Test Equipment Anonymous

Three messages all arrived at once in my inbox, so we're sorted. I've had odd things happen with private messaging here and at the Other Place.

My mother managed to bend one pin of a UK mains plug. I have no idea how she managed to do that without breaking the rest of the (MK Safety) plug.

[1] typical journalists don't realise that, and rely on the gallon-litre conversion in their calculator :( I used to work with journalists. I can assure you that most can't operate the % button on a four function calculator, let alone find the conversions. They probably use their phone. Which might...

Zenith wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2026 9:50 am It's a neater unit than my Lyons Regavolt...

Agreed. Mine's a 10A Berco Regavolt. It's jolly heavy.

Years ago they'd stock them in big jars, weigh them out and put them in a paper bag. I haven't see a shop that does that for years. Elf & Safety. Likewise pet shops with a cat asleep in the dog biscuit bin. We had a Maynards in Pinner when I was a kid. The black jelly babies were the best. And ...

I've just been handed an enormous box by a courier. 20" x 14" x 10" or 508 x 356 x 254 mm for those who prefer metric when holding their arms wide and saying, "It was this big!" What was in it? Well, there were ten thermistor temperature sensors, each about the size of a mat...

The priority has been to learn about how to retain and use power; after all, education can always be purchased when necessary. Well, yes. When I was teaching, we would often discuss what changes should be made to the degree we ran. And in making changes, we had to consider what we were trying to ac...

They are indeed good quality. The insulator is ceramic (aluminium oxide), but if you want to big-up your product, you refer to "sapphire" insulators. I had not seen the Wikipedia page, but I was aware of the final demise. I don't think production has restarted, just that a load of parts we...

My mistake. Standoffs or spacers. Little plastic or metal things, usually tapped or with a threaded section. Used to mount circuit boards, tag strips etc. Sold by Farnell etc, but often surprisingly expensive. Gotcha. If you think spacers are expensive, try looking up the price of stand-offs made b...

It's worth looking out for BNC sockets, tag strips, offsets and other things like that, in the boxes of assorted junk at swapmeets. I've never seen offsets in junk boxes. How do you spot them? Are they labelled "1.6mV offset" for example? I think you must mean something different to what ...

Indeed they do and I always check the junk boxes. That (used) BNC was from a junk box and I think I paid 50p for it at the recent Audiojumble. It's the large square flange variety intended for those horribly expensive (Suhner?) blue anodised in-line boxes. And here's a picture of the 485 and test ji...

The 485 picoammeter now has the measurement jig it needs. The nice thing about the 485 is that its input is on a BNC, and that BNC is on the front panel. Yesterday, I found my sole remaining chassis mount male BNC and fitted it to a 150 x 150 x 50 shortbread tin that originally contained Waitrose Du...

So you introduced a new chair and didn't sit on it first. Exactly why are you surprised that Harley thinks it's his?

My lack of clarity. I should have said that the chemicals are released following shock, but that they could take effect up to 24 hours after.

After being knocked off my bike, I cycled three miles home with hurt arm that second visit to hospital revealed was broken and needed an operation.

I looked on the Internet and found nothing to support it, so you could well be right. Sadly, I also found British Medical Journal stuff that was littered with errors. I don't have much faith in medics. If you present with something obvious, they can often help significantly, but it has to be really ...

I expect the words used weren't for your young ears.

I'll bet the verbal whipping your dad got from your mum hurt more.

Sadly, no. I didn't query it when it came out as a company edict because it seemed like a sensible thing to do. But it would be nice to know why.

Shocks are dangerous. Shortly before I retired a new policy was adopted at work whereby anyone suffering a shock would be immediately taken to the medical centre, despite any/all protestations of being alright. Apparently, a shock can cause the release of chemicals into the blood stream that can kil...

Apropos of that, a friend who is just starting out in hobby electronics has learned the hard way that you don't poke probes around with the power on. He said he smelt something...

Digikey don't seem to be applying that policy and I bought some AD devices last week from them. Quite what benefit would accrue to AD from not selling to individuals is not in the least clear; it's not as if they are dealing with piffling small orders, it's the distributor's problem. What it certain...

The generator itself might not be much cop, but I'm delighted to see the BNCs being kept clean by caps.

Interesting stuff. Apropos your distortion comment, take a look at an early synthesised generator (I'm assuming later ones are better). Ten years ago, I was horrified when I connected £2k-worth of synthesised RF generator to a wide bandwidth oscilloscope. As soon as I got home, I tried the same test...

Zenith wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 10:00 pm Well if you harbour cats you can expect a succession of these tributes.

"Harbouring" them makes them sound like criminals. Which of course they are, as any cat owner will tell you.

Gosh, a B424! That's almost as old as the Marconi. But you've highlighted another nice point about the TF2700; it needs zero warm-up time. An electrolytic capacitor is a pretty horrible device and not really valid for querying whether a test instrument is good. If you need to test electrolytics, the...