Test Equipment Anonymous

Plans today to install the attenuators and attempt at power up went slightly askew. I was able to salvage legible push bottoms for the B/W Limit, Beam Find, and Norm Trigger from the parts unit. The Horizontal and Cal push bottoms from the parts unit were either missing or totally illegible. I notic...

EICO was a most worthy competitor to Heath. Sadly they went the way of the dodo too.

Edit...EICO also sold audio kits but I don't see them in that catalog. Perhaps it was a separate catalog. I do have an EICO catalog somewhere in my stash along with dozens of Heathkit catalogs.

With Summer winding down I finally got the opportunity to work on this 485. First item is to free up the jammed vertical input switch. The vertical attenuators need to come out. Removed the covers and cleaned the gold finger contacts with 100% IPA. https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq70/922/w7vQ2V....

Graduation day today. She got a 1st class BSc Biochem and starts an MRes in Biological and Physical Chemistry at Imperial College in October :shock: She did good. So proud :) She did good, indeed :) Never understood pride in daughter's achievements. Pleasure, amazement, quiet satisfaction w.r.t. a ...

Makes you step back and think because I'm 72 myself.

I don't pray before I go to bed. I thank the Almighty every morning when I wake up.

Unfortunately Ozzy has given his last "Fuck You". Kudos to Sharon for sticking with him through thick and thin.

You do indeed. Owned by Raytheon of course. I started at Cossor and left after the Raytheon rebrand which involved introduction of all the Americanisms like Six Sigma and Dilbert Ethics Challenge. Six Sigma is not an Americanism, it's a Japaneseism....mainly Toyota. I remember IBM trying to adopt t...

Londoners are considerably nicer than the average across the country. You don't realise this until you're a parent and have a buggy to shove around. Anywhere else wouldn't piss on the buggy if it was on fire from experience. In London a veritable army of people assist with doors, stairs and buses w...

Want to know how resilient cats are? One Spring night a year ago Blondie and I sat out on the balcony enjoying the evening. What we didn't realize at the time was that Harley came out with us unseen. We eventually came in and closed the door, not knowing he was out there. Several hours later we hear...

If I tried to hold Harley upside down by his feet I'd be bloodied on both arms.

No harm, no foul, the cat landed on it's feet. :lol: I was under the impression that was part of their design specification - or is it merely emergent behaviour? Design specification. By the time a kitten is 2 months old they have already mastered landing on their feet. So I guess you could say it'...

No harm, no foul, the cat landed on it's feet.

synx508 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 11, 2025 6:58 pm

I'm hesitant to drip anything into the focus control and I only have Servisol contact cleaner/lubricant, not sure if that's safe. Should I get some deoxit?

The Servisol should be OK. Just don't go crazy with it. Just a few drops down the pot shaft and work it in.

The attenuator switch decks on the 465B, as well as other 400 series, can be problematic with general wear and dirty contacts. 100% IPA will help, but months down the road you'll have to do it again. The focus pot always locks up on these scopes. Put the scope up on it's rear feet and drip deoxit do...

I was just wondering when the cat would enter the discussion. He gave it a good sniff when I brought it home. Now that the cover is off he'll have to sniff it again and I'm sure he'll start picking at the wiring. He's broken wires before on other equipment. Anything that comes into the apartment he...

Oh and....I can't leave anything uncovered on the bench because you-know-who will pick at it with his teeth.

The front panel cleaned up very nicely however the mild cleaner I used took some of the lettering off a few push button switches. The front bezel lens is a bluish tint which may hint at the phosphor of the CRT. We'll see. And we found our first issue. The Vertical Mode Switch assembly directly under...

25 CPS wrote: ↑Sun Jul 06, 2025 1:30 am

The HP 211AR's still sitting apart on the bench waiting for me to get back to it. I did finally get to the store and picked up fuses and fuse holders so hopefully a power test will be possible soon.

I'm very curious to see if you have symmetry issues like I did.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Fri Jul 04, 2025 4:54 pm Blue is good.

C911 and other beads on that rail aren't (or soon won't be) good.

That and at least 2 dozen other bloody tants.

This should make tggzzz's day. I have two 485's plus a parts mule. So why not have a third? Facebook marketplace find. It's dirty but complete. Not even a broken knob. And of course it's going to get my usual due diligence. But not today. It's the 4th of July and we celebrate our independence from y...

Agreed, cats love heat which would drive any human into heat stroke.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 7:02 pm And today's xkcd involves cats: https://xkcd.com/3108

Harley indeed goes nuts over laser pointers.

Damn cat. :roll: So today I'm putting up a curtain rod. Blondie comes into the lab holding one of the wall anchors I need. Found on the kitchen floor. I keep forgetting that I can't leave small parts on the lab benches unattended. :shock: Yesterday Blondie makes the mistake of leaving a cake with cr...

"This is my box and you can't have it"

it has been 29C here, 33C near London, looks like bits of France hit 38C. Definitely pants[1] and beer weather. RH is 50-60% so relatively tolerable. No aircon, unless you count an electric fan. [1] UK meaning, of course. What is the UK meaning of "pants"? Pants as in a wearable item or p...