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

[Robert]

Yes you can,
I said this on the original thread
Hi,
No specfic restrictions on carrying capacitors on passenger aircraft. However it is an unusual case and supercapacitors did not exist when most regulations were written. The energy limit for batteries is 100 Wh or 360 kJ. A 310 F 2.7 V capacitor is 1.1kJ so well under.
I suggest carrying them with the terminals securely shorted, each capacitor in a separate plastic bag and then packed with padding / bubblewrap. Ideally mark "NOT BATTERIES" and put a printout of the datasheet with them. Put them in CHECKED baggage. The marking is in case they open the bag during security checks. Don't put anything with cables near them in the bag. Devices with energy stored in them are normally limited to cabin baggage so that any overheating can be detected and action taken. Carrying supercapacitors in checked baggage is not a good idea because screening staff will not know what they are. If shorted there is no energy so OK to put into checked baggage.

[TonyAlbus]

Hi guys!

so i guess we moved here...
groups io is not anymore?
looks a lot better here.

Tony

[Specmaster]

Hi Tony, yes it is much better here, but good old groups.io did us all proud while bitseeker worked his magic on this one for us to move over into. I don't think it was meant to be the defacto final platform, more of a trail of it, but it seems that we all appear to agree that this does currently sit rather nicely as a good fit for us and apart from perhaps a tweak here and there, especially in my view, the Smilies need a bit a more development, it is certainly usable.

Perhaps others may have a different opinion, and maybe bitseeker has other ideas that he might announce when he has more time available, but for the time being at least, this is working just fine.

Three cheers for bitseeker for taking the decisions he has and given us another home, away from EEVblog where we have a general discussion about anything we like (within reason) or we can opt for other threads of a more dedicated theme, without fear of upsetting anyone, so well done to bitseeker.

[Cerebus]

Bought something at the last Ramco auction. Not TE, a 19" rack mount radio receiver. Yet again poor packing by Ramco and poor handing by Parcel Force resulted in a bent side frame and bowed front panel.

One thing sent to me by Ramco a few years ago (pre-covid) had a bent carrying handle for similar reasons. It worked, I bent it back, Ramco wasn't helpful but I didn't push it.

Let us know if Ramco are more helpful now.

I would certainly think twice before having something fragile sent to me, e.g. a scope too small to be on a pallet.

This should have been no surprise as the name is there "right on the tin". Ramco - Ram Co. A company that rams things. Into the box, down the stairs...

[mnementh]

*imagines a auction house where all employees handling, selling and packaging articles are grumpy male sheep in rut*

mnem

ramco.jpg

[dl6lr]

Well, you can never have too many meters, can't you?

Just some days ago a friend asked to measure some inductors and crapacitors. He specifically asked "Do you have a R&S LARU and/or KARU?"
I responded: "Yes!" And said that he has a demanding job, as he wanted to measure a 2% change and both are specified at about this tolerance. So I said:
"Well, we can do a shoot out to compare:"
1. R&S LARU/KARU
2. R&S LRT/KRT
3. Hameg HM8018 LC meter
4. Metrapont RLC2
5. DER DE-5000
6. Cheap chinese Multifunctiontester (AVR Transistortester)

And now coming soon: Wayne Kerr 4265 AKA Philips PM3606 automatic RCL meter (with serial interface). Announced to arrive on monday (sellers image):

PM6306.jpg

Wish me luck

[mnementh]

Oh, that's entirely too nice a bit of kit. I feel dirty and unkempt just looking at it. ...

mnem
This space [___] for rent.

[MED6753]

Odd "rainstorm" we are currently having here.

[mnementh]

Yup; similar here. Weather advisories, and local schools have cancelled after-school activities as a safety measure.

mnem
*A Connecticut dwagon in Mark Twain's backyard*

[25 CPS]

I was originally going to do a post about the Tektronix scope and Siglent arbitrary waveform generator I picked up on the weekend but I think the next electronics project I do is going to be some home security stuff. I posted about the shopping cart that got dumped outside the neighbours' house and sat on their front lawn for the better part of a week before it disappeared. It's indicative of how things have deteriorated here in general.

I came home from work this evening and this is what was waiting for me:



It looks like the one shattered window in the screen door is the only damage that was done to the house while I was at work. I have no idea if this was done by the neighbour who likes to cut the strings of Christmas lights or if it was someone else. The next electronics purchase is going to be some security equipment starting with cameras that I can check on remotely.

[tggzzz]

Yep. Not good to reuse passwords across sites in general. And with the way companies sell identities (and associated data), it's good to have a unique email address per site, too, if you can.

Gurglemail helps there, since they (legitimately) have their own rules for processing what's in front of the "@". In particular, all these will end up in the same inbox:
foobaz@gmail.com
foo.baz@gmail.com
foobaz+companyname@gmail.com

I once used the latter to demonstrate that "companyname" had allowed my email to leak.

[tggzzz]

The next electronics purchase is going to be some security equipment starting with cameras that I can check on remotely.

Daughter likes the ring doorbell, since it tells her smartphone someone is approaching and she can see who it is before opening the door.

It also alerts her dog, even when the door is 50miles away and receding at 70mph

[mnementh]

mnem
Can't imagine who that reminds me of...

[Specmaster]

mnem
Can't imagine who that reminds me of...

Reminds me that rich people have labels on their clothes, happy people have cat hair on their clothes.

[tggzzz]

Can't imagine who that reminds me of...

Reminds me that rich people have labels on their clothes, happy people have cat hair on their clothes.

I'd modify that to nouveau riche people have labels on their clothes, happy people have dog hair on their clothes, rich people don't care whether their clothes have labels or holes.

[Specmaster]

Can't imagine who that reminds me of...

Reminds me that rich people have labels on their clothes, happy people have cat hair on their clothes.

I'd modify that to nouveau riche people have labels on their clothes, happy people have dog hair on their clothes, rich people don't care whether their clothes have labels or holes.

I'd go along with either dog or cat hair

[dl6lr]

Regarding the Wayne Kerr 4265 AKA Philips/Fluke PM6304, I undressed it to have a look for tiny stinkers.
I did not find Schaffner or Rifa but a Corcom socket/filter/switch/fuse combination. Was left in the box.

20230122_121313.jpg

Power supply and brain:

20230122_120726.jpg

Metering:

20230122_120757.jpg

Bottom side:

20230122_120818.jpg

Front panel flex cable for measurement sockets:

20230122_120911.jpg

Front panel brain:

20230122_120935.jpg

Handsoldered decoupling capacitor:

20230122_120850.jpg

Took some measurements the other day, seems to be working very well. Now have to build a 2mm to 4mm adapter bracket for 4wire clips. The 8 pin circular Lemo connector is not that cheap...

[nixiefreqq]

just got an urgent request from a buddy.

the karaoke machine at his favorite bar won't power up and he wants me to fix it.

seriously?

[MED6753]

I'm in Florida enjoying the sunshine and 27 C temperatures and I don't give a shit about nothing.

[Cubdriver]

I'm in Florida enjoying the sunshine and 27 C temperatures and I don't give a shit about nothing.

Good timing, Mike - it's supposed to be getting REALLY cold for the next few days. It'll hurt that much more after being spoiled by those low-mid 50s (10-13ish °C) temps we had last week. Enjoy the nice weather!

-Pat

[25 CPS]

The next electronics purchase is going to be some security equipment starting with cameras that I can check on remotely.

Daughter likes the ring doorbell, since it tells her smartphone someone is approaching and she can see who it is before opening the door.

It also alerts her dog, even when the door is 50miles away and receding at 70mph

I've been thinking about it but have mixed feelings about some of the things that Ring gets up to with their camera feeds. On the other hand, crime in the neighbourhood has been increasing and then there's the issue of the neighbour vandalizing the lights in my back yard repeatedly. Regardless, there are going to be cameras enough going up soon to keep an eye on three sides of the house, four if I figure out a way to deal with the side immediately adjacent to that neighbour's driveway. Strangely, I'm not too upset about the shattered pane of glass in the screen door in and of itself. Something more important than that costing far more to fix and requiring immediate repair could've been damaged instead. What bothers me is that it happened.

Anyways, with respect to the recently purchased test equipment, the scope is a Tektronix TAS 485 which is a four channel 200 MHz machine from the last days of the analogue oscilloscope era. It's going to be racked on top of the Tektronix TDS 644 on my bench so I can go between four channels of digital and four channels of analogue depending on what best meets my needs for any given piece of work. The Siglent arbitrary function generator is going to be put somewhere. I'm tossing around a couple of different possible locations but don't have anything specific in mind yet unlike the Tektronix. The benefit is its compactness compared to most of the other equipment on the bench so finding it a spot to wedge it in shouldn't be too difficult.

[tggzzz]

The next electronics purchase is going to be some security equipment starting with cameras that I can check on remotely.

Daughter likes the ring doorbell, since it tells her smartphone someone is approaching and she can see who it is before opening the door.

It also alerts her dog, even when the door is 50miles away and receding at 70mph

I've been thinking about it but have mixed feelings about some of the things that Ring gets up to with their camera feeds. On the other hand, crime in the neighbourhood has been increasing and then there's the issue of the neighbour vandalizing the lights in my back yard repeatedly. Regardless, there are going to be cameras enough going up soon to keep an eye on three sides of the house, four if I figure out a way to deal with the side immediately adjacent to that neighbour's driveway. Strangely, I'm not too upset about the shattered pane of glass in the screen door in and of itself. Something more important than that costing far more to fix and requiring immediate repair could've been damaged instead. What bothers me is that it happened.

Yes, difficult tradeoffs. Doubly so when you consider whether the camera will actually capture malefactors in sufficient detail for identification. Around here the buggers wear balaclavas and plain clothes.

Whether the police/courts could or would do anything is a separate issue. Police do perk up their ears when they hear cameras have captured something, and it makes it more difficult for them not to write a crime report. OTOH courts might be interested in your "invading the privacy" of your neighbour.

Difficult neighbours will always find a way to be difficult, unless you convince them you could be a bastard bully too.

And your last sentence is a good summary

[Cerebus]

Whether the police/courts could or would do anything is a separate issue. Police do perk up their ears when they hear cameras have captured something, and it makes it more difficult for them not to write a crime report. OTOH courts might be interested in your "invading the privacy" of your neighbour.

Two points: (1) Legislation intended to limit the invasiveness of CCTV must count as the least enforced legislation since the requirement (now long repealed) for horseless taxis to carry fodder for the horse.(2) Even the cheap Chinese CCTV cameras have a facility to 'paint' in areas like neighbour's windows/doors/pathways that won't be recorded. I know the latter as I've been reading the manuals for lots of inexpensive CCTV IP Cameras as I've been looking for a camera to keep an eye on the fox family that have made their home in the ivy at the bottom of my garden.

[25 CPS]

Yes, difficult tradeoffs. Doubly so when you consider whether the camera will actually capture malefactors in sufficient detail for identification. Around here the buggers wear balaclavas and plain clothes.

Whether the police/courts could or would do anything is a separate issue. Police do perk up their ears when they hear cameras have captured something, and it makes it more difficult for them not to write a crime report. OTOH courts might be interested in your "invading the privacy" of your neighbour.

Difficult neighbours will always find a way to be difficult, unless you convince them you could be a bastard bully too.

And your last sentence is a good summary

It's a small start, but I picked up a couple of discounted wi-fi cameras, but it's a start. I'm not thrilled about the tradeoffs involved but I don't really see much of a choice given the Christmas lights that get cut a couple of times a year, the window in the screen door being shattered, my minivan being stolen in 2017, the other neighbours who've had their cars broken into, etc.

With respect to camera footage pushing the police to file reports instead of doing nothing, you're right of course, but nothing much happens beyond the report going into a file never to be seen again. The one positive thing that might do though is push the officially reported crime statistics up a bit so that it more closely reflects what's actually going on in the community. This used to be a good neighbourhood when I moved here. It still is in most ways; the people who live here aren't the problem* for the most part, it's that it's become an attractive area for criminals to go look around to do their thing.

* the miserable wretch next door being the exception that proves the rule.

[tggzzz]

All understood and excepted.

The only points I would add are pretty obvious.

Try to find a camera that isn't a security hole w.r.t. "unauthorised remote streaming" or crappy server security and/or giving access to your network. Definitely change the password! Try to ensure photos are available: buggers can break phone/broadband connections and nick computers.