Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bitseeker]

Yeah, if you're not careful when steam cleaning, you could land yourself in hot water...

Oh, no. Don't tell me you've already caught the Dad Joke virus from BU508A.

[bd139]

Spotted today on eBay, why the F**K wouldn't you clean a sale item up before listing it 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304587729413

I rather like it when people don't clean stuff. It affects the price.

This raised a whopping £10:



Bit of a clean later:



Winner!

6 years ago now that...

My sentiments exactly! I have no problem being given reasons to haggle the price down.

I think I've seen this scope of your before. Nevertheless, kudos again on a great looking restoration.  What did you use to get the dark brown dark again? Or is that just flash blowout in the "before" pic?

It was so dirty that it was lighter. Also original photo was the eBay seller’s one so probably was crappy smartphone blow out yes.

[bd139]

Ok do I spend on a hooky 8594E in Bracknell. Only up the road from me. Price is reasonable so far 

Has narrow bandwidth and oven options. As well as AM/FM demod.

[Robert763]

Ok do I spend on a hooky 8594E in Bracknell. Only up the road from me. Price is reasonable so far 

Has narrow bandwidth and oven options. As well as AM/FM demod.

Well it meets your cleanliness criteria 
Don't worry I won't bid i up, my R&S FSH 3 does all that plus a lot more in a smaller package.

[bd139]

Haha true.

Will need power supply refurbishing and new memory backup battery I suspect. If the first mixer isn’t toast 

[mansaxel]

I don't know, Paris is 440kms away from me, I have no business going there.... they are all jerks up there anyway, I carefully avoid going anywhere near Paris. A safety radius of at least 150kms if not more, is advised.

I quite liked it when we took the Peripherique a month ago. (en route Reims-Bayeux)

[AVGresponding]

Ok do I spend on a hooky 8594E in Bracknell. Only up the road from me. Price is reasonable so far 

That depends. Do you need the hernia?



The preparation of the 3468A proceeds apace. Have cleaned it this morning, sadly I have no useful "before" pics, I would have taken some but I thought I already had when I got the thing. You'll just have to take my word for it that it was covered in the usual collection of label residue and hand written notes in marker pen.
As you know, I don't normally bother about this kind of thing; if it doesn't interfere with the function, and isn't nasty and icky, it's just part of its history for me, but since I'm selling it, I better assume the buyer doesn't like it. Given it's a plastic case, I started with the top shell and soapy water and a scouring sponge, then for the marker pen, 99% IPA. A note for anyone who doesn't already know: do this in a well ventilated area like the bathroom, and if you don't have gloves make sure you rinse your hands with water afterwards.
Anyway, there's really no substitute for lots of elbow grease and a fresh scouring sponge (white grade, the softest) for this kind of thing. It came up quite well I think, pics added later.

The front panel is a more delicate matter; the button assembly is heat-staked to it, so can't be removed without much fecking around with drilling and tiny screws, not going there, so some care was needed. I got it ok, took a pic, then decided the label still remaining, though fine by me, might annoy someone else so I removed that too.

Some care needed on the bottom shell too, as I'd no intention of removing the board, as that requires removal of the shield over the analogue bits. Just a gentle scrubbing with kitchen towel and 70% IPA, then dried. Further note: flush your IPA soaked paper towels down the bog, and if you did as I, using a fresh scouring sponge soaked in 99% IPA, rinse that bugger out thoroughly afterwards.

I'll screw it back together after it's had a chance to dry out properly, then move to the range testing in the weekday evenings. I will have to kludge something together for the 4-wire measurements as it uses unshrouded plugs and my leads are shrouded, of course...

[mansaxel]

"Going flakey"?
I always thought that Philips & flakey were synonomous!

I believe the correct term is "Going Flukey" 

[Specmaster]

Talking about sourcing gear, I'm rather hopeful of securing this little number from a local group for £20, messaged the seller, just awaiting a reply, fingers crossed.

Clearly needs some TLC but is supposed to be all working.

[Squarewave]

Yeah, if you're not careful when steam cleaning, you could land yourself in hot water...

Oh, no. Don't tell me you've already caught the Dad Joke virus from BU508A.

Caught it a long time ago! 

[bd139]

Talking about sourcing gear, I'm rather hopeful of securing this little number from a local group for £20, messaged the seller, just awaiting a reply, fingers crossed.

Clearly needs some TLC but is supposed to be all working.

Good power supplies. Looks like it just needs a PCB pot replacing.

Only one annoying thing. The meter is only 2000 count and when it overflows it just goes to dashes. It can go slightly over.

[Specmaster]

Talking about sourcing gear, I'm rather hopeful of securing this little number from a local group for £20, messaged the seller, just awaiting a reply, fingers crossed.

Clearly needs some TLC but is supposed to be all working.

Good power supplies. Looks like it just needs a PCB pot replacing.

Only one annoying thing. The meter is only 2000 count and when it overflows it just goes to dashes. It can go slightly over.

Yeah, the pot can still be used allegedly, looks like someone has cut a slot in the remains of the shaft, but thats not a problem anyway. The 2000 count is a slight worry, but as I already have its single unit cousin, I'm used to it now  .

Only issue is, the listing is 17 days old, the seller is not responding to messages so I suspect its already been snapped up and he can't be arsed to take his listing down 

EDIT:

Seller responded, he's away for a week until next Saturday, but says it is all working so has reserved it for me. 

[bd139]

Fingers crossed either way for you.

Well spectrum analyser is off. My car just decided to drop into limp mode on the way back from the tip 

[dl6lr]

Parcel from med with forwarded items arrived. Customs was zero, VAT €26.27 for the declared value of $100.00 plus the shipping costs of $41.30. Plus the €6.00 that DHL collects... Not too bad.

Pevious owner or seller seems to be a nicotine stinker, so just after unpacking all contents got a wash and had to stay outside for the remaining day. Plus someone previously had taper the cables and the glue got sticky on the cables...

After opening the Tek P6460 pods, I found one with a resistor, R106, burnt severely. This is a common problem as the 10R connects users device ground with systems ground. If both units are grounded through mains and one clips the ground lead to a supply voltage...
The second pod was unaffected.
Unsoldered the remains, cleaned the PCB and surrounding parts and soldered a new 10R into it. Hopefully the hybrid isn't toast, but as it can handle +/-40V with +/-60V between any two inputs, it should have survived if it wasn't "kaputt" before. Forgot to make a photo before reassembling... 

[Specmaster]

Fingers crossed either way for you.

Well spectrum analyser is off. My car just decided to drop into limp mode on the way back from the tip 

Oh dear, that's the problem these days cars are so complicated that all it takes to put a car into limp mode is a dodgy sensor or loose connection, and they virtually shut down. There is a lot to be said about the older cars, at least you could do most things yourself.

[bd139]

Fingers crossed either way for you.

Well spectrum analyser is off. My car just decided to drop into limp mode on the way back from the tip 

Oh dear, that's the problem these days cars are so complicated that all it takes to put a car into limp mode is a dodgy sensor or loose connection, and they virtually shut down. There is a lot to be said about the older cars, at least you could do most things yourself.

True. Seems to be ok after I rebooted it. Might just be bogons. Will take a drive locally later where I can afford to break down 

[Squarewave]

Time for some automotive test equipment 

[mnementh]

Ok do I spend on a hooky 8594E in Bracknell. Only up the road from me. Price is reasonable so far 

Has narrow bandwidth and oven options. As well as AM/FM demod.

Why the eff are you still here...?   

mnem

[bd139]

Ok do I spend on a hooky 8594E in Bracknell. Only up the road from me. Price is reasonable so far 

Has narrow bandwidth and oven options. As well as AM/FM demod.

Why the eff are you still here...?   

mnem

Auction. Ending later. Plus car difficulties 

[Specmaster]

@AVGresponding.

You need to grab yourself at four of these 4mm male / female adaptors, never know when they are going to be needed but when you need them, they are worth their weight in gold. Get them on Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress.

[mansaxel]

As noted in the Discord yesterday evening I was away. I thought I'd put a note somewhere to that effect, but apparently no. 
Reason was a fairly large scout jamboree, with ~11K attending, including our ruler and monarch. He's quite good at campfire shenanigans, actually. 4G of course was avavilable, but overloaded to the point of being silly. Getting a sentence across Signal, our family chat, could take hours.  Forum updates quite off the table. The true  part was of course that a very thin "app" (bad at offline and requiring lots of contact home) was envisioned as a central info channel.  Not impressive.  Fortunately I'd brought my copy of the Das Boot novel, so had reading material.

Obligatory TE content: I'd brought my Fluke 10 in the very small tool stash, and it immediately proved useful. Repaired a couple fire post lanterns, and checked the  batteries on a fever thermometer.

Today, I'm off to the post office storefront to collect packages, among others from fellow thread members. Updates to follow.

[Robert763]

Fingers crossed either way for you.

Well spectrum analyser is off. My car just decided to drop into limp mode on the way back from the tip 

Oh dear, that's the problem these days cars are so complicated that all it takes to put a car into limp mode is a dodgy sensor or loose connection, and they virtually shut down. There is a lot to be said about the older cars, at least you could do most things yourself.

Yep, need some TE. At least an OBDII interface and software that can read basic codes and reset faults.
The Fiat was nice becuase there is very good, low cost diagnostic software available. BMW is another world and the newer cars tend to have anti-theft stuff on the OBDII now and it tends to limit what you can do via the port.

[mnementh]

"Going flakey"?   I always thought that Philips & flakey were synonomous!

I believe the correct term is "Going Flukey" 

*groooaaannnnnnnn*

mnem
*lobs soggy ol' sneakers at mans; that didn't even deserve the dignity of soggy ol' boots*

[bd139]

Fingers crossed either way for you.

Well spectrum analyser is off. My car just decided to drop into limp mode on the way back from the tip 

Oh dear, that's the problem these days cars are so complicated that all it takes to put a car into limp mode is a dodgy sensor or loose connection, and they virtually shut down. There is a lot to be said about the older cars, at least you could do most things yourself.

Yep, need some TE. At least an OBDII interface and software that can read basic codes and reset faults.
The Fiat was nice becuase there is very good, low cost diagnostic software available. BMW is another world and the newer cars tend to have anti-theft stuff on the OBDII now and it tends to limit what you can do via the port.

Also had a Fiat. Universally problematic to the point I used to take my thinkpad and the OBD2 cable set with me if I drove out anywhere more complicated than the local shops 

Edit: also the car had its own multimeter assigned to it (keeping it TE related  )

[mnementh]

Yeah, if you're not careful when steam cleaning, you could land yourself in hot water...

Oh, no. Don't tell me you've already caught the Dad Joke virus from BU508A.

Caught it a long time ago! 

Pffffft! Probably patient zero, and we all caught it from you!

mnem
   It's always the quiet ones...