Test Equipment Anonymous

Maybe it was the same one that was at Newbury. There was a little Emco lathe at DD last year at a bargain £50.I was sorely tempted but I don't have need or space for 3 lathes... No, I don't know what it was I saw at Newbury, but it wasn't a Pultra; it was nice, but not super, and I'd have snapped u...

Changing the subject, I thought I'd indulge in some pre-Christmas quality control this evening. We bought some 15yr Glenmorangie last week. First off, the bottle was fitted with a huge child-proof knob the size of a coffee cup over its neck. I had to resort to a hacksaw to cut the thing away. Sadly,...

Ouch! And I see one can wipe one's bottom with Farage, too. In fact, such political paper seems quite popular.

I was amused/saddened by the EU 50p coin.

I wonder how long it will be before Trump's fizzog appears on US currency? (Mild stir.)

The hp 428b -- valves to its end of production in 1984ish. unrivalled as a DC clamp. About 1000 times more sensitive than my cheap DC clamp. The hp 410b -- 121MΩ input impedance in DC mode and calibrated to 700+ MHz in AC. So I looked both instruments up. The 428b looks very nice. If I ever see one...

Agreed, anything >£200 is too much of a risk; you need to know the kit intimately and be capable of fixing it. Which doesn't just mean correctly diagnosing the fault; it means being able to lay your hands on suitable parts. Yes, to me, working means, "In all respects." To many, it means, &...

I should have qualified my comment about radio rallies being good for buying test gear. A lot of the sellers there are having a bit of a clearout (possibly instructed to by SWMBO). They are usually very honest about what they're selling, know all its good and bad points, and are often concerned that...

I visited Stewart's about six months ago; it was very sad. It was a veritable graveyard of ancient kit piled high. There was all sorts of stuff I recognised but whether any of it worked was another matter. I bought a Farnell power supply and all its electrolytics were duff. And it turned out to have...

Hmmm. I've had mixed experiences with second-hand kit. I used a second-hand Marconi TF2700 LCR bridge for twenty years before passing it on to a friend. Likewise an Advance 10MHz oscilloscope. But a Tek 485 costing £800 in 1998 only lasted two years before its EHT died. Just before it died, I bought...

Thanks for that. Subconscious had been mulling it over and thinking that E810F and E55L must have been the last flowerings of thermionic technology, designed in the hope that they would be needed, but never really used, hence them turning up now and again. Good points about the cost of bleeding edge...

There was always a market for high quality audio, if not a mass market. Leak started by building amplifiers for cinemas and theatres before WWII. Agreed, there was a consumer market, but it was poorly served. No consumer could afford to run tape at 15ips, so that left vinyl. Amplification of low-le...

These valves were never used in audio as I recall. There were probably problems with microphony and hum pickup. Valves such as EF86, designed for audio, had lot of work put in with internal screens, anti-microphonic construction and hum cancelling heaters... ...There was an HP3400B with JFET and IC...

6DJ8/ECC88, E88CC/6922 and E180F are in demand in audiophool circles. I'd like to think that's because they have high g m and therefore low noise, but bling merchants will like the gold-plated pins. E180F was the input device in the EMI2001 colour camera's charge amplifier on each of its (four) 30m...

Good grief, some people will do anything to grab a few pennies! That's disgraceful. When 500 series was mentioned earlier, I assumed the later stuff where you could build a test setup in a rack, not the thermionic 5** series of oscilloscopes. And it's not even as if the valves swapped out were parti...

Measuring times in units of conductance (a pet peeve of mine)... Ah yes, s (seconds) and S (Siemens). I had to stop and think about that one; being a bit old-fashioned, I prefer mA/V. The one that drives me really dotty is people writing 270K. K is for temperature, k is for kilo. I even have an NPL...

Well gee, I certainly have been called worse in my time but if "idiot" is referenced to the subject at hand then I guess I'll wear that badge proudly. I regularly seek out vacuum tube TE because I grew up with VT's and I enjoy working on them. But I don't think you can have the "idio...

Lignum vitae bowls were made in pairs or quads of different sizes, and with different biases set. Some have cracks or have otherwise not stood the test of time well. I have found cracks when cutting them up; really annoying when you are close to final size and discover a crack. The quad set I've ju...

PNP BJTs are very slightly quieter than NPN. It's generally <1dB, mind. Oooh er! Hadn't considered that. Anybody buying aged test equipment for its valves is an idiot; if not worn out, the valves will be well on their way. Would I buy a DMM using nixies? Not really; I want better accuracy than was a...

I looked up the circuit of the Advanced Preamplifier (WW November 1976). I'd like to thump Douglas Self for drawing some circuits with the positive rail at the bottom and negative at the top, yet others with correct orientation! Fortunately, that appears to have been a one-off. Agreed, it was advanc...

If memory serves, the 1977 design was discrete component. These days, Mr Self does everything with a 5534A. Mind you, you have to work hard to better a 5534A, especially for the price. 17 days annual leave would certainly put me off; there would need to be some stunning advantages elsewhere to compe...

I never even thought of making my own; I didn't have the mechanical skills and was interested in electronics and computers. I've always found making precision swarf very satisfying. And my more recent electronics has tended towards physics, necessitating decent metalwork. As a youf, I had a system ...

Will you make the base out of concrete, so that environmental vibrations are attenuated? :) Odd that you should mention concrete. The very first turntable plinth I made was for my Garrard 301 and I realised that mass was required. At age of 17, I was unaware that you could buy lead sheet (and I cou...

Yes. It's a bit like vinyl records, or these days maybe CDs. At one time they had a fanatical following... ---I'm vaguely aware of the exceptional properties of lignum vitae and why it was used for ships propeller shafts and bowls. Oh yes, vinyl still has a following. For me, it's just practical; I...

Good grief! Film is still available? I have an F4 (not that I've used it for years). I've been machining lignum vitae today. Lovely stuff. The tree is a protected species, but 1950's lignum vitae lawn bowls aren't. I cut a cuboid roughly 25 x 25 x 80 (mm), then popped it in the lathe to turn it into...

mnementh wrote: ↑Fri Nov 14, 2025 10:02 pm Yes, and you and I are both proof that this is a winning mate-acquisition strategy.

Acquiescing to the female being the key to "success". I wondered a bit on the first occasion, but went with the flow. Decisive, you see.