Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

...Yes, you've all seen me do the "jump-start a over-discharged LiPo" thing; my Nexus Tablet was a prime example. But there's a difference between doing it for yourself as a diag step, knowing the risks you are taking, vs doing it for someone else and being dead chuffed at your own cleverness.

mnem

In that case, shouldn't there be a warning to that effect on the device, or at the very least in the user manual. Even better to design such a device with a wall wart as the primary power source 

There are very clear warnings on every rechargeable device; telling you to only recharge with the supplied charger and to return it to the MFR for service if it fails to charge. They did their due diligence in making that ODP lockout part of the design. It is unreasonable to hold the MFR responsible when some moron opens the thing up and rapes the battery with a fire-stick.

mnem

[mnementh]

...Now all is sorted out, but of course there's the recurring problem: How can I shrink it such that it fits into a 6x4 box (the yellow ones are 2x1)? Too big by 10 unit squares.    

Guess that means another box with the leftover sockets from Thursday to go into backing storage.

Somehow I'm a bit reluctant to buy any new 4 mm connectors. 

The obvious solution is to hit Bang-em-good or AliEx for some cheap 12Ga and 18ga silly-cone wires, and make you up  a shitload of patch cables. Once they're hung on the wall, your 4mm plug-bits storage problem will be handily resolved. 

mnem

[mnementh]

Thermal cycling causes no end of trouble with every IDC I've ever seen. It's a great idea for production efficiency, a lousy one for long term reliability.

A-fucking-men!!! 

Honestly; with all the shite connectors used in them, it's a wonder a modern PC survives 6 months still working, much less the usual 6-ish or so years.

mnem
*outwitting personal confusers since Computer Shopper was a thing*

[factory]

Also arrived recently, the color coded PCB levers & guides from bd139, thank you. 


David

[mnementh]

Yes he did, but saying that, what else was he to do? When you're working blind, things do go wrong. On the plus side, he did get it back working again. It like Vince says, consumer crap, not really designed to be serviceable and a crap design anyway, there should be a law against making stuff like that, designed to fail if the battery gets too low with no way to recharge it. 

Most of those devices charge a low lithium battery at a very small rate in the milliamps range and monitors if they come up again. It takes hours with no obvious progress. This has not been done, so this is just an assumption that the µC did not repond to charge requests.

It's not just that. The LiPo almost always has a BMS right on it, and it often will shut down if the battery voltage drops below a certain level, and will refuse to charge from the OEM circuit, which doesn't present adequate voltage to start the charge unless it sees a voltage coming out of the LiPo.

Like I said; this ODP protection is deliberate... such that if an authorized repair center replaces the LiPo they can get it to start charging again, but it is not intended for monkeys to jump-start it like their old Dodge Power-Wagon with a manky K-Mart battery. 

mnem
 

[Ero-Shan]

...Now all is sorted out, but of course there's the recurring problem: How can I shrink it such that it fits into a 6x4 box (the yellow ones are 2x1)? Too big by 10 unit squares.    

Guess that means another box with the leftover sockets from Thursday to go into backing storage.

Somehow I'm a bit reluctant to buy any new 4 mm connectors. 

The obvious solution is to hit Bang-em-good or AliEx for some cheap 12Ga and 18ga silly-cone wires, and make you up  a shitload of patch cables. Once they're hung on the wall, your 4mm plug-bits storage problem will be handily resolved. 

mnem

I already have a shitload of patch cables hanging on my walls! Did you really expect otherwise?

It'll end in tears ...

[Cerebus]

This is a bit painful to watch...

Fucks sake did he just use a Sharpie to cover up the damage he did to the case opening it? 

Yes he did, but saying that, what else was he to do? When you're working blind, things do go wrong. On the plus side, he did get it back working again. It like Vince says, consumer crap, not really designed to be serviceable and a crap design anyway, there should be a law against making stuff like that, designed to fail if the battery gets too low with no way to recharge it. 

I can open most stuff without destroying it. He was using the wrong tools and the wrong method.

And the wrong hands, if those blobby things are hands. Mocking "obvious" safety instructions in manuals is one thing, mocking them when you're a living example that the "man" manual needs a warning "Do not eat so much that your wrists disappear and your hands become spherical" is another. I'm not one for mocking other people's physical appearance, god knows I'm neither sylph nor Adonis, but watching those blobs move around the screen genuinely leaves me feeling a bit queasy.

[Robert763]

The £35 Picotechnology PicoScope 2203 arrived. Just in a Jiffybag but it survived OK. Looks unused and all works. OK only 5MHz bandwidth but also has a 100kHz AWG. The gamma spectrometry software uses the AWG output to set the HT voltage for the detector photomultiplier if you have a suitable power supply. The cheapest new Picoscope that works with the software is £100.
I now have four USB picoscopes including a 4 channel 12 bit automotive unit. Also some older parallel port models that still have their uses.

[Specmaster]

Meanwhile, in other news, Old Buckingham Airshow is live if your interested.

[Cerebus]

Is that an FR2 board I see in there? 

Fingers crossed a replacement ref can be made.

Off to watch Minions now 

What, is there a new one then?

Minions: The Rise of Gru

Did somebody just say "Banana!!!"?

[mnementh]

Here ya go C...

Banana song: https://youtu.be/wCkerYMffMo

Banana Fight: https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2002552852

Oh fuck me... just click on the fucking links...   

mnem
Fucking internet fuckity-fucks fuckerizing fucking photos and vids to fuck with your fucking head...

[Specmaster]

Here ya go C...

Banana song: https://youtu.be/wCkerYMffMo

Banana Fight: https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2002552852]https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2002552852

Oh fuck me... just click on the fucking links...   

mnem
Fucking internet fuckity-fucks fuckerizing fucking photos and vids to fuck with your fucking head...

I like the minions, harmless fun all round 

[mnementh]

Yeah, me too... but just because the movie's out, all these assholes are fucking with any vids or pics that are in any way relevant to their precious IP... it makes having a little innocent fun a complete PITA with them every time you try to post something in your forums.

mnem
wankers.

[mnementh]

...Now all is sorted out, but of course there's the recurring problem: How can I shrink it such that it fits into a 6x4 box (the yellow ones are 2x1)? Too big by 10 unit squares.    

Guess that means another box with the leftover sockets from Thursday to go into backing storage.

Somehow I'm a bit reluctant to buy any new 4 mm connectors. 

The obvious solution is to hit Bang-em-good or AliEx for some cheap 12Ga and 18ga silly-cone wires, and make you up  a shitload of patch cables. Once they're hung on the wall, your 4mm plug-bits storage problem will be handily resolved. 

mnem

I already have a shitload of patch cables hanging on my walls! Did you really expect otherwise?

It'll end in tears ...

A real TEA has more than one shitload... 

mnem
*un-unplugged*

[bd139]

Yeah, me too... but just because the movie's out, all these assholes are fucking with any vids or pics that are in any way relevant to their precious IP... it makes having a little innocent fun a complete PITA with them every time you try to post something in your forums.

mnem
wankers.

Well I survived an hour and a half of yellow retards. What a load of shit. Acceptable quality shit though 

[mnementh]

Well, yeah; isn't that the whole point...? Put your brain in neutral and just laugh at the retards being retards show...?

mnem
why are you looking down here?

[mnementh]

Well... DigiKey pissed me off, and I'm bored... so I guess it's time to do something stoopit. 

mnem
all y'alls should probably stand back a wee bit.

[AVGresponding]

This is a bit painful to watch...

Fucks sake did he just use a Sharpie to cover up the damage he did to the case opening it? 

Yes he did, but saying that, what else was he to do? When you're working blind, things do go wrong. On the plus side, he did get it back working again. It like Vince says, consumer crap, not really designed to be serviceable and a crap design anyway, there should be a law against making stuff like that, designed to fail if the battery gets too low with no way to recharge it. 

I can open most stuff without destroying it. He was using the wrong tools and the wrong method.

And the wrong hands, if those blobby things are hands. Mocking "obvious" safety instructions in manuals is one thing, mocking them when you're a living example that the "man" manual needs a warning "Do not eat so much that your wrists disappear and your hands become spherical" is another. I'm not one for mocking other people's physical appearance, god knows I'm neither sylph nor Adonis, but watching those blobs move around the screen genuinely leaves me feeling a bit queasy.

He's a Norte Americano of the Canadianian variety, baseline adjustments are indicated (maple syrup etc etc).

[AVGresponding]

Discord is attempting to boot

[Cerebus]

He's a Norte Americano of the Canadianian variety, baseline adjustments are indicated (maple syrup etc etc).

The last time I was in Vancouver (admittedly 20+ years ago) the inhabitants were all a reasonable size, if anything a bit slimmer overall than the English. My Kanukistan relatives have visited more recently, several times, and they haven't blown out of proportion, neither have the nieces, nephews or friends still over there needed to use jumbo size photos to fit themselves in. I don't think it's an of the intrinsically Canadian things like the maple syrup, or the incessant sitting watching ice hockey drinking beer or ending every sentence in "ay" that's to blame. 

[BU508A]

Discord is attempting to boot

With tons of good jokes!

Really!!


 

[AVGresponding]

Discord is attempting to boot

With tons of Dad jokes!

Really!!


 

FTFY

[Vince]

Oh no, mansaxel said Win95 has everything that's needed out of the box... how do I do then ?

As I wrote earlier, yes, that is true. But you have to put on your 90s head to do it.

On the Linux box, install or enable a FTP server. (google "enable ftp server ubuntu" or whatever distribution you have) Make a note ("ifconfig") about the IP address of that box.

On the windows box, open a DOS prompt, and start going back in time:

c:\> cd c:/vince/gpib/dumps/ <- where you put the file
c:\> ftp 192.0.2.44 <- swap in IP address of your Linux box (that address is a RFC 5737 example address)
Login with your user and password of the Linux machine. 

[...]

Thanks !

I just tried that, works just fine !

Was indeed not that difficult, thanks to your instructions !

I googled a bit, looked like "  vsftpd " was a popular FTP server on Linux, so I installed that.

I failed to connect to the old Windows machine though... maybe because W2K doesn't enable the FTP server by default, maybe I need to click somewhere to enable it...
However the client was already installed and I could "ftp" to my Linux from the command line just fine ! 

I could see my Home directory, I created a new directory in there, then copied a file into that directory. So easy indeed !

I like this stuff a lot, really cool ! 

So my future local network might not be that hard to make then, after all ! 

EDIT : found this web site that explains how to enable the FTP server on W2K..

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/get-it-done-setting-up-an-ftp-server-with-windows-2000/

it was indeed not enabled by default. Followed the instructions to create an FTP "site" as W2K calls it... appears to work, locally at least, if I type " ftp://localhost " in the file explorer, W2K can see itself. It also shows there, that the server is set to "anonymous".

So then I moved to my Linux box and try to connect to W2K. See screenshot... the Linux box, using the IP address of the W2K box, can "connect", I mean it can identify the machine, because it prints its name, and knows it's a Microsoft FTP server... so that's good. I know they can talk to each other. However despite being set to anonymous, I am still being asked for a password... I type it anyway ( "admin" ...), but it fails to login with that, crap.... I tried giving no password at all, since it's supposed to be anonymous, but still doesn't work.

Oh well..... I will call the customer support !

Suddenly the good old days don't seem to be as good as we remembered them to be, eh?

What do you mean ?
I have no "old days" of FTP, never used it.

All I see if that in just 5 minutes and a few instructions fro Mansaxel, I managed to achieve cool stuff starting from dead zero knowledge.
It's the best IT bang for buck I have had in the last 20+ years of computing, I am to the contrary extremely happy with the outcome, and am now asking for more.
I dreaded the moment where I would have to computerize my lab and make a local network including the ADSL box and hopefully a NAS thing for backup... am now not so scared anymore, looks like I might be able to manage something, and it excites me no end...

[BU508A]

Discord is attempting to boot

With tons of Dad jokes!

Really!!


 

FTFY

Hey!



 

[Vince]

No worries Vince, a fun adventure was had and now we know how not to do it. 

I'll have to see if I can figure out a way to pull the firmware without the tektools application. Once I get the PSU for my PC working......

Maybe the easiest route would be to simply ask the guy who wrote TEKTOOL, if he would be kind enough to update it slightly so it can run on Windows 95/98.....

Speaking of which, anyone got a spare TSM110CN or TSM111CN 'Triple Voltage and Current Supervisor) chip laying around?
https://www.st.com/resource/en/datasheet/cd00001698.pdf
I've tested almost everything else, and it seems the Current Mode Controller chip (uC3845B) that switches the main switching transistor isn't getting a signal from the TSM110CN, but the optocouplers seem to test ok.
It looks like Digikey have the TSM110CN chips in stock, but I need to make a $50 order to avoid the $20 shipping charge.......

https://www.ebay.com/itm/233603951155?hash=item3663e16a33:g:qiYAAOSwFohe0Qp5

Cheaper, 15 US dollars shipped..... or cheaper, since the seller is willing to take offers...
Direct from China. Japan is not that far from CHina so you would I hope receive them much faster than we do in Europe, in a matter of days rather than weeks or months.

Can't you just hack something to make use of a standard ATX power supply ? It's not like you needed to look pretty ion order to sell it or something... as long as it can power up the computer, GPIB will be happy enough....