Test Equipment Anonymous

No problem with my DeWalt oscillating multi-tool and velcro sandpaper.

Won the Cropico milliohm meter I talked about earlier. Classic snipe operation. 0 bids up to 3 minutes left, then someone left a starting bid; at -30 seconds a second bid came through, and I shot the competition to pieces at -3 seconds. (pic from ad) https://img.tradera.net/images/402/510799402_840...

A bit better luck with the Philips (actually designed and build by Labgear here in Cambridge) PM 5503 TV test generator. It works perfectly. Even the RF output is OK. Yes I still have a TV with an analogue tuner :shock: . Its one of those "no subsitute" bits of test gear and I've not had o...

Back to TEA My purchases from the last Peaker Pattenson auction finally arrived today. A TTI TS3021S 30V 2A power supply and a Philips 5503 TV pattern generator. Looked at the power supply first. No obvious issues visually. The bad news is the ouput is pinned at 42V :( So as the service manual is av...

If you need more than a couple of prescriptions a month and don't qualify for free , you can pre-pay £108.10 a for 12 months coverage no matter how many drugs you need. A couple of years ago SWMBO was on a "biological" drug, one dose a week at over £1000 each cost to NHS (apparently about ...

Of course they're funded by charities. No corporation that had a choice would ever pay that kind of money over and over again to "maybe save a life"... such service would always be the first thing cut by the bean counters, unless of course they were billing someone else... like a charity....

ME pron

A un-enclosed VFD is fine until a bit of swaft gets in there...
For the 'mericans a ML7 is a what you would call a 7"x20" hobby / light industrial screwcutting lathe.

Non TE alert! I bought a somewhat tired late (i.e 1938 ish) Myford ML2 lathe about 4 years ago with all good intentions. However the knackered spindle and bearings along with lack of space in the garage and being very busy with the day job and playing with TE meant that other than aquiring a replace...

The hard way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga1MlectyMU

Things you don't want to hear at thanksgiving:
"We're going vegan"
"Who's watching the turkey fryer?"

(for those who don't know, some 'mericans deep fry whole turkeys in large hots of oil heated on bottled gas burners. This keeps the fire brigade and ER busy).

When I was in Toronto a few years ago I was disappointed to find that while the telescope model was still on the building, EfstonScience had gone (2012 apparently). I spent a months vacation in Toronto over the 1989/1990 holiday season and was spoilt for choice with surplus and computer stores withi...

Interesting that Eben Upton went from a "volunteer" at the foundation (according to Liz) to CEO at RPi trading (RPI Ltd)... RPi Ltd had £144 million in revenue last year but the foundation is stil asking for public donations. The Charity had approx £110M income and £100M expenditure. It sp...

Tut Tut BD,
What do you expect calling out a forum owner on bullshit
I've also been banned from a geiger counter forum for calling the owners bullshit. Their loss as far a I'm concerned. (and some other members from commentas I received afterwards).

Well I realise that this may make me subject to a drumhead court marshall as a disgrace to the uniform, after which my TEA insignia will be are ripped off and I will be drummed out of the service - but I quite like the the Raspberry Pi, with its drawbacks. I have four; a 4 a 3B and two Zero W. I'm ...

Loads of USB I/O Professional but not too expensive https://www.mccdaq.com/data-acquisition/digital-IO Hobby https://www.active-robots.com/controllers/io-boards.html https://www.audon.co.uk/usb_digital/usbpio.html I dislike RPi Not being able to get a datasheet on the processor is a big red flag for...

Started to work on the variable speed motor set up for my "new" ML7 lathe. I'd bought a used Toshiba Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) aka inverter on ebay. It was actually the control box for an electric gate. Powered it up and it works, BUT the parameters are password protected. The passwo...

Started to work on the variable speed motor set up for my "new" ML7 lathe. I'd bought a used Toshiba Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) aka inverter on ebay. It was actually the control box for an electric gate. Powered it up and it works, BUT the parameters are password protected. The passwor...

Some plastic X capacitors arrived this morning. Delivered by a neighbour because Royal Mail can't find the right door.
My Farnell G15-4 is now cured of it's smoking habit. Now I need to work on the constant current control.

Anyway back to TEA. I got this little beauty for work. RS-RTC1002-scope.jpg It's a bit like a updated HP 54622D, one of my favorites. Seems pretty good. Very small but it's in a tiny "workshop" in what is mainly a "showpiece" new office. No tatty boat anchors there. Wait a secon...

I have a full set of Mini-Instruments 900 series meters GM and Scint.

I see Ice Tea is getting a couple of pallet loads of HP heavyweight gear. I was surprised at the interest in and price raised by the HP8922x GSM test sets. They are really only good for parts, unless I'm missing something. I bought a couple of items, A TTi TS3021S PSU and Philips PM5503 PAL video te...

I've not looked for means to upgrade. The BW is software locked. This one is pretty well specified already.

Robert .

My concern on variable rate is that rather than rewarding those who shift their loads with reductions they will penalise those who don't (or can't) with increases (and more profit) Smart meters are also the reason that the 3G phone system will outlast 4G, in the UK at least. Anyway back to TEA. I go...

Power meters. The UK news today revealled another reason why the electricity companies want you to have a "smart" meter. And why you should not get one. They can change you to a pre-payment system with a few taps of a computer keyboard. So much for the assurances that they would not use th...