Test Equipment Anonymous

I'm immensely distrustful of the notion of a cashless society. Quite. It relies on computers, which we all know to be as leaky as a sieve. Further, I get seriously hacked off waiting in a queue behind some idiot who has elected to pay their entry fee electronically instead of bringing the (known) e...

Looks like the weather is going to Odysseus's job for me; I won't go if it's soggy. If I do go, it will be expensive because I'll probably get get four quick change tool holders to fill the empty spaces on my rack, plus some milling cutters.

Courtesy of a Freecycle donation of lots of Spur shelving uprights, I'm about to put up some more shelves. The new shelves will replace old shelves that used the space inefficiently (didn't use all of it) and will add another shelf. The extra space may be needed if I go to the Model Engineering Exhi...

tggzzz wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2026 4:47 pm I used to enjoy the Thornbury BSMEE. I have to say the model VFW614 with jet engines and a 5m wingspan did frighten me

Yes, some of the exhibits stretch the limits of "model".

Prices at BVWS meets are sensible, and their Bulletin is excellent. Although I'm not interested in ancient radios, I finally got round to joining the BVWS a couple of years ago. At one meet, I had to go before the auction. Sadly, the one item I was interested in (five GEC valve data folders) was tow...

It seems the aim of school music teachers was to put children off music. Thumbs up for Scarlatti. I'll have to look for Vivaldi cello concertos. Agreed that not all Beethoven is wonderful, but the odd numbered symphonies and #5 piano concerto are.

I was unclear and imprecise; classical music after Bach is impure. I'm happy to venerate Bach. But I also venerate Beethoven. Vivaldi is fine (a bit pop, mind, but that might be modern performances), but Bach is much better at going nowhere in particular in an interesting way. I have a weakness for...

As an old fogey, I'd point out that the pop/rock of today is rubbish compared to that of the 50s to 80s. So there's no incentive for quality reproduction. And in the race to the bottom in cheapness, a lot of current recordings are of poor technical quality even before reaching the bottle neck of MP3...

Agreed on all those points. But they've only affected professional audio. Consumer audio continues to ignore active crossovers, selling mega-expensive loudspeakers having passive crossovers that require a wastefully powerful amplifier to drive their crippling load. An active crossover implemented in...

I scrapped the Solartron Varipak power supply last night; it was bought primarily for its 20H HT choke. Which turned out in this Varipak to be made by Woden (I've seen some terrible transformers made by them, so that was worrying). But I've just measured the choke and it's surprisingly good. You'd e...

Yes, Forum Stores was indeed the Nissen hut by the school. It later moved back to the university and I bought a 59" steel rule from there (£1), and also a Tek 545 oscilloscope for £10, on its trolley.

Wow! That power supply is (as the seller honestly declares) "in bad shape". Whatever happened to it to cause that? Parachute failed to open? I didn't notice that there were piles that discriminated between quality at Crowdhill. I assumed (from equipment age) that it was all iffy. There use...

I've just scrapped the Solartron Varipak that came from Crowdhill. That was always likely to happen as I paid £10 primarily for its 20H 100mA choke (C-core) and associated mains transformer (also C-core). The Weston moving coil meter has been salvaged, as have a few other odds and ends, and BA faste...

As an insulator? Never tried, but it's probably quite good.

I've no experience at all of 1T resistors, but I'd imagine there are very respectable insulators with less resistance. I'd have thought producing meaningful results from them was a considerable exercise in advanced practical physics. Things you wouldn't normally consider, such handling them with yo...

1 teraohm is a large resistance, so leakage currents are a serious issue. Water condensing on clean glass wets it to form a leakage film. The earthed conductive paint band prevents leakage current end to end, diverting any leakage harmlessly to earth. Those connectors are MHV, which AI will tell you...

When people stop being suckered like that, industries stop selling products and force you to rent their products. Which is what is happening now with test equipment. Is a new 6 1/2 digit DMM better than one from the 1990s? Or 8 1/2? No. How about current probes? Are they cheaper than they were in t...

Zenith wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2026 8:38 pm I have KEF C95s I've had for 35 years. They suit me.

If they suit you then don't scratch that tickle; it will only turn into an itch.

There was still a fair bit left after I'd filled the back of the car. With price of fuel it would not have been worth my driving there but I had to go within 10 miles for work for a couple of days so not so bad. Might have to go back to the work location next week. That's the main stack. There were...

Reminds me, I ought to flog my Rogers Studio 1. No use to me any more :cry: Are you sure? But if you are, sell them now because they are deteriorating all the time. @cubdriver: That's certainly a lot of cats. Not that I disapprove, but I once had four cats and that was tricky. Senior cat didn't app...

Not quite the same as gaining approval for range and depth* in test gear, but I think I have secured planning permission for new loudspeakers. On average, I make new loudspeakers every fifteen years. It takes me that long to forget how much effort and dust was involved. Naturally, each generation ha...

Thank you for that. I shall show SWMBO that things could be so much worse. But at least you have a cat in there, queen of all she surveys. Which is a lot. My bench has a shelf above it, stacked five high with DMMs, SMUs, etc, etc. An ex-colleague came round a week or two ago and was visibly taken ab...

No picture to be seen?

OK, so 4.5% error wasn't acceptable and I found I had some high value resistors. Sadly, I had to use two or three resistors in series to get the right value, so it's obvious someone has been in there. But the results are a lot better. As we used to say at the BBC, "Good enough for sport."

I've just calibrated the 610C against a Keithley 6221 current source, which is a much newer instrument and made to a rather higher specification. Measurement was by connecting an HPAK 34470A 7 1/2 digit DMM across the 610C's x1 output, removing moving coil meter linearity errors and making the measu...