Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[grizewald]

Finally!



These took far too long to get right! First I started off down the wrong path thinking I could melt the inserts into the housings, but the inserts really are not designed for that. So I changed track and decided to glue the inserts in with cyanoacrylate. That made the housings easier to design and it only took a couple of iterations to make sure that the inserts fit slightly proud of the housings by a fraction of a millimetre, just like the originals.

I think the final result looks great, particularly in British phone box red. (Filament is PETG from E3D).



All that remains is recovering the inserts from the remaining housings and hoping my tube of glue doesn't run out before the job is finished.

[bd139]

Marconi OCXO and VCXO boards ordered...



OCXO one probably will bend the power supply a bit hard but will select a low current heater OCXO from the batch and try it.

[mansaxel]

I think the final result looks great, particularly in British phone box red. (Filament is PETG from E3D).

Gorgeous! Really nice job. My set is not Soviet, but from the DDR, except the 100Ω which is Austrian (Norma). Their plastic, at least in the 50s, when mine were made, apparently was better than in Mother Russia.

[mansaxel]

If your FeelTech FG is one with a 10MHz internal reference, you could always hack it to add a BNC at the rear of the unit ready to accept 10MHz from a BG7TBL GPS locked reference. They are not particularly expensive and once they have a solid lock will give you all the accuracy you need. Pair it with a distribution amp to feed everything you have that accepts a 10MHz timebase.

I think mine is a simpler model than the one Tony hacked in one of his videos. But I'd like to try, indeed, because as shitty as it is, it's my only FG  and I'm not really finding what I want on the used market at the moment.

[Vince]

New acquisition:

(hp) 5254L Electronic Counter (NIXIES! ) with 5253B Frequency Converter plugin

Talked the seller down to USD100. Did not come with a power cable. I have no idea if it works but at least (upon casual inspection) it has not been molested. I have no rational need for such a device, but the promise of glowing wire digits beckons. This boat anchor scares me because it is old enough to have grandchildren and I have never even seen it plugged in.

Wow, well done, it's immaculate inside out, zero corrosion, looks all shiny.. a winner for sure. Right there you already know that whatever might be wrong with it, if anything at all, will be worth fixing !

[Robert763]

I used the "automotive" Fluke 25 this morning. I installed a dashcam in the Outlander PHEV. While I still had the "chinesium" one from the old Fiat Croma. I decided to splash out and get a decent one.
After a bit of research I settled on a Nextbase 322GW. It has the features I wanted, GPS and rear camera option without wanting to be connected to my phone and the "cloud". Installation was pretty painless, only tool I needed was a 10mm socket to loosen a bolt for the earth. The Facom tight access flexible head kit I got for my birthday provved invaluable. The nearest bolt was hehind the dash accessed through a hole behind the glove box. The onlyy other thing that would have fittted would be a universal joint and short socket, But that would have been a pain as they flop all over the place and there was onl room for one hand.
One thing I like about the Nextbase is you can set the screensaver to show GPS speed. shame it has to go on the passenger side though. Obviously the design was optimised for LHD cars.You could put it on the right but the body and leads would be in view rather than hidden by the rearview mirror.

[factory]

Nice!!!  A 5245L was my first hit of the Nixie Madness.   

<SNIP>

Welcome to the orange glowy side!

-Pat

<edit to add - installing a C14 mains inlet wouldn't be nearly as sacrilegious as putting a Hyundai mill into a model T - HP built the 5245L for many years, and later iterations had C14s rather than the old PH-163.>

Thank you.

Re C14: Really? Good to know.

I hit up ebay in search of some pictures and found a 5254L that had a C14 that looked like it was born with. I found another 5254L that had been converted to a built-in cable.

Oh, and you'll want to turn the 'storage' switch on the back panel to 'on', otherwise it will count up from zero with each new measurement rather than updating the previously displayed one with the new value.

Done. I wondered what that switch did. Still haven't RTFM yet.

Put a C6 "mickey mouse" inlet in it. No hacking of chassis should be required, just a adaptor plate at most.

Reversible modification. Smart.

EDIT:

Added the pictures from ebay.

EDIT EDIT:

I just grabbed a mickey mouse cable (off of an old HP laptop) and it easily fits in the existing hole in the chassis. I assume that the screw holes wouldn't line up, hence the "adapter plate". This is now my "Plan A" for powering the unit, after it's up and running. Thanks.

If your going to replace the inlet I would use a C14* or a fixed adaptor plate with a short C14 lead, those C5/C6 are crap IMO and for certain HP TE of that era would not have adequate current rating (noting you are in the US) eg older 140/141 scope or SA mainframe (fused at 4A in the US), a C5/6 is only rated for 2.5A (IEC rating).

And that cable with the HP laptop, we had a product recall for those (apparently a fire hazard), a reason I don't trust those crappy C5 cables.

from https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/recalls.html
HP Notebook PC AC Power Cord Safety Recall and Replacement Program
On August 26, 2014 HP announced a worldwide voluntary recall and replacement program in cooperation with various government regulatory agencies, for certain AC power cords used with AC adapters distributed worldwide with HP and Compaq notebook and mini notebook computers, as well as with AC adapters provided with accessories such as docking stations. These AC power cords have the potential to overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard. The affected AC power cords were shipped with products and accessories sold from September 2010 through June 2012. HP customers affected by this program will be eligible to receive a replacement AC power cord for each verified, recalled AC power cord at no cost.

Beware not all the used PH163 power lead are good, one I just received with TE has a bad ground connection, but this can also happen with IEC leads & inlets too.

*Even though I'm not happy with the vandalism of my 5090A and some other HP TE I have.

P.S. For the 5245L counter, it's a good idea to add a fuse for the small mains transformer, the oven heater on these can fail & burn out the small transformer, due to sharing the fuse with the larger transformer.

David

[Neper]

Consequently, devices with one leg directly connected to chassis are, and have been so for considerable time, illegal here.

Until I learned about the All American Five and similar radios, the idea of doing this was simply preposterous to me. Not real. Now it, sadly, is both.

There have been loads of appliances, mainly radios, made in Europe where the same is true. Watch out for model designations with /U for universal or universel or /GW for Gleich-/Wechselstrom. The original idea was to use them on AC and DC mains. The more practical idea was to make them cheaper (no expensive mains transformer).

A classic example is the Philetta by Philips.



This is the innards of a Belgian radio from 1947.

[ Specified attachment is not available ]

The big glass thing on the left is an iron-hydrogen resistor used to stabilise the current through the filaments and the dial lights.

They are twice as dangerous nowadays because the paper/metal capacitors used to keep the mains voltage away from the antenna and pick-up sockets have become leaky over the years.

[Robert763]

<SNIP>
If your going to replace the inlet I would use a C14*, those C5/C6 are crap IMO and for certain HP TE of that era would not have adequate current rating (noting you are in the US) eg older 140/141 scope or SA mainframe (fused at 4A in the US), a C5/6 is only rated for 2.5A (IEC rating).

And that cable with the HP laptop, we had a product recall for those (apparently a fire hazard), a reason I don't trust those crappy C5 cables.

from https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/recalls.html
HP Notebook PC AC Power Cord Safety Recall and Replacement Program
On August 26, 2014 HP announced a worldwide voluntary recall and replacement program in cooperation with various government regulatory agencies, for certain AC power cords used with AC adapters distributed worldwide with HP and Compaq notebook and mini notebook computers, as well as with AC adapters provided with accessories such as docking stations. These AC power cords have the potential to overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard. The affected AC power cords were shipped with products and accessories sold from September 2010 through June 2012. HP customers affected by this program will be eligible to receive a replacement AC power cord for each verified, recalled AC power cord at no cost.

Beware not all the used PH163 power lead are good, one I just received with TE has a bad ground connection, but this can also happen with IEC leads & inlets too.

*Even though I'm not happy with the vandalism of my 5090A and some other HP TE I have.

P.S. For the 5245L counter, it's a good idea to add a fuse for the small mains transformer, the oven heater on these can fail & burn out the small transformer, due to sharing the fuse with the larger transformer.

David

Well the 5254L counter fuse is 2A so a C5/6 Is fine. Obviously you want a quality lead not a junk one. Any decent C5 lead will be better than a old PH163 (and then there is the polarity issue!).
I once got into a "discussion" with a UL inspector about a C5 lead. One of our customers in the USA (UK supplier) had requested a UL "one off" approval for a machine. They did an inspection at the customers site with our field engineer. It failled and I was sent out to sort it. One thing that they failed it for was a C5 lead. This was inside the machine under a "tool required to open" cover. A UK /EU approved lead had been fitted but the inspector didn't like that it wasn't UL marked or the blue / brown colour coding. So I bought a UL marked C% lead locally and installed it. A different UL inspector turned up for the second inspection. He complained that the lead was poor quality (it was a known brand) and only had single insualtion black "zip" type cable. I said would a double insulated one like this be better (pulling the old one out of the bin)? He said yes. I said it had been rejected for wrong colours. He said "but it's under a cover. I said "I know and it's connected to a internal transformer isolated supply.." The machine got it's UL mark.

[factory]

If you can't trust HP to supply a quality C5 lead, then how can you trust any other supplier, IMO they are cheap crap for throw-away consumer tat.

I've edited my previous post.

If your going to replace the inlet I would use a C14* or a fixed adaptor plate with a short C14 lead

David

[factory]

Edmo Inc EJ-109A counter (very similar to my Pagel counter) with unusual display for those in the US, probably 110V only if it is identical inside to the Pagel, but may have a different prescaler IC as this one is only good for 290MHz.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/334511471652



David

[mansaxel]

If you can't trust HP to supply a quality C5 lead, then how can you trust any other supplier, IMO they are cheap crap for throw-away consumer tat.

David

I have never had one fail on me or cause a dangerous situation. Neither, granted, have I had a PH163 fail or hurt me, but that's because I always treat them as the Princess and the Pea, with utmost care, always connect the appliance end before the wall plug and so on.  No such niceties needed with the C5/C6 combos; they're sturdy, safe and reliable.  Further, the scarcity of PH163 leads would no doubt tempt people to use them even when damaged, thereby increasing risks.

[mnementh]

Edmo Inc EJ-109A counter (very similar to my Pagel counter) with unusual display for those in the US, probably 110V only if it is identical inside to the Pagel, but may have a different prescaler IC as this one is only good for 290MHz.

   https://www.ebay.com/itm/334511471652


David

oooooh... Panaplex, and the case/panel are perfect format for a project I've imagined for decades: A uPC board that outputs a signal which frequency corresponds to the current time.

*sigh*

mnem
moo...?

[factory]

Nope, filament based display, probably much harder to find spares due to the built in decimal point.

David

[factory]

If you can't trust HP to supply a quality C5 lead, then how can you trust any other supplier, IMO they are cheap crap for throw-away consumer tat.

David

I have never had one fail on me or cause a dangerous situation. Neither, granted, have I had a PH163 fail or hurt me, but that's because I always treat them as the Princess and the Pea, with utmost care, always connect the appliance end before the wall plug and so on.  No such niceties needed with the C5/C6 combos; they're sturdy, safe and reliable.  Further, the scarcity of PH163 leads would no doubt tempt people to use them even when damaged, thereby increasing risks.

Any type of power lead or inlet can fail, most consumers would not know or be able to check them.
And many modern IEC types have failed at work over the years, including C13/C14.

Another reference to the recall of HP supplied laptop computer power leads.


David

[mnementh]

Finally!   

Nicely done! I like the color match and glossy finish quite much. 

I've found that CA can be a iffy proposition with metal to plastic repairs; sometimes it holds well, sometimes it crumbles away and falls apart. 3DP is no different, though PLA especially loves to bond to CA. My experience indicates that usually the likeliest cases for failure are those where the CA is filling any appreciable gap; gluing to a slight press-fit greatly improves chances of success, as does using CA accelerant.



Cheers, and keep printing the good stuff! 

mnem
"I made this."

[grizewald]

I think the final result looks great, particularly in British phone box red. (Filament is PETG from E3D).

Gorgeous! Really nice job. My set is not Soviet, but from the DDR, except the 100Ω which is Austrian (Norma). Their plastic, at least in the 50s, when mine were made, apparently was better than in Mother Russia.

Thanks! I was going to use some black filament to match the originals, but as these were produced in their thousands, I didn't see any good reason to try to preserve the original appearance.

Having now liberated all of the inserts from their housings, I discovered my second mistake: Don't assume all the inserts will have the same dimensions, or even shape!

The one on the right is unlike the other five, but thankfully fits the new housing anyway:



Of these three inserts, the two large ones have a diameter on the knurled part of 13.13mm and 13.24mm instead of 13mm like all the others. The small one has 9.33mm on the knurled part instead of 8.9mm and the overall height is 6.14mm instead of 5.91mm like all the others. So now I just need to create three variants and print them.



I'm fairly sure that none of the three standards were equipped with their original knobs. They seem to have been selected at random from a larger assortment. About the only thing that is thankfully consistent is the threads for the posts!

[Robert763]

If you can't trust HP to supply a quality C5 lead, then how can you trust any other supplier, IMO they are cheap crap for throw-away consumer tat.

David

I have never had one fail on me or cause a dangerous situation. Neither, granted, have I had a PH163 fail or hurt me, but that's because I always treat them as the Princess and the Pea, with utmost care, always connect the appliance end before the wall plug and so on.  No such niceties needed with the C5/C6 combos; they're sturdy, safe and reliable.  Further, the scarcity of PH163 leads would no doubt tempt people to use them even when damaged, thereby increasing risks.

Any type of power lead or inlet can fail, most consumers would not know or be able to check them.
And many modern IEC types have failed at work over the years, including C13/C14.

Another reference to the recall of HP supplied laptop computer power leads.


David

Well that C5 is an automatic fail in the UK as it only has single insulation. It's the same style as I had the discussion with the UL inspector about.

EDIT: Before someone gets pedantic, the requirement for cable is that it has "basic" insulation plus a protective sheath or has "re-enfoced insulation). so a cable with two layers of insulation is not " double insulated" under the electrical safety meaning, it is single insulation with a sheath. Re-enforced insulation provides the same level of protection but is very rare in flexible power cords.

[grizewald]

Finally!   

Nicely done! I like the color match and glossy finish quite much. 

I've found that CA can be a iffy proposition with metal to plastic repairs; sometimes it holds well, sometimes it crumbles away and falls apart. 3DP is no different, though PLA especially loves to bond to CA. My experience indicates that usually the likeliest cases for failure are those where the CA is filling any appreciable gap; gluing to a slight press-fit greatly improves chances of success, as does using CA accelerant.

What you see in the picture is two black originals and two telephone box red replacements. All the replacements will be red just for the fun factor. I'd originally thought about making them in red, black, blue and yellow to match the colour designations on my four wire resistance measurement cable, but thought better of it.

I'm with you on CA not always being a great adhesive for metal to PETG, but the inserts are a tight press fit in the replacement housings and as each insert has a knurled part, I think the adhesion will be more than sufficient for the stresses they will encounter in use. I glued the first two last night and left them pressed in a vice until this morning. I can't screw them down on the posts hard enough to make them separate from the housings, so I reckon it'll be OK.

I don't even bother trying to print PLA in the summer as for some strange reason, when the humidity indoors exceeds 50%, PLA simply won't stick to any build plate that I have. So in the summer, it's always PETG for me and to be honest, I'm starting to favour PETG over PLA for just about anything I print.

[factory]

Systron Donner DMM update, had a look at the missing transformer screws problem yesterday, quite a lot of bits to remove to get to the transformer screws, wonder if the someone at the factory missed them out? as I can't imagine someone needing to take it apart to access them. Anyway it now has a full set of four fitted.




It's as described, it needs repair as none of the functions/ranges read zero with the input leads shorted, also the +/-25V supplies from the power regulator board are more like +-/30V, this will need fixing first.


Power consumption measured around 30W, the label on the back states 20W, the book gives various values ranging from 25W to 40W max, depending which page you look at. 

David

[grizewald]

... devices with one leg directly connected to chassis are, and have been so for considerable time, illegal here. ...

Isn't part of the reason for that the fact that the Schuko plug is not polarised? With the earth on the side connectors, the plug can go in the socket either way around and therefore there's no distinction between live and neutral.

[Saskia]

Tek 724a for 500€, any good ?

[vk6zgo]

Consequently, devices with one leg directly connected to chassis are, and have been so for considerable time, illegal here.

Until I learned about the All American Five and similar radios, the idea of doing this was simply preposterous to me. Not real. Now it, sadly, is both.

There have been loads of appliances, mainly radios, made in Europe where the same is true. Watch out for model designations with /U for universal or universel or /GW for Gleich-/Wechselstrom. The original idea was to use them on AC and DC mains. The more practical idea was to make them cheaper (no expensive mains transformer).

A classic example is the Philetta by Philips.

(Attachment Link)

This is the innards of a Belgian radio from 1947.

(Attachment Link)

The big glass thing on the left is an iron-hydrogen resistor used to stabilise the current through the filaments and the dial lights.

They are twice as dangerous nowadays because the paper/metal capacitors used to keep the mains voltage away from the antenna and pick-up sockets have become leaky over the years.

Transformerless radios, etc were all but unknown in Oz back in the day.

Maybe the mains transformer made them a bit more expensive, but most of the cost was made up by not having all the complex crap needed to run a "death radio" ----the common form of derision!

During WW2, the tube manufacturers in Australia ramped up their production of mainly standard 6.3v tubes, to supply the military, ( both ours & the US Forces operating out of this country).

For that reason, they didn't much bother with series filament tubes.

When postwar radio production began, such tubes would have had to be sourced from the UK, other European sources, or the USA.
This would have been quite expensive, so was not considered, with transformer type radios remaining standard, in the postwar period.

US transformerless designs could use series strings of , say 25v or 30v tubes, with little in the way of "Barreters" or the like to drop part of the excess voltage, but Brit & European ones ones did need them.
Special insulation added further to their costs.

Meanwhile, Australian radios had the advantage of "cold" chassis, fullwave rectification, standard 6.3v heater voltages, & no special insulation.

[mnementh]

Finally!   

Nicely done! I like the color match and glossy finish quite much. 

I've found that CA can be a iffy proposition with metal to plastic repairs; sometimes it holds well, sometimes it crumbles away and falls apart. 3DP is no different, though PLA especially loves to bond to CA. My experience indicates that usually the likeliest cases for failure are those where the CA is filling any appreciable gap; gluing to a slight press-fit greatly improves chances of success, as does using CA accelerant.

What you see in the picture is two black originals and two telephone box red replacements. All the replacements will be red just for the fun factor. I'd originally thought about making them in red, black, blue and yellow to match the colour designations on my four wire resistance measurement cable, but thought better of it.

I'm with you on CA not always being a great adhesive for metal to PETG, but the inserts are a tight press fit in the replacement housings and as each insert has a knurled part, I think the adhesion will be more than sufficient for the stresses they will encounter in use. I glued the first two last night and left them pressed in a vice until this morning. I can't screw them down on the posts hard enough to make them separate from the housings, so I reckon it'll be OK.

I don't even bother trying to print PLA in the summer as for some strange reason, when the humidity indoors exceeds 50%, PLA simply won't stick to any build plate that I have. So in the summer, it's always PETG for me and to be honest, I'm starting to favour PETG over PLA for just about anything I print.

   https://www.eevblog.com/forum/3d-printing/3d-printer-yet/msg4165885/#msg4165885   

Yeaah... I know I need to start working with other materials... but hey! I just did some TPU bumpers for the drawer slides in my Big Fucking ToolBox™ and they turned out awrrresome first try!

I guess I'm just getting to where I can turn out some fairly fine detail (and functional!) stuff in PLA, and I'm just putting off the learning curve with a new material. 

As for the CA... of course, if that does let go, epoxy will almost always hold. 

mnem
      

[Vince]

TV REPAIR

We have picture !!! 

The old LED strips were much easier to remove than I had feared. The adhesive wasn't that adhesive... 

The new strips came with adhesive already on them, and it was quick and easy to get them positioned properly, no drama 

Put it all back together and the LCD looks like it survived, can't see any defect or weird thing going on.

My second and first successful flat TV repair. I hate these things with a passion, hopefully next one won't be before... as many years as possible.
Huge/impractical/impossible to handle, not designed to be serviced/taken apart without breaking plastic clips. LCD screen that consistently requires to be removed in order to get access to the LED strips....  big fail from end to end.
I don't care how big or expensive or "smart" these TVs are... they are all made the same, all junk. If people are crazy enough to pay more than 50 Euros for one, their problem.
I can't believe this piece of garbage is still on sale right now for 1650 Euros, it just blows my mind, truly does 

Anyway, happy to see that I somehow managed to fix one of these things, and even more happy that it can now get the fuck out of my lab/living room, it fills half the room !! 

Need the space to walk across the room, and need space on the bench for more interesting activities.

Gonna call my friend, hopefully he can take this thing away from me ASAP and free the space....