Test Equipment Anonymous

One of those things. The principle is simple, a thin conductor that overheats and breaks before anything else overheats and breaks, or causes a fire. The obvious example is the old style domestic fuses, which I believe were a specific diameter of tinned copper wire, which could be replaced. Clearly,...

I've seen very high value (100A plus) fuses filled with sand (or something). I assumed it was there for quenching. When it blows you want it to stop conducting, not to continue as an arc.

The eevblog video posted yesterday ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TYtdpbFWuA ) about fuse characteristics being permanently changed by exposure to low temperature was interesting. He was showing fuses in the context of current shunt overcurrent protection in multimeters. They are crude things w...

I've never watched Metropolis. There's a restored version available on Youtube with footage believed lost, which was discovered in Agentina. I went to watch it at the world's oldest purpose-built continually working cinema, which opened in 1912. I fell asleep :( Sometimes shorter is better. https:/...

I never really liked Lost in Space; even as a kid it seemed to rely on the same person being idiotic/dangerous every week. Most things which seemed good Back Then seem merely silly now - and good examples of why SF had a bad reputation. The first few episodes were good I thought. Then the plot line...

I can't remember the series. It was about 1958. I remember those other series including Lost In Space and Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea. There are some episodes on Youtube. They seemed great at the time but crude and dated now. I always thought Space Patrol was silly. Star Trek wasn't much later a...

IIRC there was a worse hamburger chain, but the name mercifully escapes me. Burger King? i never tried them but they looked grim. Back then much of the food in the UK was .... inspired by 15 years of rationing. Or you could have wonderful new inventions such as freeze dried prawn curry [1] made buy...

Fortunately such places can be discovered before eating there, using the government food hygiene ratings. https://ratings.food.gov.uk/ Daughter, who ought to know and has a top rating, says 4 or 5 is acceptable (usually paperwork not up to date), avoid 0 or 1 or 2, and read the reasons for a 3 rati...

A magnificent result. It makes me feel guilty about my various delayed projects needing cap replacement.

Nowadays I'm pleased to say decent South Indian food is becoming available. There's a place in an old chippie in a housing estate which does an excellent breakfast for £6 (dosa/idli/vada plus sauces thali). Every time I go it has several Indian families there for a quick meal. Damn sight better tha...

I'm putting together a giant order of capacitors. The usual thing, Farnell have some you want, CPC have others, RS have yet others, Digikey and Mouser are also in there. There may be other suppliers. You have to watch the minimum order for free shipping. Then there are other things you may want to o...

Sturgeons law applies to classical music as much as pop music. There's a surprising amount of maths to be found in music. Also surprising how people good at maths are often good musicians. Elgar's Enigma Variations can evoke emotions, as can Bach. When I was a kid there was still a question "w...

I was never into Mahler. I found it depressing.

Bach, yes. Vivaldi can play the strings of your heart, especially the 'cello concertos.

Anyway, I'd supposed that by now you'd be too occupied with mathematics to have any time for such friparies.

Squeezing in some limited lab time among all the daily activities. This is the capacitor set for the 5110 PSU. The new filter caps installed in the 5 pin adapters. I will be removing the PSU from the 5110 to make it easier to work on. While it doesn't look too difficult to remove it's going to be n...

This organisation is bound to have insurance. Try that angle. Try ebay, which might either produce a used replacement, or a similar model that uses the same jaws, or a parts only meter with good jaws. 3D printing seems a possibility. Keysight sounds shambolic, especially for a company selling into t...

... and excellent if you wanted Tek 7k mainframes and plugins. Which definitely and positively don't. I've never been slightly attracted to them, however for the price they were marked down to at the end - I recall £10 a pop, and then they wouldn't shift - I wonder if they would have been worth sna...

I expect the general hamfest malaise will continue. Nonetheless some continue to be worth visiting. This year two I like (FRARS, Rugby) appear to be on the same day, grrrrr. Grrrrrh indeed. Rugby is a more pleasant drive up the Fosse Way, but I've found it variable in terms of treasures. It's getti...

I hope Dunstable Downs is back on form. Last year it couldn't be run in it's usual May slot and was delayed until June. It was a bit disappointing.

At one time I was fully into electron tubes (valves). I have several bits of gear that use them; some valve scopes and radios and large collection of valves. Years back I came by an AVO Mk IV valve tester cheaply. They are now £££s painful. It's actually a valve characteristic meter and could be use...

From the Banggood page, I have the impression it's a time limited special offer. Up to 80% off on the first 50 items sold. You have to add £11.50 for shipping. Similar things sell on Banggood and Amazon UK, starting at £180 or so. It seems suspiciously cheap, but there are special sales. I've dealt ...

Of the Tek 400 series non-storage, in my experience in the UK, 475 is the most common, 465 less so, then 465B. I haven't come across a 475A or 485 on my travels. I don't see them on ebay either, although I don't particularly look out for them. I have seen some of the lower bandwidth ones rarely, but...

These are not on my bucket list, because I've done them. The National Museum of Computing at Milton Keynes. They have working Bombe and Colossus machines, an early mini computer (Eliot?) an ICL mainframe, a Cray super computer, various microcomputers from the early 80s, some playing games, almost al...

The problem is I now have three properly working ones, Now there's a first world "problem" if ever I saw one :) Cue "When I were a lad...." anecdote. In 1973 they cost $2,500. Depending where you were in the UK that would buy a small house or be a large part of the price of one....

Oh you wicked tempter. You're trying to get your own back for that Marconi Bridge at Weston-super-mare. You may succeed. ... Do I need a seventh 475? Is it time to graduate to 485s? Tee hee. Got to have 7 before you can have 8 :twisted: Not necessarily. A pair or more could be bought at the same ti...

Oh you wicked tempter. You're trying to get your own back for that Marconi Bridge at Weston-super-mare. You may succeed. I'd have thought in a tidy state, and with the front cover and a service manual, it would sell for much more than I've been paying for these things of late, but it is collection o...