Test Equipment Anonymous

LOL - As much as I like the concept of a fused mains plug, I still prefer my 'dangerous' NEMA 5-15Ps - they're less likely to damage things in shipment, and don't do their imitation of caltrops when they fall on the floor. As bad as it is finding cat barf with my bare foot while enroute to the bath...

This makes me want to go ahead and finish building the re-encapsulement of the Philips variable transformer I've got. It's gotten so far that it is in a 6HE Schroff Baugruppenträger (which is German for card cage) and will get a front plate from Schroff, and then have various meters and switches add...

120V, yes. 208V, yes. 240V, no. We haven't even gotten started:-) https://vvv.besserwisser.org/Public/Bilder/tea/propervoltage.jpeg I've managed to avoid 400V, but the 230 phase to neutral voltage (Those who suffer from a certain mr Edison having had entirely too much say in low voltage grid constr...

Oh, and on steel tape machines; specifically Marconi-Stille ones, this BBC technical history site has a rather nice description of them in BBC use.

I imagine if I re-read the whole sub-thread carefully, I might be able to catch up on exactly what is/isn't being referred to. "For more information please reread" (The reference awaits spotting) That has to be Scarfolk although as with most Scarfolk stuff I always get the feeling that I'...

Perhaps mansaxel could wave a micrometer at some of that "tape" some time. I've never used one, but I understand that you can fit a "knife" blade to a bandsaw. At 60 ips, one of those tape machines was a bandsaw. 0,08mm thick by 3mm wide, 2700 meters per spool which gave 30 minu...

The size of the reels is amazing. :shock: At 15 kilos per reel, the weight is equally amazing. Quite the workout to handle. Also, at 60ips speed, long tapes were needed. The tape was made in country; one of the steel rolling mills in Sweden made a large batch that was then used for the duration of ...

I didn't know videotapes were also afflicted with sticky tape syndrome. In 1978 there was an (internal) BBC Christmas tape "White Powder Christmas" and next year was "Good King Memorex" both commemorating a tape problem. I did a little walkabout in the museum corridor at work, a...

tggzzz wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2026 11:04 am
I imagine if I re-read the whole sub-thread carefully, I might be able to catch up on exactly what is/isn't being referred to.

"For more information please reread"

(The reference awaits spotting)

Still some 16mm black/white news footage to do, of course. Really? Why "of course"? Historical? Yes, they prioritized the VT stock because tape's less stable than 16mm what with having to bake tapes and all. And 16mm now gets scanned on a request basis, when we do historical review progra...

Not as far as I thought, then. You must have a museum; I can't imagine your dubbing suite uses the Marconi-Stille (after all, it doesn't have time code). I expect the quadruplex machine is used to transfer historical stuff and is probably a rentable facility for people with old material. Keeping th...

EC8010 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2026 6:52 pm Good grief! I haven't seen a quadruplex machine for a very long time. But I think you may be a bit more than a motorcycle ride away?

Central Stockholm. https://omoss.svt.se/about-svt.html

But not as dangerous as the early Marconi/Stille machine https://creativeaudioworks.com/history/the-marconi-stille-magnetic-recorder-reproducer/ that was essentially a bandsaw. It had multiple heads, not to be an early Watkins Copicat, but because a duff edit (improperly deburred weld) could take o...

Going through Berlin photos and remembered this one that tickled me. A painting of people debugging a Robotron 300, an IBM 1401 clone. The socialists knew how to do modern art. None of that abstract bollocks. Never did see a 1401 in the flesh. They were built and tested at the Endicott, NY facility...

I totally forgot to mention that I picked up a Fluke 12 multimeter ... but Fluke tried out a number of other designs like the 12 with a couple of buttons and a switch or the side-switch drawbar meters like the 8060A and others, and I wanted a Fluke 12 to add to my little collection of non-standard ...

I am well aware of the underspend issue. As our American friends would say, "That's no way to run a rail road!" I made sure our section had the test gear we needed to do the job we had to do. What the underspend issue says is that the management running the company is more concerned with ...

tggzzz wrote: ↑Thu Feb 19, 2026 1:25 pm
What I don't like is snow - melt - freeze. That's lethal: even cars slip sideways due to the road camber

Friends who did armoured national service tell of the ways tracked vehicles behave. Cars are easy in comparison.

Better than soduku, in oh-so-many ways :) You can do soduku on the train or on a ferry, whereas it wouldn't be so easy to fix a Hewlett-Packard 3314A function generator in such circumstances. Obvious movie reference about electronics repair in difficult conditions: https://clip.cafe/crimson-tide-19...

If you need more than 3 1/2 digits, you have done a marginal design :-) Or, you're trying science the real way. I've got a couple 4 1/2 digits handhelds, and a 5 1/2 bench DMM (3478A) where the former owner bodged a battery swap. If I score the 6209a I'm ogling a the moment, I'll make an effort into...

Having 3 phase mains is nice if you have a lot of big industrial machines. For smaller stuff a VFD gives additional advantages like variable speed including higher speeds. soft starting, dynamic braking and active motor protection. Robert. Many VFDen are built to take three phases in and make three...

402V. OK, 2% low from 415V, but nothing to worry about. I'll have a look in my incoming box, but I'll be amazed if all three phases are there. My understanding is that houses in the UK are wired sequentially with phases down the street; whereabouts are you to have three-phase? Just below 1% under t...

Robert, thank you so much for your post. I was well aware of the difference in torque ripple between single and three phase motors and was wondering whether my heavily tweaked Hobbymat lathe (bought new) would benefit from a three-phase motor, so I bought it a three-phase motor. Annoyingly, my stat...

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Nov 25, 2025 5:15 pm
Anybody got any idea about how I could spend or change paper Euros?

Visit EU? France is fast reached via the Eurostar. You probably (but no guarantees) can pay in Euros already in the bistro car en route. Given the ticket price it would be a hideous exchange rate, of course.

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 ...

I guarantee I can break this if I have access to add DNS records :) You (and other interested parties) do not have that access, and it is not only a matter of admin access to DNS; there are other checks and balances in place too. But in principle, I do not doubt there are vulnerable points in this....