Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Carl_Smith]

So I followed a link from The Amp Hour reddit to the following blog post called "From Oscilloscope to Wireshark: A UDP Story."

Part way down the page you find the following paragraph:

I knew that a device on the network was emitting about 30K UDP packets per second, or one packet every 33 µs. I configured the oscilloscope to collect 100M samples at 1 TSPS (tera-sample per second, 10¹²), which multiplies out to 100 µs of data; this means we should catch 1-3 UDP packets.

Really?  1TSPS sample rate on a scope?  Since when was this possible?  I thought maybe that was a typo but if you zoom in on the scope screen it says "1TS/s  1 ns/div."
Might have to hit the Tek web site to see what their current state of the art is...

[Zenith]

I was at FRARS and had a good chat with tggzzz. He said you were there with your daughter. I saw a miserable old git walking round with lovely young woman, so I assume that was you.

Yeah that was me and her probably . Had a hat and sunglasses on.

Women aren't that common at radio rallies, and lovely young ones are a notable rarity, so it must have been you.

Shame we didn't meet up and have and have an introduction at tggzzz's stall.

[bd139]

Wow!  I’m surprised the poor thing doesn’t have cancer!  I’d hate to see the inside of the former owner's lungs!  Yeek!!  (Damned good thing it doesn’t have a cooling fan - imagine the innards if that was the case!)

-Pat

He might be one of those genetic freaks that smoke from 15 to 90 with no cancer or breathing issues only to die in their sleep from a massive stroke.
Just like my uncle Sindall. Always had a soft spot for him. Super happy, outgoing guy whos only fault was in chain smoking unfiltered rollups every day and smelling like mouldy leather.
 Had a spitoon and everything lol. Would have fit in the cast of a western cowboy movie perfectly.

That's the story that goes around a lot. Slowly dying of myeloma is more likely.

i worked for a few weeks in a lab making a smoking machine to test surfaces for nicotine and tar damage. Cleaning out the equipment put me off ever smoking ever again.

[bd139]

I was at FRARS and had a good chat with tggzzz. He said you were there with your daughter. I saw a miserable old git walking round with lovely young woman, so I assume that was you.

Yeah that was me and her probably . Had a hat and sunglasses on.

Women aren't that common at radio rallies, and lovely young ones are a notable rarity, so it must have been you.

Shame we didn't meet up and have and have an introduction at tggzzz's stall.

She's only lovely until you piss her off 

Yes - perhaps we need a way of identifying each other in the TEA fraternity so we can meet up.

[bd139]

Meant to post this earlier. Apparently I'm rich 



No this isn't my one but I'm sitting on a working 465 and working 465B and have two complete sets of probes on the way to me from another forum member 

[mnementh]

He might be one of those genetic freaks that smoke from 15 to 90 with no cancer or breathing issues only to die in their sleep from a massive stroke. Just like my uncle Sindall. Always had a soft spot for him. Super happy, outgoing guy whos only fault was in chain smoking unfiltered rollups every day and smelling like mouldy leather.  Had a spitoon and everything lol. Would have fit in the cast of a western cowboy movie perfectly.

That's the story that goes around a lot. Slowly dying of myeloma is more likely. i worked for a few weeks in a lab making a smoking machine to test surfaces for nicotine and tar damage. Cleaning out the equipment put me off ever smoking ever again.

A wife who beat me up then refused to consummate the foreplay worked amazingly well here. 

mnem
also, blearrrgh.

[Per Hansson]

A Mouser BOM is forming around the TDS 520. Found all the RIFAS. Some of the SMD caps have greasy circles around them, so leakage is apparent. I'm pondering removal methods;

• Solder tweezers. Not a thing I've got, and I'd need to get a full station to drive them. Limited usage beyond recapping SMD.
• Hot air. Also would need to go on the shopping list. Can literally cost anything. But capable of doing more.
• The Carlson trick of cutting the Al part off the seat, and then going down towards the board. I've got all I need for this. And, it does not look as crazy "rip'em off like they wanna experience pain" as it's sometimes described. (trick apparently is to cut of the bucket first, and then work down until there's only easily (individually) desoldered legs left on the pads.) 

This, also, is not investment season. Vacation was impressingly expensive, and everything else is too.

I prefer to do them with "dual wielding" soldering irons, but sure, the more they have leaked the harder it is because the solder wont easily melt.
But that also makes it more vulnerable to the "Carlson method" so it's a bit of pick your poison...

[AnalogueLove1867]

That's the story that goes around a lot. Slowly dying of myeloma is more likely.

i worked for a few weeks in a lab making a smoking machine to test surfaces for nicotine and tar damage. Cleaning out the equipment put me off ever smoking ever again.

Yeah true, he could have had slow progressing cancer that wasn't noticeable or detected. Entirely possible. But he certainly wasn't weak or frail and went hiking every weekend.
But to be fair, he did look every one of those 90 years haha. He looked like he was 60 when he was 40 years old going by family pics.

[Saskia]

Eff.
I effed up. produced a nice lil short on a 100A 12V rail ...
 
Oh well. I should have been more careful.
The connector has melted. The Fluke 179 has survived. The PCIE extender is a pile of plastic rubble.
The PSU survived.

I found the mistake. My brain effed up.

No MB, just a PSU tester while I was trying to rework the SATA cable to fit the PSU. 2 smoked contacts later I have found my brain flaw and fixed the cable. the crimp connectors are on ebay order and the wiring has been connected. I just have to recrimp both ground connectors.
The PSU still throws the expected voltages and still boots.

Phew.
No mainboards were harmed in this incident. Just a PCI-E-socket (external which had (past tense) a SATA connector. I don't know if the internal PSU of that connector is smoked or not. But I am not going to try. Theoretically I could test this, but for this kind of money I am not willing to take the risk.

Been dere, dunnat on my personal gaming rig. I know this pain viscerally. What aboot the MB it was plugged into...? Or was it one of your mining rigs?

mnem
 

[bd139]

A Mouser BOM is forming around the TDS 520. Found all the RIFAS. Some of the SMD caps have greasy circles around them, so leakage is apparent. I'm pondering removal methods;

• Solder tweezers. Not a thing I've got, and I'd need to get a full station to drive them. Limited usage beyond recapping SMD.
• Hot air. Also would need to go on the shopping list. Can literally cost anything. But capable of doing more.
• The Carlson trick of cutting the Al part off the seat, and then going down towards the board. I've got all I need for this. And, it does not look as crazy "rip'em off like they wanna experience pain" as it's sometimes described. (trick apparently is to cut of the bucket first, and then work down until there's only easily (individually) desoldered legs left on the pads.) 

This, also, is not investment season. Vacation was impressingly expensive, and everything else is too.

I prefer to do them with "dual wielding" soldering irons, but sure, the more they have leaked the harder it is because the solder wont easily melt.
But that also makes it more vulnerable to the "Carlson method" so it's a bit of pick your poison...

Didn't see this earlier. Some points:

1. solder tweezers. Can emulate this with dual irons. You can fix the solder melting problems with a flux pen. That kills enough oxidation to get down to the pads.
2. Hot air. Do not do this with SMD electrolytics. They can explode if you get them too hot.
3. Don't even get me started on the Carlsson method. You're dealing with potentially damaged pads through oxidation so mechanical pressure on them may rip them off the board. This method was actually recommended a long time ago on certain components which seems to have been brought into the future somehow. It was a bad idea then too and was relegated to service technicians.

Generally the idea is that if you can't imagine NASA doing it, probably a good idea to avoid it.

[Squarewave]

I was at FRARS and had a good chat with tggzzz. He said you were there with your daughter. I saw a miserable old git walking round with lovely young woman, so I assume that was you.

Yeah that was me and her probably . Had a hat and sunglasses on.

Women aren't that common at radio rallies, and lovely young ones are a notable rarity, so it must have been you.

Shame we didn't meet up and have and have an introduction at tggzzz's stall.

I do see one at rallies with pinky purpley hair......

[bd139]

I was at FRARS and had a good chat with tggzzz. He said you were there with your daughter. I saw a miserable old git walking round with lovely young woman, so I assume that was you.

Yeah that was me and her probably . Had a hat and sunglasses on.

Women aren't that common at radio rallies, and lovely young ones are a notable rarity, so it must have been you.

Shame we didn't meet up and have and have an introduction at tggzzz's stall.

I do see one at rallies with pinky purpley hair......

Oh she's a regular. Don't think I've not seen her at any hamfests I've been to. Can't remember her name. Have spoken to her before. Buys all the high power stuff like large transformers, inductors and large capacitors. She's building a time machine or a death ray or something I reckon.

[Zenith]

I do see one at rallies with pinky purpley hair......

It's always struck me that some of the ladies at rallies may not be quite what they seem. Let's delve no further into it than that.

[Cerebus]

Wow!  I’m surprised the poor thing doesn’t have cancer!  I’d hate to see the inside of the former owner's lungs!  Yeek!!  (Damned good thing it doesn’t have a cooling fan - imagine the innards if that was the case!)

-Pat

He might be one of those genetic freaks that smoke from 15 to 90 with no cancer or breathing issues only to die in their sleep from a massive stroke.
Just like my uncle Sindall. Always had a soft spot for him. Super happy, outgoing guy whos only fault was in chain smoking unfiltered rollups every day and smelling like mouldy leather.
 Had a spitoon and everything lol. Would have fit in the cast of a western cowboy movie perfectly.

That's the story that goes around a lot. Slowly dying of myeloma is more likely.

i worked for a few weeks in a lab making a smoking machine to test surfaces for nicotine and tar damage. Cleaning out the equipment put me off ever smoking ever again.

I used to drink with the bloke responsible for running the official smoking machine at The Laboratory of the Government Chemist that produced the official nicotine and tar figures that used to be printed on cigarette packets. A non-smoker himself (surprise, surprise) he was popular with smokers in the pub because every day he'd bring in a carrier bag containing the leftovers from that day's work. A few samples were taken from each of several packets, themselves from different batches, leaving a lot of part packets of cigarettes left over.

Courtesy of my Uncle Jimmy who ran the QC laboratory at R. Whites*, I used to get bottles of fizzy drink on the same basis with an inch or two taken out for sampling.

* Famous UK maker of soft drinks, known particularly for their lemonade. Ob fact: R.White's most (only?) memorable advert featured a song "Secret Lemonade Drinker" sung by Ross MacManus, with backing vocals sung by his son Declan, better known as Elvis Costello.

[bd139]

I do see one at rallies with pinky purpley hair......

It's always struck me that some of the ladies at rallies may not be quite what they seem. Let's delve no further into it than that.

Possibly but they’re less scary than the ones which are exactly what they seem. Those are the ones I seem to end up with

[tggzzz]

Well well, it's actually working. Probably need a good cleanup and a deoxit bath but it's more or less working as it should.

Nice, but I prefer the blue phosphor. I'm sure you know to only use IPA in a paper strip to clean the gold cam finger switches.

Can't wait for all those tants to explode.

I was talking to someone at the hamfest who has a 485 where that happened to some of the axial tants.

I alerted him to the 15V tant beads on the 13V PSU rail, i.e. C911 and some others scattered indiscriminately across multiple schematics

[tggzzz]

This should help convince you. 

More convincing is showing one with the cal out connected to the 50ohm attenuator and 1ns timebase.
For fun show the other connected with a 2m cable to the 1Mohm attenuator on 100ns timebase. Then get someone to explain the two

[Saskia]

here's the tgggzzzzzt you have been waiting for.


and here is my new Ferengi haul ...

[Squarewave]

I do see one at rallies with pinky purpley hair......

It's always struck me that some of the ladies at rallies may not be quite what they seem. Let's delve no further into it than that.

I know exactly what you mean, but to be politically correct........

[mansaxel]

TL072 has GBW of 3MHz, so with some luck it'll put out 10MHz at about one third of the input amplitude ...

I'm mostly amazed by the amount of flak it receives by people who have no idea how many TL072's their favourite music has passed through.  It literally is everywhere.  That and the 5532. (I think the 5532 has a slight edge on the TL072, but that is based on comparing in one circuit only, and most likely can be nulled by adapting the circuit. )

Stompboxers are the worst. They hail the 4558 because it was in a few Boss stomp boxes back in the day. This mostly, I assume, because JRC made them and therefore they were domestic and not expensive to import...

So, if something calls for "esoteric standard pinout opamp" I'll try the TL072 first, basically from pure spite.

[tggzzz]

First item. HP 204D. Firstly it works perfectly. Even the calibration is good  . But it's coated in nicotine and tar  . To all the smokers: you disgust me! 

As obtained for £10.

For me that's in the "give me £10 and I'll remove that hazmat for you" territory.

It reminds me of comments made about this house.... https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/116104829#/?channel=RES_BUY Before you look at the pictures, understand that a "listed property" legally requires permission before altering it, that it sold for £1m two years ago, prices have gone up a lot since then, and that the bank repossesed it and failed to sell at £1.4m. The RSJs in the garden in the first picture are a hint. The second picture is jaw dropping, and the 8th indicates why there has been a large claim from the owners of the neighbouring property.

[Specmaster]

End of sale update, that Peak ESR60 on eBay went in then end for £43.

[tggzzz]

I was at FRARS and had a good chat with tggzzz. He said you were there with your daughter. I saw a miserable old git walking round with lovely young woman, so I assume that was you.

Yeah that was me and her probably . Had a hat and sunglasses on.

Women aren't that common at radio rallies, and lovely young ones are a notable rarity, so it must have been you.

Shame we didn't meet up and have and have an introduction at tggzzz's stall.

I do see one at rallies with pinky purpley hair......

Oh she's a regular. Don't think I've not seen her at any hamfests I've been to. Can't remember her name. Have spoken to her before. Buys all the high power stuff like large transformers, inductors and large capacitors. She's building a time machine or a death ray or something I reckon.

At Chippenham she bought one of my grossly overpriced Griffin & George tuning forks on a sound box. Plus something else IIRC. I'll continue to be pleasant

[mansaxel]

Some points:

1. solder tweezers. Can emulate this with dual irons. You can fix the solder melting problems with a flux pen. That kills enough oxidation to get down to the pads.
2. Hot air. Do not do this with SMD electrolytics. They can explode if you get them too hot.
3. Don't even get me started on the Carlsson method. You're dealing with potentially damaged pads through oxidation so mechanical pressure on them may rip them off the board. This method was actually recommended a long time ago on certain components which seems to have been brought into the future somehow. It was a bad idea then too and was relegated to service technicians.

Food for thought. I'll try with two irons. And a flux pen I've got.  Much appreciated advice. 

Generally the idea is that if you can't imagine NASA doing it, probably a good idea to avoid it.

Which is why I try to lace my looms.  I'll also look very deep into cleaning flux off my builds, finished one today that had lots of gunk on it, so need is apparent. One tip here: Things that look like large tooth brushes, but actually are for cleaning false teeth. Very bristly. Like tooth brushes were back in the day, before "brush til it bleeds" was banished as anti-caries method...


...stumbles into SMD land, wearily...

[mnementh]

A Mouser BOM is forming around the TDS 520. Found all the RIFAS. Some of the SMD caps have greasy circles around them, so leakage is apparent. I'm pondering removal methods;

• Solder tweezers. Not a thing I've got, and I'd need to get a full station to drive them. Limited usage beyond recapping SMD.
• Hot air. Also would need to go on the shopping list. Can literally cost anything. But capable of doing more.
• The Carlson trick of cutting the Al part off the seat, and then going down towards the board. I've got all I need for this. And, it does not look as crazy "rip'em off like they wanna experience pain" as it's sometimes described. (trick apparently is to cut of the bucket first, and then work down until there's only easily (individually) desoldered legs left on the pads.) 

This, also, is not investment season. Vacation was impressingly expensive, and everything else is too.

I prefer to do them with "dual wielding" soldering irons, but sure, the more they have leaked the harder it is because the solder wont easily melt.
But that also makes it more vulnerable to the "Carlson method" so it's a bit of pick your poison...

Didn't see this earlier. Some points:

1. solder tweezers. Can emulate this with dual irons. You can fix the solder melting problems with a flux pen. That kills enough oxidation to get down to the pads.
2. Hot air. Do not do this with SMD electrolytics. They can explode if you get them too hot.
3. Don't even get me started on the Carlsson method. You're dealing with potentially damaged pads through oxidation so mechanical pressure on them may rip them off the board. This method was actually recommended a long time ago on certain components which seems to have been brought into the future somehow. It was a bad idea then too and was relegated to service technicians.

Generally the idea is that if you can't imagine NASA doing it, probably a good idea to avoid it.

My comment earlier to mansaxel in the Discord was that "If I had a mainboard from a precious that was full of SMD electrolytics, I wouldn't touch it without hot tweezers."

The reason being twofold:

1) A lot of them usually means high component density. This makes it much more likely that you'll fuck up a few times using the "dual wield" method. It only takes once in the wrong spot to ruin such a PCB BER.

2) A lot of them using dual-wield is just fucking exhausting... that makes it likelier you'll fuck up too. Hot tweezers turns a job that's a  "charlie-foxtrot waiting to happen" into "Meh... just sweeping the floor" tedium. Much less likely to fuck up a Unobtanium board you care aboot.

Trying to dual-wield large numbers of SMD electrolytics is a horrible, half-assed way to do it.

It is, to quote Saruman the White, "...the way of pain!!!"

My 4 bits worth; take from it what you will.

mnem