Test Equipment Anonymous

Fitness for purpose is key. That requires an understanding of the purpose. Nonetheless, even if a user knows their purpose, matching the two requires someone who knows the equipment. with cheap equipment, it can be discarded if no good with expensive equipment, a salesman can spend time with a custo...

It is rare[1] that newer equipment is worse than existing equipment, of course. It was poor judgement to say the least. Such highly visible poor judgement can colour marketplace perceptions for a long time ("bad then, why should I expect it to be good now" or "I'm not going to risk m...

That's the point about that scope's FFT: it is not sufficient to be useful. That may have once been the case and for the old SDS1052DL Mike has I would agree due to its very limited feature set. The SDS1000 DL, CML and CML+, must have been introduced a long time ago. 15 years back or so. They were ...

There are all sorts of features it's easy to add to a DSO, such as voltage readings of various sorts. They are useful because you are often interested in voltage levels on a scope and they save you squinting at the display and fiddling about to refer to the scales. They are not as accurate as a che...

Then you could go to a FFT exclusive display and examine the menu for axis scaling and markers to place on peaks although I'm not sure if the DL models provided them. So modern Siglent equipment is like 1960s SAs and significantly more primitive than 1970s SAs? Disappointing. Not at all. These fair...

Strange. A second PM to zenith is also stuck in my outbox. No funny characters etc.

nixiefreqq wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 11:37 am tried to send you a PM.

it also appears to be stuck in my outbox.

I've received as normal, and replied; that is stuck in mt outbox too.

There are a couple of PMs stuck in my outbox; is the messaging system working?

There are European Starlings (imported pest) and English Sparrows (another imported pest) nesting in and about our building which has got Harley's tail in knot. He is beside himself. If the screens weren't down I swear he'd jump out the window. :lol: Daughter's dog finally saw a cat on the terrace,...

So it appears that the only real solution is the purchase a proper hp branded spectrum analyzer. I'll put it on my "wish" list. I've got useful results with my Digilent Analog Discovery, which also comes with a scope, dual AWG, digital pattern generator, simple LA, plus other tools create...

tautech wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 9:14 am Then you could go to a FFT exclusive display and examine the menu for axis scaling and markers to place on peaks although I'm not sure if the DL models provided them.

So modern Siglent equipment is like 1960s SAs and significantly more primitive than 1970s SAs?

Disappointing.

MED6753 wrote: ↑Wed May 14, 2025 7:29 pm So it's basically just eye candy?

My crusty old eyeballs are better TE.

Only in the sense that, say, the HP180 with S.A. plugins is eye candy

Extra deeper understanding is needed before it can be understood.

No scales?! Seriously? April 1st is long gone. :D That's prehistoric, or at least early 1960s. Even my 1970s and 1980s analogue spectrum analysers (Tek492, DP8562) have comprehensive readout of all the settings! Oh well, back to using a neon bulb as a voltage reference in a DVM, and having a front p...

AVGresponding wrote: ↑Wed May 14, 2025 4:58 pm Nixies? What are those?

I haven't got any device with numitron/minitron displays.

No, I don't want cockpit instruments nor petrol pumps, thank you very much.

MED6753 wrote: ↑Wed May 14, 2025 5:01 pm I suppose this is much more meaningful?

Not without indications of horizontal and vertical scales and offsets.

MED6753 wrote: ↑Wed May 14, 2025 11:07 am Show me the way to Nirvana.

Nah. Finding out for yourself is fun, and enables you to believe you understand your equipment

OK gang, here it is. I have really no clue what it all means. Comments welcome. Well, I have no clue what that specific instrument's display is trying to tell us, so only a few generic observations: expand the signal vertically so as to almost fill the whole screen. That will maximise the frequency...

You guys kill me. Suggesting I go down all sorts of rabbit holes. My Siglent SDS1052DL does have some basic FFT functions but I trust my crusty old eyeballs. :P :P :D Go on, try it. See what it can do and what the noise floor is :twisted: Or get a Keithley 2015THD, and use the suffix :lol:

Calibration was a bit fiddly but finally fell into place. Will burn-in for at least 2 hours then this project is complete. Oh no it isn't! Not until the spectral purity of that sine wave is checked out on a spectrum analyzer! No gots a spectrum analyzer. My tired old eyeballs are good enough. :D No...

We could have sworn that a fast 1800s style "windjammer" service would have got them to Western Australia faster! ... Unfortunately, nowadays,everybody seems to have returned to pre-windjammer days! My pension company office occasionally sends me letters. According to google maps and base...

Oooh! Interesting. Isn't thread drift a wonderful thing.

I'll take time to read that tomorrow.

As for taking aerial shots, you might gain information but lose verisimilitude if you have the lenses more than 62.5mm apart. Think of relief maps with exaggerated vertical scale.

Not familiar with the Sinclair unit so I looked at the internals. At least once you split the case all the circuit boards remain in place and accessible. Not so with the Tek 200 series. You pull it apart and circuit boards and a CRT literally explode all over the bench. Stuffing it all back togethe...

MED6753 wrote: ↑Thu May 01, 2025 5:43 pm But no where near as bad as these abominations. Try stuffing 5 pounds of crap into a 2 pound bag.

Is that better or worse than Sinclair stuffing 4oz of crap into an 8oz bag (SC110)? Discuss

I assume you are not in a rush. I'm off on holiday for a fortnight on Thursday. I'll contemplate it. It would really have to be picked up and seen working. I have the impression you live around Cambridge, or at least roughly in the East Anglia area. Yes just off the end of the M11. An Edwin Abbott ...

While bumbling around looking for a picture of a hand card punch, I came across
https://hoc.lgfl.org.uk/resource.html

Short videos of what there is at TNMoC, plus other stuff. Looks like it is a KS2/3 teacher's resource.