Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mansaxel]

As for the polo shirt...

Most days I go to work in a black T-shirt (may contain a message, preferably quite unique), some black/dark grey outdoor pants, and steel-capped boots or black sneakers.  There are exceptions; I've shown up in black suit, white shirt and tie, and everything else in between. Just before I went to vacation I wore carpenters shorts for two weeks, because it was an endless series of fibre patching requests and switch installations and ICBA to wear anything less practical. 



There is one vendor (or rather, one person at that vendor) with whom it is a running joke that I'll show up wearing my red bowtie. (together with suitable dress, of course.) Or the meeting has not taken place.

Yes, I have an office job, with salary and "go to meetings" responsibilities. But the dress code is pretty relaxed. At least when you're not in picture. The poor sods who work at the Nobel laureate ceremony and dinner must do so in full evening dress. ("white tie") Thankfully, we've got a wardrobe department that will help with fitting and dressing, so there's a scheduled stop for them before they go on-site.

[factory]

Well I've never been able to say this before, USPS & Parcelforce have exceeded my expectations, the Systron Donner 7005A was sent from the US on Monday and arrived just before lunchtime. 

It was very well packed (double boxed with polystyrene sheets), no damage for a change too, a quick look inside & for some reason two of the screws that hold the transformer in place are not there. Should have some in my spares to correct that.




The space behind the display PCBs is for the BCD printer output option (05).




More pictures to follow.

David

[tggzzz]

Marconi 2022 out for delivery. Wonder what turd I'm going to be snarfing this evening 

You're a glass half full type.

I'm cautiously optimistic that after a little TLC, which you will enjoy giving it, it will be a magnificent instrument that graces your workbench. It will greatly exceed your expectations.

There and again, I haven't bought it!

mnem
*building the perfect beast*

Software engineer: This glass is under utilised, it needs filling to capacity. Virtualise it and share it with a friend.

Software engineer's glass: strange unique shape, poorly fused silica, varying colour and thickness, lots of scratches that render it brittle.

[Neomys Sapiens]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225085806337?

Oh my, a veritable Frankenmeter! Egor, would you kindly deposit this whereever you might be digging next?

[Cerebus]

Yeth maſter, but maſter, I'm sure we could rebuild it. Give it 𝔏ℑ𝔉𝔈 again. All it needs is a really good thunderstorm.

[srb1954]

Marconi 2022 out for delivery. Wonder what turd I'm going to be snarfing this evening 

You're a glass half full type.

I'm cautiously optimistic that after a little TLC, which you will enjoy giving it, it will be a magnificent instrument that graces your workbench. It will greatly exceed your expectations.

There and again, I haven't bought it!

mnem
*building the perfect beast*

Software engineer: This glass is under utilised, it needs filling to capacity. Virtualise it and share it with a friend.

Software engineer's glass: strange unique shape, poorly fused silica, varying colour and thickness, lots of scratches that render it brittle.

And built on top of shards of other drinking vessels dating back to the Stone Age.

[mnementh]

And every umpteenth broken glass has been commented out.

mnem
But there are man pages, which haven't been updated since glass Rev 0.1.12.

[vk6zgo]

Marconi 2022 out for delivery. Wonder what turd I'm going to be snarfing this evening 

You're a glass half full type.

I'm cautiously optimistic that after a little TLC, which you will enjoy giving it, it will be a magnificent instrument that graces your workbench. It will greatly exceed your expectations.

There and again, I haven't bought it!

mnem
*building the perfect beast*

Software engineer: This glass is under utilised, it needs filling to capacity. Virtualise it and share it with a friend.

Daddy Bear: "Someone's been drinking from my glass & they've drunk it half up!"

[cyclin_al]

Do you guys use the the term "cooked data" as opposite of "raw data"?

Today first time I heard it....

Over here, "cooked data" is specially processed to fulfill all customer requirements (even the impossible ones) 

Sounds similar to "cooking the books".  If it is found out that you were "cooking the books", you will likely end up being charged with fraud... the expression comes from accounting books.

I suspect cooked data is an oxymoron.  Once it is cooked, it is no longer data....

[cyclin_al]

Cheap (65$) Tek p6046 differential probe on ebay. Working order and with all accessories. I would go for it, but already have one.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185500027746

... and it is already sold 

Sorry.     The auction ended this afternoon at 1:00, and I fully expected to be outbid on it; was surprised when no one else took a crack at it and the notification came in from the bay.

-Pat

No shipping to Canada; otherwise you've seen my 2s bidding

If you're not too far from the border you can use Kinek. They receive your package and charge around 5$ for a small one and 10$ a big one. I normally accumulate couple of items and then do the trip to collect everything.

There is both a UPS Store and a local establishment in Ogdensburg, NY.  You order your parcel to be delivered there, and then drive on down in the afternoon after work.  It is about an hour from Ottawa.
Last time I checked, the rate was $5 for a package and $10 for a set of vehicle tires.
Do not lie.  These establishments have a lot of traffic so are located close to the border.  Close enough that both the American and Canadian border services can watch you drive to your destination from their office windows...

I imagine there are a string of this type of establishment all along the border.  You just have to find the most convenient one.

[25 CPS]

Spent a bit of time working through the handheld equipment today.  While I was doing so, the idea came to mind to put the two OLED meters next to each other and put the same source on the inputs since Agilent/Keysight used considerably different OLEDs between the multimeters and insulation testers:



That's under my regular bench lighting with the U1461A is on automatic brightness and the U1253B is on the factory defaults it was shipped with.

One of my friends finished up at a conference and dropped by after.  We took the truck out for a road test and ended up in Niagara Falls.  The truck is running fine, for now, but I suspect that the wheel bearing on the opposite side is starting to go as well.  It's much quieter than the one that got replaced yesterday but it isn't silent the way the new one is either so it probably has a bit of life left but will probably have to be changed out fairly soon.

We ended up having some dinner and then wound our way round through the back side of the falls where took a look at a large hydro right of way, mostly empty, except for an ancient power line that dead ended, but was still in use and feeding a new subdivision that was put in a couple of years ago.





There are a small number of places where this extremely old type of tower are still in use and a couple of abandoned towers here and there that aren't carrying cables anymore, but if you're driving around parts of southern Ontario and looking carefully, you can see bits and pieces of infrastructure from the early days of electricity still there and sometimes still in use.

[Zoli]

...
There is both a UPS Store and a local establishment in Ogdensburg, NY.  You order your parcel to be delivered there, and then drive on down in the afternoon after work.  It is about an hour from Ottawa.
Last time I checked, the rate was $5 for a package and $10 for a set of vehicle tires.
Do not lie.  These establishments have a lot of traffic so are located close to the border.  Close enough that both the American and Canadian border services can watch you drive to your destination from their office windows...

I imagine there are a string of this type of establishment all along the border.  You just have to find the most convenient one.

Check out Washington/BC; I think those establishments around here are 0. Looks like they forgot:"Go West, young man" ....

[TERRA Operative]

You can just stuff 10MHz in the socket on the back.....

Wish it was that easy. I traced it out and that's only usable as the synthesizer frequency reference. The actual system clock is always derived from the internal standard 

If there is no internal clock then nothing works including selecting the external ref input 

So what you're saying is it can be fixed with a bodge wire from the location of the missing internal OCXO to the external ref input jack?

[Robert763]

You can just stuff 10MHz in the socket on the back.....

Wish it was that easy. I traced it out and that's only usable as the synthesizer frequency reference. The actual system clock is always derived from the internal standard 

If there is no internal clock then nothing works including selecting the external ref input 

So what you're saying is it can be fixed with a bodge wire from the location of the missing internal OCXO to the external ref input jack?

Better quick bodge fix woild be to stick a 10MHz DIL oscillator in there and use external if frequency accuracy is required. BD139's plan of a internal OCXO is better.

[bd139]

You can just stuff 10MHz in the socket on the back.....

Wish it was that easy. I traced it out and that's only usable as the synthesizer frequency reference. The actual system clock is always derived from the internal standard 

If there is no internal clock then nothing works including selecting the external ref input 

So what you're saying is it can be fixed with a bodge wire from the location of the missing internal OCXO to the external ref input jack?

Better quick bodge fix woild be to stick a 10MHz DIL oscillator in there and use external if frequency accuracy is required. BD139's plan of a internal OCXO is better.

Turns out it’s even more painful. The synth board I have probably isn’t from a 2022E.

I’m evaluating the power supply capacity first before I chuck an OCXO in it.

There is some discussion on the Marconi groups.io group about the feasibility of this at the moment. I’m not sure how much of that is purity drama though because the device seems to be well designed with FRU fungiblity in mind. The only board difference I can find is the missing crystal oscillator.

First plan is to reverse engineer the 5V rail limiting circuit to get the full current capacity of the unit. That’s fairly simple.  Then measure the active consumption and work out how much headroom I have. Then attach a load to the 5V rail which pulls the same as the OCXO in heat mode and make sure it doesn’t kill anything.

The 2022C etc run the OCXO oven off the 12 V rail, which is available but I don’t want to blow off the power required to drop that down to 5V inside the synthesiser box.

At the end of the day ill make it work but how pretty it’s going to be is not decided yet 

[BU508A]

Turns out it’s even more painful. The synth board I have probably isn’t from a 2022E.

I’m evaluating the power supply capacity first before I chuck an OCXO in it.

There is some discussion on the Marconi groups.io group about the feasibility of this at the moment. I’m not sure how much of that is purity drama though because the device seems to be well designed with FRU fungiblity in mind. The only board difference I can find is the missing crystal oscillator.

First plan is to reverse engineer the 5V rail limiting circuit to get the full current capacity of the unit. That’s fairly simple.  Then measure the active consumption and work out how much headroom I have. Then attach a load to the 5V rail which pulls the same as the OCXO in heat mode and make sure it doesn’t kill anything.

The 2022C etc run the OCXO oven off the 12 V rail, which is available but I don’t want to blow off the power required to drop that down to 5V inside the synthesiser box.

At the end of the day ill make it work but how pretty it’s going to be is not decided yet 

You could change this: into something more permanent (eg. an additional BNC or SMA connector on the outside of the case) and connect a GPSDO to it.   

[bd139]

Watch this space 

Early morning LTspice futzing going on…

[tggzzz]

Marconi 2022 out for delivery. Wonder what turd I'm going to be snarfing this evening 

You're a glass half full type.

I'm cautiously optimistic that after a little TLC, which you will enjoy giving it, it will be a magnificent instrument that graces your workbench. It will greatly exceed your expectations.

There and again, I haven't bought it!

mnem
*building the perfect beast*

Software engineer: This glass is under utilised, it needs filling to capacity. Virtualise it and share it with a friend.

Software engineer's glass: strange unique shape, poorly fused silica, varying colour and thickness, lots of scratches that render it brittle.

And built on top of shards of other drinking vessels dating back to the Stone Age.

Damn; I missed that!

I'd probably expect it to be "And unwittingly incorporating other drinking vessels dating back to the stone age". With large software systems, "unwitting" has to be in there.

[Robert763]

I got a package from Scottrade12 this morning. Usual perfect packing job - not 
I'm not sure exactly what it is other than it has a Schroff Compac Pro instrument case and I like those. Has the optional bail handle and panel cover.
ebay item
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223995652291

[bd139]

That's special. Mine came in a proper box 

[Robert763]

And they put the instrument case in "suitcase" facing the bottom so it arrived with the acrylic panel protector smashed 

The unit looks like it was VERY expensive. A big 2 axis steerable IR first surface mirror. There is also a big rectangular glass IR filter. Appears to be some sort of automatic tracking attachment for a IR camera. Mirror is about 4" across.
 

[bd139]

FFS. Discount time anyway 

[AVGresponding]

They seem very hit and miss. The only thing I can remember buying from them was well packed, but then it was a 500g reel of solder so it didn't matter hugely.

[mansaxel]

[hp] being [hp]:

The 5372A alignment procedure lists a 3458A as required to set the PSU voltages. Yep.

[AVGresponding]

Seller with 0 feedback, £80 shipping? Nope nope nope, nopity nopity nopity nope.  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394172624747





Yet another 34401:  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225086559493





This is too salty for me, but there's a humourous detail in the pic at least:  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275397016028