst-case scenarios, isn't it?

 

-Pat

If the Ambulance Service fit nice strong cowcatchers to the front of the ambulances they could just plow themselves a clear lane when they need to. 

Some paramedic vehicles are equipped along those lines:

https://www.flickriver.com/photos/iduke/24950329235/

[bd139]

They're only plastic. Someone took the ones out down our road in one go a few weeks back. They only stuck a few of them back

[bd139]

34401A. £250. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374184377229

Would buy it but I’ve already got a really nice one

Oops, might have accidentality hit the buy button. 

David

Congratulations - welcome to 34401A club 

[factory]

I assume you need at least two to qualify then. 

David

[mansaxel]

I was wondering about the heat recently with how the deep level tube lines can be incredibly nasty during the summer.  I can't imagine how bad they are now with the heatwave.  The one upshot with the Central Line is the 92 stock has solid state propulsion.  Bakerloo and Piccadilly have to be even nastier with the 72 and 73 stock's resistive controllers throwing heat off every time a train starts and stops.

In Stockholm the Tunnelbana is pretty decent, and better so for the deep lines. They're in bedrock, and all trains have PWM control now, so even in summer it's quite nice. Can't beat old fortifications though; Maginot line ouvrages Fermont and Michelsberg were a comfortable 12° C all through, what with being 30m underground and sparsely visited. Those ouvrages that like Michelsberg have a walking entrance (Entrée des Munitions de plain-pied) where one walks straight into the main level of the fort, always have a tropical section in the entrance during summer, where cold air from below condenses the humidity in the hot air outside. Very wet, that. Once past, it gets nice and chilly.

Of course: As soon as you start running those places in something approaching actual foreseen use, with some 500 people in, the Usine running for power, and so on, they do tend to get a bit stuffy, and forced ventilation is required.

This is true of all such places; even more so in the new ones if there's a working NBC protection with sealed doors and so on...

[bd139]

I assume you need at least two to qualify then. 

David

 

[Robert763]

Had a bit more of a play with the Keithley 199 53/4 digit (302000 count) DMM  I bought from Scottrade12 on ebay.
It is all working and I really like it. Low noise even without filtering, fast readings and a really nice red LED display (16 segment). I'll get a decent camera and some daylight on it tomorrow and try to get pictures that do it justice.
I think it's my new favorite bench DMM. It's going to displace the Solartron on the bench for sure. Anyone want a 7150?
Paid £110 for the 199 which (for me) is a lot for a 51/2 digit class bench meter but I'm glad I made the offer.

[Cerebus]

In the early 1980s I had it firsthand from a London Underground civil engineer that LT's dirty little secret was that certain tube lines were heating up a predictable amount year-on-year, that they knew they had inadequate ventilation to prevent it, and although some improvements to ventilation were planned everybody involved knew that they were only going to slow the rate of rise, not eliminate or even reverse the rise in temperatures. Go down there 40 years later, at any time of year, and the rise of temperature over the last 40 years is palpable. The excess heat has sunk into the ground and would now take decades to remove, even if the ventilation was improved to the point where every tube platform had a gale blowing over it.

[Robert763]

Just in case anyone for Keysight reads this:
I just ordered a Rhode & Schwarz 'scope for work. Keysight's abandonment of "non-professionals" has directly cost them at least one sale.

[tggzzz]

Oh those bloody posts do my head in. They installed them on the road with the local hospital which means ambulances take 10x as long to traverse it. On top of that it’s so narrow you can’t get two busses past each other now. Total fail.

What posts are these then, would they be posts to mark out the bleeding cyclists lane from vehicles?

Yep: https://goo.gl/maps/cg187YUyaSTvgEnc6

Out west those wouldn't stop taxis, let alone fire engines.

OTOH some marked (double) parking spaces can and do. Spot the service pipe, which amazingly is still intact!
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4693246,-2.6149707,3a,18.8y,242.5h,73.72t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sIDryj-sdQI9nZuqIiWUt_w!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DIDryj-sdQI9nZuqIiWUt_w%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D142.95892%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192

[Neper]

Those ouvrages that like Michelsberg have a walking entrance (Entrée des Munitions de plain-pied) where one walks straight into the main level of the fort, always have a tropical section in the entrance during summer, where cold air from below condenses the humidity in the hot air outside.

Our car has separate A/C controls for the left and right side of the interior. Always wanted to crank one side up to 32 degrees and the other side down to 15 degrees to see if there will be a thunderstorm in the middle or at least some rain, but I keep forgetting to do so.

[Saskia]

Just in case anyone for Keysight reads this:
I just ordered a Rhode & Schwarz 'scope for work. Keysight's abandonment of "non-professionals" has directly cost them at least one sale.

I have a R+S as replacement for my Keysight scopes. way less expensive, smaller footprint, and customer support.

[Cerebus]

Those ouvrages that like Michelsberg have a walking entrance (Entrée des Munitions de plain-pied) where one walks straight into the main level of the fort, always have a tropical section in the entrance during summer, where cold air from below condenses the humidity in the hot air outside.

Our car has separate A/C controls for the left and right side of the interior. Always wanted to crank one side up to 32 degrees and the other side down to 15 degrees to see if there will be a thunderstorm in the middle or at least some rain, but I keep forgetting to do so.

Ditto mine. I think those mostly work by pre-mixing hot and cold air on their way to the outlets. So any thunderstorm would, sadly, most likely happen out of sight behind the dashboard.

[bd139]

Had a bit more of a play with the Keithley 199 53/4 digit (302000 count) DMM  I bought from Scottrade12 on ebay.
It is all working and I really like it. Low noise even without filtering, fast readings and a really nice red LED display (16 segment). I'll get a decent camera and some daylight on it tomorrow and try to get pictures that do it justice.
I think it's my new favorite bench DMM. It's going to displace the Solartron on the bench for sure. Anyone want a 7150?
Paid £110 for the 199 which (for me) is a lot for a 51/2 digit class bench meter but I'm glad I made the offer.

Yes that was a bit expensive. I paid 110x less for mine

(yes I know it doesn't work properly. Yet)

Edit: from the same seller, my £100 Marconi 2022E is arriving tomorrow apparently. Fingers crossed it's salvageable.

[Vince]

34401A. £250. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374184377229

Would buy it but I’ve already got a really nice one

Oops, might have accidentality hit the buy button. 

David

I don't understand...... just the other day you people were saying that these went for silly crazy high stupid prices.... and now they go for half price ?! 

Hardly complaining, of course.... just finding it very difficult to understand the market, it's a Mach 5 roller coaster 

So, knowing that, I guess when I am in the market for one, I will just wait until they are half price like here...

[bd139]

Some sellers are dumbasses. That’s my market 

[factory]

It's been too hot to run the PC for any length of time the last three nights, work hasn't been much better, boiled in the wheel department for two days (Mon/Tues), followed by a rare two days in the lab, first of which was quite hot, due to failure of the very clapped-out antique A/C.

Anyway I made good use of my lunch break today.
I had pulled the A1U5 1816-0412 PROM from my HP 5300B counter last night, I wanted to read it's contents for future reference, in case it fails & confirm the code against the manual.
It was read OK & a screenshot photo taken, I've just converted the hex code to binary, it matches the code in the manual, text file with code attached below. 




David

[bd139]

Based on my recent experience that is a very good idea.

I will do the same on my 465B at some point.

[factory]

This started with the very faulty 5340A I got from the PP auction last year, one of the control PROMs was futzed, I ended up copying good ones to USSR clones and archived the code in text files on here a while ago, will carry on archiving other PROMs I find in the future, probably have loads in my stored HP kit.
I really need to sort out the 386 motherboard (from the free, please take this crap away box, at one of the Hack Green bunker sales) & an old enough programmer, so I don't have to kept using the redundant machine at work (which they still won't let me buy ), which will probably get thrown out if they get their way, or die of either tant failure, or Trintron problems (desperately needs a re-capicide).

David

[25 CPS]

I just picked up my truck from being repaired.  No more discretionary purchases for a while.







That's what just blew the budget.  The original fault I brought the truck in for was a wheel bearing that was failing and that was going to be expensive but not too too bad by itself.  The control arm broke when they were removing the bad bearing.  The consensus across the board at the shop, myself, some friends in transportation engineering and a couple of car guys I've shown the pictures to is that it was most likely defective, and that it was waiting to break the next time the truck hit a pothole the wrong way.  The fact that it broke in the shop on account of the wheel bearing getting replaced is far better than it snapping in two out on the road, so the wheel bearing going bad was a blessing in disguise and the only damage that happened was to my bank account.

[Cubdriver]

Damn!!  That would have ruined your day if it let loose on the road!   

-Pat

[tggzzz]

Oh those bloody posts do my head in. They installed them on the road with the local hospital which means ambulances take 10x as long to traverse it. On top of that it’s so narrow you can’t get two busses past each other now. Total fail.

What posts are these then, would they be posts to mark out the bleeding cyclists lane from vehicles?

Yep: https://goo.gl/maps/cg187YUyaSTvgEnc6

Out west those wouldn't stop taxis, let alone fire engines.

OTOH some marked (double) parking spaces can and do. Spot the service pipe, which amazingly is still intact!
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4693246,-2.6149707,3a,18.8y,242.5h,73.72t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sIDryj-sdQI9nZuqIiWUt_w!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DIDryj-sdQI9nZuqIiWUt_w%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D142.95892%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192

Mind you, these Toby/tombstone bollards in Bristol did impale and stop cars, and were replaced within weeks!

I saw these and thought "they're lethal".



Not long afterwards I saw this car, and sniggered!