Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Robert763]

I've recently acquired an IFR 1200S. Lovely looking set, I've not had the time to actually use it yet, but maybe soon!

The 1200S is a nice enough test set. quite an old design mostly analog with a synthesized signal generator. Not a patch on a R&S CMS33, HP 8920A/B or even a Marconi 2955. it does have a basic spectrum monitor that is lacking on the 2955.
 

[bd139]

You should jot down your comments on software development methodologies now, while they're fresh in your mind...

mnem
eat yer heart out, Daily WTF!

Oh god this turned into a shit show and a half 

Life catching up with me finally 

I’m not going to comment further on public forums.

However mnementh has proven that there is a 546xx in my future somewhere.  The past however may remain mysterious 

[mnementh]

*currently watching the property manager's handyman kill himself
trying to replace a bathroom faucet that just needed new cartridges*

Fuck-a-doodle. The faucet tap he installed is some gewgaw "Arc Fashion" faucet tap that has a fixed spigot. The old one had a spigot that turns like a kitchen sink, so you could fill pitchers or a bucket for mopping. Waaaay useful.

And I specifically asked him to keep that feature when he shopped a new one. We waited a month and a half to get a perfectly serviceable faucet tap fixed; and got a downgrade instead.

fucking muppet. <- Nothing wrong with that sentence!

mnem

FTFY.

McBryce.

This:      is a tap.

mnem
*gurkle-gurkle-gurkle-gurkle...*

[mnementh]

You should jot down your comments on software development methodologies now, while they're fresh in your mind...

mnem
eat yer heart out, Daily WTF!

Oh god this turned into a shit show and a half     Life catching up with me finally 

I’m not going to comment further on public forums.

However mnementh has proven that there is a 546xx in my future somewhere.  The past however may remain mysterious 

  BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Well... at least SOME good will come of this afternoon, then. Welcome back to the family.

mnem
"happine-eh-eh-ess... is a warm gun... errr, a warm "

[mnementh]

OMG, what have I done  , I just said yes to my first RPN calculator, so its official then, I'm either about to or I've joined the dark side, may the force with you be.
Incoming soon is a HP17BII and a HP10BII to keep my other HP10BII+ calculator company, making my HP collection upto 3.

So my HP triplets inspired you to have some of your own...?   

mnem
a capital idea.

[Cerebus]

You really don't need to take on something else of dubious benefit, and with a host of potential problems.

Hey stop insulting my oscilloscopes red-head 

FTFY

[Per Hansson]

If anyone in Sweden needs a differential probe there is an auction on Tradera for a couple for pennies.
I did bid but really have no use for them, except for playing around with my old Tektronix for no real reason
So if anyone (that has an actual need for it) bids I wont be sad

https://www.tradera.com/item/301803/552766954/2-st-terco-diffprobe-mv-1971

https://www.tercosweden.com/product/mv1971-differential-probe/

[mnementh]

...Still, opened the 5372A up today at work and found a Saft 3,6V cell; this 1989 instrument already has been subjected to at least one battery swap; the fitted battery model is current and not hp sourced; Distrelec claims to have it in stock. Placed an order with the service department at work, who will, by force of habit, order from Distrelec. Then it's the red tape of being allowed to use a soldering iron and the Weller desoldering station at work...

Double your fun and make a real project of it. 

mnem
how much red tape now...?

[Robert763]

Very nice TDS 794D on ebay UK
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115489684729
Bit pricey for me, I don't need or particuarly want a GHz 50R 'scope. That one looks very nice though.

[factory]

Congratulations Dragon for your scope. sorry Dave for the rusted and cracked Nixie tubes, and congratulations for all those masks ! Had a good laugh out of them.... and Saskia 17.5k Euros for only 3.5kW sounds extremely expensive doesn't it... how much would it cost to get the same power output from solar panels ?!
BD you are even worse than me. I was feeling guilty for keeping my old metal cans with gold plated legs  that I found when sorting my junk... because they looked cool... but you went 3 steps farther and actually ACTIVELY searched for these things and even PAID to get them....and even paid A LOT (not cents I mean...). Yes, I definitely DO NOT feel guilty any more, thanks BD !!! 

Now going to lie down, have fun.

Hope your second day goes well at the new job.

Update on crap defective cracked rusty Burroughs Nixies, seller happy for me to open a return, they will all be going back, the three working ones have tiny cracks too.

Took some pictures of the worst with phone & eye loupe for cheapo macro function. 

Edit: Might have to make do with some IN12 Nixie clones from Ukraine or elsewhere instead.

David

[nixiefreqq]

OMG, what have I done  , I just said yes to my first RPN calculator, so its official then, I'm either about to or I've joined the dark side, may the force with you be.
Incoming soon is a HP17BII and a HP10BII to keep my other HP10BII+ calculator company, making my HP collection upto 3.

ok......ok.  let's not panic.  we all make bad decisions sometimes.

the important thing is that you realize it was a mistake.

we need to analyze what went wrong (did bd's story get you on the vodka?)

you just need to stay away from evil influences, and pledge not to allow this sort of thing to happen again.
 
and then DON'T BACKSLIDE! 

[factory]

HP MegaZoom Mega-Post!!!

   SQWEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

mnem
*scurries off badger-like into the dwagon-cave*

When last we looked in on our intrepid tinkerdwagon, he'd just received a little carton of joy from the Bay of Fleas...



...snip...




So, while I'm working on this, I dismantle both the  CDM-7SX191 and CDM-7SF191 monitors; after comparing the two mainboards side by side til my eyes watered, I couldn't find any material difference between them. While the layouts appear different between the two mainboards, the component list appears the same.

Voltages at the ribbon cable also appeared comparable aside from those I expected to be different due to the VGA analog video, but I'd literally need to draw out the entire schematic for both monitors to be sure.

I didn't have time or energy for that tonight, so I took one for the team and just swapped the CRT neck board over and tried it.




Franken-monitor is no joy; it is not possible to make a CDM-7SF191 serve as a CDM-7SX191 just by swapping the CRT neck PCB. 




So once I reassemble the two monitors correctly and reassemble the 54600A and the 54621D, it is time for the next part of my cunning plan: To test the IDE cable & HP pods I'd made for my LeSiglent  T3DSO2102 with the 54621D. Yes, it works, and the whip leads are all even correctly identified! w00t!


   

I just cannot take a picture that shows how delightfully crisp the traces and text are on this scope; the camera doesn't want to focus correctly without bleeding. If anything, it is clearer than the 54645A, and yet more information conveyed thanks to the grayscaling. Well-done HPAK!   




And here's the family portrait... 3 generations of 546xxx scope! 

It's weird how serendipity brought exactly the right bits together to make these three scopes complete on my bench. The 54621D came without monitor or bail; but the bail on my 54645A is Agilent branded, and I never use it anyways, as it lives on the wedge base I printed. DigiKey didn't want to play nice on the memory battery, but I already had one that was suitable, and the means to make it work... and another fun project. Two fun projects in one, actually.

As self-satisfied as pulling this all together on a shoestring budget makes me... I will admit that it still niggles at me; not keeping my promise to eBay to send the carcass of that 54621D back. I feel a bit of a dirty dwagon... but that does seem to fade just a little more every time eBay smacks me in the face with another complete muppet vendor that doesn't deliver what was advertised or who forgets my order for a week and a half... 

But wait... there's another fun project...

   

Snurching the bail from the 54645A meant I needed to fill some holes in it. I think the 3DP project I killed a afternoon with while waiting forever for that replacement monitor turned out very well, even if it did take 6 iterations to get something that would print this cleanly at 0.20 LH without supports.

And as always, for those who care full details and 3DP nerd stats are available over on the 3DP Thread...

Welp... that brings my little HP party to a close... this one's a bit of a monster, so hope you had fun coming along for the ride. I think I'm gonna toddle off to bed and carefully inspect my eyelids for pinholes...

mnem

Re: the rolling picture with the CRT neck board swap, did you try adjusting the horizontal/vertical hold controls (CRT main board)  & the contrast control (CRT neck board), when you swapped the board to the older CRT?

David

[Specmaster]

OMG, what have I done  , I just said yes to my first RPN calculator, so its official then, I'm either about to or I've joined the dark side, may the force with you be.
Incoming soon is a HP17BII and a HP10BII to keep my other HP10BII+ calculator company, making my HP collection upto 3.

ok......ok.  let's not panic.  we all make bad decisions sometimes.

the important thing is that you realize it was a mistake.

we need to analyze what went wrong (did bd's story get you on the vodka?)

you just need to stay away from evil influences, and pledge not to allow this sort of thing to happen again.
 
and then DON'T BACKSLIDE! 

Actually, I just remembered that its not my first RPN, somewhere in one of my crates I have a Sinclair scientific that I made from a kit many moons ago 

[nixiefreqq]

OMG, what have I done  , I just said yes to my first RPN calculator, so its official then, I'm either about to or I've joined the dark side, may the force with you be.
Incoming soon is a HP17BII and a HP10BII to keep my other HP10BII+ calculator company, making my HP collection upto 3.

ok......ok.  let's not panic.  we all make bad decisions sometimes.

the important thing is that you realize it was a mistake.

we need to analyze what went wrong (did bd's story get you on the vodka?)

you just need to stay away from evil influences, and pledge not to allow this sort of thing to happen again.
 
and then DON'T BACKSLIDE! 

Actually, I just remembered that its not my first RPN, somewhere in one of my crates I have a Sinclair scientific that I made from a kit many moons ago 

what?  a kit built sinclair scientific?

if it were anyone else you would be dead to me.

but since you are usually a voice of reason around here........ you get a pass.

[Squarewave]

I've recently acquired an IFR 1200S. Lovely looking set, I've not had the time to actually use it yet, but maybe soon!

The 1200S is a nice enough test set. quite an old design mostly analog with a synthesized signal generator. Not a patch on a R&S CMS33, HP 8920A/B or even a Marconi 2955. it does have a basic spectrum monitor that is lacking on the 2955.

I know some of the others may be better, but for what I paid, I'd have been silly to turn it down.

[tggzzz]

OMG, what have I done  , I just said yes to my first RPN calculator, so its official then, I'm either about to or I've joined the dark side, may the force with you be.
Incoming soon is a HP17BII and a HP10BII to keep my other HP10BII+ calculator company, making my HP collection upto 3.

ok......ok.  let's not panic.  we all make bad decisions sometimes.

the important thing is that you realize it was a mistake.

we need to analyze what went wrong (did bd's story get you on the vodka?)

you just need to stay away from evil influences, and pledge not to allow this sort of thing to happen again.
 
and then DON'T BACKSLIDE! 

Actually, I just remembered that its not my first RPN, somewhere in one of my crates I have a Sinclair scientific that I made from a kit many moons ago 

I still have mine. I decided not to make mine from a kit; there were too many stories about failures when people made Sinclair's audio kits. Instead I bought mice remarkably cheaply from, of all places, a pharmacy next to the Royal Institution.I would have noticed it after attending a lecture there, probably one involving detonating acetylene oxygen mixtures

It was a remarkable achievement. All the keyboard display and computation fitted into 320 instructions. The accuracy was similar to a slide rule, which was the tool used in schools at the time.

[Neper]

Then it's the red tape of being allowed to use a soldering iron and the Weller desoldering station at work...

You mean you need a hot work permit for some soldering? Aren't you working at a broadcasting station? How has this place ever been put together?

[Specmaster]

<snip>

what?  a kit built sinclair scientific?

if it were anyone else you would be dead to me.

but since you are usually a voice of reason around here........ you get a pass.

Well thanks for sparing me  What can I say, I was young and full of cum back then and the Sinclair was the only scientific calculator within my price bracket. When that calculator was launched in 1974 it sold as a kit for £49.95 and in today's money that equates to £579 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Scientific#Assembly_kit

[nixiefreqq]

OMG, what have I done  , I just said yes to my first RPN calculator, so its official then, I'm either about to or I've joined the dark side, may the force with you be.
Incoming soon is a HP17BII and a HP10BII to keep my other HP10BII+ calculator company, making my HP collection upto 3.

ok......ok.  let's not panic.  we all make bad decisions sometimes.

the important thing is that you realize it was a mistake.

we need to analyze what went wrong (did bd's story get you on the vodka?)

you just need to stay away from evil influences, and pledge not to allow this sort of thing to happen again.
 
and then DON'T BACKSLIDE! 

Actually, I just remembered that its not my first RPN, somewhere in one of my crates I have a Sinclair scientific that I made from a kit many moons ago 

I still have mine. I decided not to make mine from a kit; there were too many stories about failures when people made Sinclair's audio kits. Instead I bought mice remarkably cheaply from, of all places, a pharmacy next to the Royal Institution.I would have noticed it after attending a lecture there, probably one involving detonating acetylene oxygen mixtures

It was a remarkable achievement. All the keyboard display and computation fitted into 320 instructions. The accuracy was similar to a slide rule, which was the tool used in schools at the time.

in 1974-75 we knew one guy who had a sinclair calculator.  compared it to my ti sr10.   you could trust all 8 digits on the ti.  like you said, the sinclair was good to 3 or maybe 4 digits.  and the sinclair was slow.  really slow.   slooooooow.   and sometimes the sinclair produced a result that was obviously wrong.   the guys around the table in my study group at the engineering library all agreed that i was better off with the ti and book of trig/log tables.

and then they went out and bought hp 35's.  their daddies must have been rich.   a pox on them all.

[bd139]

Hey I got a 35s 

Vodka wearing off now. Working out what I signed up for when intoxicated 

Edit: appear to have befriended a Spanish woman called Martina 

[mnementh]

HP MegaZoom Mega-Post!!!

...I didn't have time or energy for that tonight, so I took one for the team and just swapped the CRT neck board over and tried it.




Franken-monitor is no joy; it is not possible to make a CDM-7SF191 serve as a CDM-7SX191 just by swapping the CRT neck PCB. 

Re: the rolling picture with the CRT neck board swap, did you try adjusting the horizontal/vertical hold controls (CRT main board)  & the contrast control (CRT neck board), when you swapped the board to the older CRT?

David

Yeah; it's not a rolling picture, it's only raster and retrace, no video information. The black bar you see there is just a digital camera artifact. I'd have pursued it further, but I was hoping I hadn't fried something with my little experiment, so only powered it up like that a couple times before deciding to pull the plug.

Cheers!

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

The Sinclair was, like tggzzz said, a remarkable thing really, as accurate as a slide rule, which, lets face it, until the advent of calculators was perfectly acceptable and was allowable in exams as well I seem to recall.

Here is a link to a working demo of how the Sinclair worked, along with interactive coding, and all of it was in 320 program steps.

http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html

[Neomys Sapiens]

thanks - I am about to scrap the idea anyway. What I would need is a 30 m mast and a 5 - 10 m rotor. This is completely unacceptable if the next house is about 15 m away ...

Of course, you could all those Bozos living annoyingly close around you, that if they don't support your application for a sizeable mast, you would have to go geothermal. Then ensure generous distribution of the horror reports from Landau etc. with the half-metre clefts in the houses...
 

[nixiefreqq]

yea i get it.

sort of like my 68 vw beetle.

over all not a great car.  but it was my first, and while it was not the harley electra glide i really wanted,  it allowed me to offer rides home to the young ladies who also worked at the department store.

[mnementh]

<snip>

what?  a kit built sinclair scientific?

if it were anyone else you would be dead to me.

but since you are usually a voice of reason around here........ you get a pass.

Well thanks for sparing me  What can I say, I was young and full of cum back then and the Sinclair was the only scientific calculator within my price bracket. When that calculator was launched in 1974 it sold as a kit for £49.95 and in today's money that equates to £579 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Scientific#Assembly_kit

Yes, well... to combat the insane, one must first understand the madness. Sometimes, immersion is the only path to understanding. 

mnem
*while making a horrendous cacophany plucking on a Sitar*

"To truly understand harmony, we must first investigate discord." ~Artemus Gordon, Wild Wild West