Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

[nixiefreqq]

will be heading up on the mountain soon for a microwave contest.

but there may be a problem. seems someone dumped a body at my favorite mountain top spot. (upper temple overlook)

its always something!


https://www.wgal.com/article/pa-abuse-o ... s/73284209

[Zenith]

Sorry, this content is not available in your region.

Was what I saw.

Who their right mind would cart a stiff up a mountain to get rid of it?

[tggzzz]

Maybe the equivalent of aircraft cabin crews' "SLF"?

If you aren't excluded from the area, might it be a test of your equipments' out-of-band shielding and rejection?

[tautech]

Temporary loss of some stations here in AKL NZ also on the AM bands while they replace old masts.
One mast will be lost but both are down currently, fuck knows why they took them both down at the same time....probably to only have a single crane establishment cost....cheapskates !

While not far from us, only some 10km or so, it was close enuf to clearly see the flashing mast navigation lights at night but no more until a single replacement mast is up and running.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/Henderson

A few weeks later and with a new transmission mast, NZ's 100yr old AM station 1ZB is up and running again.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/maint ... -complete/

[nixiefreqq]

Sorry, this content is not available in your region.

Was what I saw.

Who their right mind would cart a stiff up a mountain to get rid of it?

seems like it was an overdose situation. no idea why the guy did not just call 911. (except that they were both Mexican nationals)

road was open by the time I got up there.

[Zenith]

seems like it was an overdose situation. no idea why the guy did not just call 911. (except that they were both Mexican nationals)

road was open by the time I got up there.

It's on the web. Search on "Adams County Pennsylvania body".

People can panic, especially when a tragedy happens when they are doing something illegal. I'd guess there were quantities of drugs at the address. So they either omit information which the emergency services ought to know to give proper treatment, or do something silly like try to get rid of the body and land themselves in more trouble.

[BU508A]

I'm having this Metcal MX-500P station:


Now, if I want to add the desoldering gun MX-DS1, what air pump do I need? Haven't found any useful information on the Metcal website.

https://store.metcal.com/en-us/shop/sol ... ces/MX-DS1

Where can I find a detailed description for this setup?
Thanks.

[Cubdriver]

Pretty much any compressor would do. I'd also suggest that you look at the Thermaltronics DS-KIT-1. I'm not sure about availability over on the continent, but it's available here in the US from Amazon for US $315.00, making it over $100 less than the Metcal. The Thermaltronics guys are apparently ex Metcal people who started making clones when the patents expired. Their desoldering gun is compatible with the Metcal station and tips. I currently have Thermaltronics tips in the desoldering gun - M75DT004 & 6 (0.04"/1.10mm and 0.06/1.5mm dia respectively @ 350~398° C), and use a mix of Thermaltronics and Metcal tips in the soldering iron - both seem to work just fine. The power supply is a Metcal.



For the Luftkompressor, I got a nice quiet California Air Tools unit, it happened to be on sale at the time and I about stole it for $140 US; the Jungle Site currently shows it here in the US at $178. Pretty much anything that can put out 80-90ish PSI/4-6 bar will be plenty - it really doesn't use that much volume. I wanted something quiet and was familiar with the brand as we have one for our anechoic chamber at work in CA so I knew it was nearly silent on the air compressor noise scale, so went with it.





Air venturi desoldering guns are much nicer than the ones with the built in vacuum pump - suction builds almost instantly - you won't regret it!

And you probably already know, but just in case, the gun 'kit' is a la carte - tips are sold separately.

-Pat

Edit to add - ambient noise was about 56 dB with the air conditioner running; when the compressor turned on it jumped to a deafening 67 dB measured about 1m away. It really is nice and quiet.

[Zenith]

I can't see any mention of air pumps on their website. It looks to me as if the MX-DS1 connects to the MX-500P which contains the pump.

However, this is expensive equipment and you want to be completely certain before buying. I suggest you scroll down the Metcal home page to the section titled "Need Expert Help?". Explain your requirements and see what they have to say. They offer demonstrations, which may be useful.

The MX-DS1 does not come with a cartridge. There are several. You'd need to select the right one and add it to the order.

[AVGresponding]

I can't see any mention of air pumps on their website. It looks to me as if the MX-DS1 connects to the MX-500P which contains the pump.

However, this is expensive equipment and you want to be completely certain before buying. I suggest you scroll down the Metcal home page to the section titled "Need Expert Help?". Explain your requirements and see what they have to say. They offer demonstrations, which may be useful.

The MX-DS1 does not come with a cartridge. There are several. You'd need to select the right one and add it to the order.

AIUI the MX 500P is a PSU only, and requires an external compressor/vacuum

[Zenith]

I now realise it uses a Venturi to generate the suction to remove solder. It's an industrial piece of kit and no doubt Metcal assume it will be set up at a workstation and plugged into a 100psi 6bar compressed air outlet that is part of the compressed air system which runs around the factory/university department/etc, fed from a compressor tucked away in a utility room.

A £90 compressor from Toolstation would probably work very well, except it's not really a thing most of us would want in our homes. At that price I'd have doubts about how long it would last and the noise.

Cubdriver seems to have found a good solution. I still think it's worth running it past Metcal. They may have a solution they are happy to recommend for non-industrial users.

[synx508]

Excitement built this morning as I cleaned up the nicely specced HP 6038A 200W 60V/10A power supply that I'd bought from a well known regular at the Rugby rally. Oh. It needs a new fan and it's producing an error state and almost no output. GPIB was working and I was able to check the numerical error and whether readback was working, which it was though calibration was a bit wonky with the displays occasionally reading negative values.
OVP worked, but given the most I could get out of it was 0.3V I had to set it very low to trip it!
I cleaned it up because it was filthy and took the lid off to discover the worst thing - many of the internal screws were absent and the control boards weren't properly secured in their card frame slots. Bad, bad seller…
I pulled out the "power mesh" board, A4, this contains the switching MOSFETs and their drive electronics, various diodes including the big one used as part of the buck switching design and a further bipolar device that seems to be responsible for the downward side of the switching waveform. But here's the thing, it's not the correct device for the 6038A, it's the one from a 6033A. Pulling up the datasheet I note that all the resistors that are different on the 6033A are using 6033A values and the 100kΩ resistor that does a bit of a pull-up on the 6038A is missing entirely. Then I check the board's part number and it's the part number from the 6033A. They're similar of course, the only real difference being that down transistor, the big diode and its associated inductor and all the feedback resistors that scale the voltages appropriately for the common control board. I also found an open circuit diode but that probably wouldn't stop it working. That would explain, though, why it just tells me there's an error and that it's "overrange", it's expecting very different voltages from the 60V power mesh board and it's getting the voltages from a 20V power mesh board.
Now I'm not sure whether I want to give up on it or see if I can find a big chunky diode and the correct inductor. I bet the seller will be at Milton Keynes, he told me he had three of these and decided to let one go. What's the betting that one of his remaining pair is a 6033A with a 6038A power mesh board (which also wouldn't work and would be current constrained by the different diode current/voltage trade-offs)…

[Zenith]

This sounds like rather a pain to me, especially with it being a Frankenstein number.

What's the big diode you are looking for? I have a few in my collection. I can't help with the inductor.

I shan't go to MK. It was rather a trek, was hard to find and wasn't great last year. This year they say they have less parking.

[synx508]

This sounds like rather a pain to me, especially with it being a Frankenstein number.

What's the big diode you are looking for? I have a few in my collection. I can't help with the inductor.

I shan't go to MK. It was rather a trek, was hard to find and wasn't great last year. This year they say they have less parking.

Yes, it's a pain. The big diode is a 1901-0887, which cross-references to BYP59-300, a 50A,300V part. The diode that's fitted in the 20V board is 70A at 150V which is probably a bit close to the approximately 64V maximum output voltage once you factor in ringing and minor mishaps.

I hadn't read about the parking situation, that may not be a problem as I should be selling more stuff, assuming they still have a car boot area.

[Zenith]

It's on the RSGB rallies list. Also from the horse's mouth

https://www.mkars.org.uk/mkrally/

They can't use the Badminton Centre car park and have had to reserve part of the field for parking. All outdoor pitches have gone and there are currently nine indoor pitches left.

I have a few of those bloody great diodes that bolt in place. I doubt I'll ever use them. I'll have a look. I believe BYP59-300 is obsolete, but they are not very expensive, about £5-10. They are also sold on Aliexpress. Those are probably a 1N4007 in something that looks like a BYP59-300 case.

[synx508]

Ah well, I won't be selling, then. That's disappointing! I have some big old diode studs here that I need to look through to see if there's anything suitable. I doubt there will be, though, this is a *very* big device.

[Zenith]

BYP59-300 seems to be a fast recovery diode. The only thing I've got like that is a big Westinghouse stud rectifier with a braided lead marked R5000ZT4, or R5000214. It's not clear. I can't find any trace of it on the WWW. It probably isn't a substitute for BYP59-300. It's about 6" long. I may take to keeping it in my pocket in case I'm mugged.

[AVGresponding]

This sounds like rather a pain to me, especially with it being a Frankenstein number.

What's the big diode you are looking for? I have a few in my collection. I can't help with the inductor.

I shan't go to MK. It was rather a trek, was hard to find and wasn't great last year. This year they say they have less parking.

Yes, it's a pain. The big diode is a 1901-0887, which cross-references to BYP59-300, a 50A,300V part. The diode that's fitted in the 20V board is 70A at 150V which is probably a bit close to the approximately 64V maximum output voltage once you factor in ringing and minor mishaps.

I hadn't read about the parking situation, that may not be a problem as I should be selling more stuff, assuming they still have a car boot area.

Is there space to bodge something like this in?

https://www.rapidonline.com/dc-componen ... 0v-47-1012

[Robert]

<SNIP>

I hadn't read about the parking situation, that may not be a problem as I should be selling more stuff, assuming they still have a car boot area.

Is there space to bodge something like this in?

https://www.rapidonline.com/dc-componen ... 0v-47-1012
[/quote]

MK rally site says NO outdoor i.e. "car boot" spaces left and not to turn up expecting one.
I won't be going. I would not be surprised if there is a lack of parking despite the restricted outdoor area.

The diode in the HP supply is a fast power switching diode, part of the buck regulator. A normal diode or part of a bridge won't work.

Robert.

[Zenith]

MK rally site says NO outdoor i.e. "car boot" spaces left and not to turn up expecting one.
I won't be going. I would not be surprised if there is a lack of parking despite the restricted outdoor area.

I recall parking was a bit tight last year when they were allowed to use the Badminton Centre car park. There were cars parked in the road. I imagine it will be worse this year.

I won't be going either. It was too far for what it was, and if parking is likely to be difficult, that definitely rules it out.

[Robert]

Quiet on here.
Some months ago I bought a somewhat tatty HP 8591E 1.8 GHz spectrum analyser. Looked like a bad display but it was just dirty. So easy fix. No options. Last month I put out a request to buy a HPIB interface for it. I had an offer of one from a 8594E free of charge. BIt far away but near a rally the following weekend. So I made a detour and picked it up. Turned out it wasn't a HPIB interface, it was a complete 8954E (2.9GHz) with tracking generator and manuals. One owner/driver from new. Only problem is it has the well known "economy" YIG (eYTO) tuned oscillator failure.
It is so nice otherwise I decided to look at options to repair it. Replacement eYTOs are available but there is no guarantee the issue won't return. And they aren’t cheap. Despite the eYTO being significantly different to standard types I thought as it is still linear tuning changes to the driver might make a standard wide range (2 octave) YTO work. I've since found information that this has been done before. So I've ordered a used Avantek 2-8 GHz from a ebay seller in the USA. It was a bit dearer than a 4-8GHz one in the UK but there is a chance that won't work down to the 3.9GHz required and the seller is a well known for breaking TE for gold content. USA seller is using DHL eCommerce so it should arrive tx and duty paid.
Update when it arrives.

An update on this one.
The AvantekYTO arrived promptly with no duty or fees to pay. It was as described and pictured with the leads cut and a SMA in place with cut semi-rigid coax. This looks bad but It rather have that than one with carefully removed wires if both are sold without warranty by unknown sellers. The cut out one was probably removed as part of a scrapping or de-militarisation process so was probably worked when removed. The neat one may have been part of a repair and is more likely to be faulty.
So I finished up my stalled YTO frequency source / YTO tester project. This is a small box with a 1.5 -3 GHz YTO, PSU and tuning coil current driver. Pertinent YTO connections are brought to a 9 pin D connector on the back. You fit a shorting plug for the internal YTO or a led to an external one for testing or different frequency range. The replacement YTO for the 8594E worked fine and has a 20dBm output (It's a house part number so no data in the usual catalogs). Standard 20MHz/mA tuning current.
Getting access to the YTO in the 8594E is a PITA requiring lots of disassembly. So I decided to trust in my hunch that it would and just go for it. The new YTO and a 6dB attenuator would just fit into the space freed up by removing the eYTO. I made up an adaptor plate so it was mounted using the same fasteners and anti-vibration mounts as the old one. Connected the output via the attenuator to the LO amplifier (8594E has tracking generator option) with a new bit of semi-rigid coax. I'd connected some lengths of wire to the YTO before installing it. Ran the wires up to near the analogue PCB.
Now just needed to modify the coil driver to supply the -5VDC, heater supply and the higher current needed by the Advantek YTO. The existing TO-39 driver MOSFET can't handle the extra current and has inadequate heat sinking. So a TO-220 was mounted on the chassis close by an a short lead with a 3 pin 0.1" connector used to wire it up. The current sense resistors were changed to provide the correct tuning current for the same control voltage / frequency. YTOs have a linear current / frequency response so nothing fancy required. Resistors don't have to be precise values but should be low TC. Originals were bulk foil types 1% near zero TC. These are run close to their rating and thus run quite warm I happened to have a good stock of rather ordinary looking 3W wirewounds (Welwyn W21, the shiny green ones) which happen to have a very low TC <75 PPM/deg.C. Even better the nominal value of these 5% resistors was within 2% of the ideal value for the current sense resistor. So I measured a bunch and picked the closest two. These fitted vertically and even with the increased current runn a lot cooler.
The 859xE use a common analogue PCB across much of the range. As the 8594 doesn't cover the microwave bands it doesn't have a YIG Tuned Filter and the YTF driver components are not populated on the PCB. I was bale to utilise the provision for the YTF connector and driver transistor for the extra YTO connections and -5V regulator. So it all fitted with out any hole drilling, track cutting etc so totally reversible.
So I switched it on, connected a N to BNC lead and pressed "CAL".....
And it works
So I'm a jammy git with a immaculate, one previous owner, with manuals, RAM card and tracking generator 9kHz to 2.9 GHz spectrum analyser for under £100 and a bit of work.

Robert.

[tggzzz]

So I'm a jammy git with a immaculate, one previous owner, with manuals, RAM card and tracking generator 9kHz to 2.9 GHz spectrum analyser for under £100 and a bit of work.

It is pleasing when that happens.

I got an HP8562B at auction and Tek492AP via EEVBlog IIRC, for £350 each.

Both worked from the start, but I replaced RIFAs in both and the Tek fan+controller. Getting to the PSU was a pain in the a**e in both. The 8562 is a mechanical wonder, and with the Tek the wonder is how they managed to get the connectors in the space available.

[EC8010]

Isn't it pleasing when you fix something electronic and it works? As a youf, I was amazed when anything I'd worked on worked. Then I got better and expected things to work after I had laid hands on them. Then I learned some more theory, got more adventurous, and started designing things that were more fragile and on the edge of not working, just to get that last ounce of performance. So I'm back to being amazed when things work.

Not as exotic as your swanky generator, but I've just fixed a 270V regulator that's right on the cliff edge in order to be extremely low noise. Turns out that it didn't like having a 10uF capacitor across its output and died at first power-up (the over-current protection didn't). Measured a few voltages and deduced that a J112 was S/C. Replaced it, and to my amazement, it now works. Silicon and high voltages are often like 1970s unions; one out, all out.

[Zenith]

And it works
So I'm a jammy git with a immaculate, one previous owner, with manuals, RAM card and tracking generator 9kHz to 2.9 GHz spectrum analyser for under £100 and a bit of work.

Robert.

Well you did have to go to some trouble to get it together and had to take some risks.

I don't begrudge you the smug glow when it all came together.

It's a nice story.

[mnementh]

that clock with extra hands puzzled me.

so I googled "clock with two minutes hands", and wadda' ya' know.

it really is an interesting story. never heard about that happening anywhere around here. can't imagine pittsburgh and philly ever keeping their own local time.

but then again maybe....those knuckle draggers in pittsburg probably only have 20 hours in a day, because after that they run out of fingers and toes.

ps whooooops! wasn't the dragon originally from pittsburgh? have not heard from that young fella' in a while.

Hey now... ahh dunn learnt how wear high heels ta keep muh knuckles from dragon on da ground.

mnem
'course, then ahh gott me a swellt haid and moved out to Texas, so YMMV...