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

[Specmaster]

Do you know what it is.....

One presumes a "dial indicator". Which is, if you think about it, a pretty poor name/description as that phrase could refer to any of a thousand things that use a dial to indicate something, for instance a watch, but that is nevertheless the customary and generally understood name for one. Looks like the variety you'd clamp onto the ways of your lathe to establish a reference point.

With that rather chunky looking tip I'd have been tempted to say "hardness testing gauge" but for the fact the scale runs both ways.

But imperial? Really? Then again you're not going to be cutting metric threads on your recent acquisition so I suppose there might be some method to your madness.

No not hardness tester and nothing to do with the lathe or mill. It's for the electroinics workshop. Unusual being double ended, HP ones come as a pair of single ended.

My guess would be something to check on alignment of a tuning capacitor vane on a high-end signal generator or similar?

[Robert]

One presumes a "dial indicator". Which is, if you think about it, a pretty poor name/description as that phrase could refer to any of a thousand things that use a dial to indicate something, for instance a watch, but that is nevertheless the customary and generally understood name for one. Looks like the variety you'd clamp onto the ways of your lathe to establish a reference point.

With that rather chunky looking tip I'd have been tempted to say "hardness testing gauge" but for the fact the scale runs both ways.

But imperial? Really? Then again you're not going to be cutting metric threads on your recent acquisition so I suppose there might be some method to your madness.

No not hardness tester and nothing to do with the lathe or mill. It's for the electroinics workshop. Unusual being double ended, HP ones come as a pair of single ended.

A gauge for measuring precision RF connector pin depth?

-Pat

We have a winner!
N type pin measurement gauge. Makes sure you don't damage the precision connectors on your test equipment.

[Robert]

More TEA
A package tirned up today. Its my £50 Picoscope "2204A" and as expected, rather than a 10MHz 2204, its a 100MHz 2207A
Even better it has the blue Pico USB lead and two TA132 150MHz x1/x10 switchable probes. None of these were in the listing. In fact it said it was a 2204A-D2 wich is the stock number for the 10MHz 'scope without probes.
It all works as well.

Pico-2207A.jpg

[AVGresponding]

Almost missed this: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/ ... -teardown/

[mnementh]

Merry Christmas all you freaks!


mnem

[mnementh]

*Sung in my best booming baritone "Nauseatingly Cheerful Announcer" voice right next to son's bed this morning*

"GOOD MORNING! GOOD MORNING!! GOOD MORNING!!!
Wake up, get outta bed...
Rise & shine, you sleepyhead!!!
GOOD MORNING! GOOD MORNING!! GOOD MORNING!!!"

"grmmnrrrmmmphlmmmphhh.... it's Sunday morning..."

"Son... I hate to break it tooya, but we need to mow the front yard one more time afore the snow flies..."




I think we might have cut it a wee bit close.

mnem
*toddles off to put up the tree*

[Specmaster]

*Sung in my best booming baritone "Nauseatingly Cheerful Announcer" voice right next to son's bed this morning*

"GOOD MORNING! GOOD MORNING!! GOOD MORNING!!!
Wake up, get outta bed...
Rise & shine, you sleepyhead!!!
GOOD MORNING! GOOD MORNING!! GOOD MORNING!!!"

"grmmnrrrmmmphlmmmphhh.... it's Sunday morning..."

"Son... I hate to break it tooya, but we need to mow the front yard one more time afore the snow flies..."




I think we might have cut it a wee bit close.

mnem
*toddles off to put up the tree*

A bit late, we Brits beat you this time, this is the view out of my landing window, and it has been snowing for a while now and the flakes are coming down the size of golf balls. My son is not very pleased as he was duty manager today in his shop and finished at 17:00 hours looking forward to a well-earned day off tomorrow, that was until his boss phones just now and announced that his car is broken-down and as he has to drive about 15 miles to get to work, he will have to get the bus tomorrow and its snowing, so if his bus is not running, my son will have go in and run the shop. That means he has to be up at 05:00 to see if his boss rings him, that also means that I'll have to be up early as well to take him. and SWMBO will also have to be up early as I have to take her to work as well, and if son has to work, she will also have to go her work early to avoid doing 2 runs in the morning in the car.

IMG_20221211_221736.jpg

[mnementh]

Yeah, we expect it to look like that here by morning. We may even get a snow day out of it; time will tell.

mnem
*toddles off to salt the boi's foot*

[bd139]

More TEA
A package tirned up today. Its my £50 Picoscope "2204A" and as expected, rather than a 10MHz 2204, its a 100MHz 2207A
Even better it has the blue Pico USB lead and two TA132 150MHz x1/x10 switchable probes. None of these were in the listing. In fact it said it was a 2204A-D2 wich is the stock number for the 10MHz 'scope without probes.
It all works as well.
Pico-2207A.jpg

That's jammy git award territory that is

[mnementh]

Yeah, we expect it to look like that here by morning. We may even get a snow day out of it; time will tell.

mnem
*toddles off to salt the boi's foot*

Surveying the carnage... Snowplows came through our street over a hour ago; things appear reasonable-safe looking down the street. Didn't get a snow day, but did get a 2-hour delay from both school districts, so I'll be able to draft the boy into service on this mission. Definitely did not get that lawn mowed a moment too soon.

Time to fortify myself with a wee bit of the bitter herb...

mnem

[mnementh]

Sunday's Mission: Primary objective completed, secondary objectives reprioritized due to scope creep. But we have bubble lights a-bubbling and mother angel smiling beneficently down upon us, so I'm mostly content with the results.

mnem
Where did 2022 go...?

[Zucca]

bd managed to piss off Louis Rossmann

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/ ... msg4574260

[mnementh]

Fuck 'im. He's a parasite.

mnem
*ashamed that he is one of the most public faces of the repair trade*

[bd139]

Doing my duty to the public as always.

He's an average phone mechanic with a personality cult, not the bleeding messiah!

I would go 1:1 with him on YT though. I have spent years dealing with enterprise snake oil salesmen and can make them cry. I reckon I can do the same to him.

[tggzzz]

Doing my duty to the public as always.

He's an average phone mechanic with a personality cult, not the bleeding messiah!

I would go 1:1 with him on YT though. I have spent years dealing with enterprise snake oil salesmen and can make them cry. I reckon I can do the same to him.

Some people/occupations have especially large flat feet, designed to be trodden on as hard as practically possible. Enterprise "solutions" droids are one such kind.

It is easy to find the technical flaws in their spiels, but it is more difficult to counter their other tactics. I once had one ask me whether the boss preferred rugby or football. I said skiing and gliding, which was partially correct and partially seasonable

[Specmaster]

Time to fortify myself with a wee bit of the bitter herb...

mnem

That wouldn't be some of that bitter herb that you Mericans chucked into Boston Harbour, would it?

[bd139]

Doing my duty to the public as always.

He's an average phone mechanic with a personality cult, not the bleeding messiah!

I would go 1:1 with him on YT though. I have spent years dealing with enterprise snake oil salesmen and can make them cry. I reckon I can do the same to him.

Some people/occupations have especially large flat feet, designed to be trodden on as hard as practically possible. Enterprise "solutions" droids are one such kind.

It is easy to find the technical flaws in their spiels, but it is more difficult to counter their other tactics. I once had one ask me whether the boss preferred rugby or football. I said skiing and gliding, which was partially correct and partially seasonable

The best tactic I've found against droids is agreeing with them and then doing entirely the opposite. They have no idea how to handle that one and cannot explain it to their overlords adequately enough not to get entirely shafted.

I'm an actual live bastard from hell when it comes to this, even with the 800lb companies like Amazon. Recently I actually made them build a major improvement to one of their products on the promise of significant amounts of revenue. I asked this not because I required it but because they hurt me with it beforehand with immaturity and bugs. Their improvement is being rolled out to all regions on Wednesday this week. When I forced their hand on this I'd already built an entire compatible replacement for their product in under 1 day which is 22% of the cost and we are using that and not AWS.

In the review meeting on Wednesday I will find more bugs and hurt them more.

[Specmaster]

Doing my duty to the public as always.

He's an average phone mechanic with a personality cult, not the bleeding messiah!

I would go 1:1 with him on YT though. I have spent years dealing with enterprise snake oil salesmen and can make them cry. I reckon I can do the same to him.

Some people/occupations have especially large flat feet, designed to be trodden on as hard as practically possible. Enterprise "solutions" droids are one such kind.

It is easy to find the technical flaws in their spiels, but it is more difficult to counter their other tactics. I once had one ask me whether the boss preferred rugby or football. I said skiing and gliding, which was partially correct and partially seasonable

The best tactic I've found against droids is agreeing with them and then doing entirely the opposite. They have no idea how to handle that one and cannot explain it to their overlords adequately enough not to get entirely shafted.

I'm an actual live bastard from hell when it comes to this, even with the 800lb companies like Amazon. Recently I actually made them build a major improvement to one of their products on the promise of significant amounts of revenue. I asked this not because I required it but because they hurt me with it beforehand with immaturity and bugs. Their improvement is being rolled out to all regions on Wednesday this week. When I forced their hand on this I'd already built an entire compatible replacement for their product in under 1 day which is 22% of the cost and we are using that and not AWS.

In the review meeting on Wednesday I will find more bugs and hurt them more.

Get them to sort out their Alexa app then, it bloody well bugs the hell out of me when I ask Alexa to do something like switch the lights ON etc and the thing responds with I can't find any home automation devices on Daniel's account, Daniel is one of my sons and who does not have an Amazon account. I'm the Amazon account holder and everything is set up in my name, so WTF is going on there then

[bd139]

Get them to sort out their Alexa app then, it bloody well bugs the hell out of me when I ask Alexa to do something like switch the lights ON etc and the thing responds with I can't find any home automation devices on Daniel's account, Daniel is one of my sons and who does not have an Amazon account. I'm the Amazon account holder and everything is set up in my name, so WTF is going on there then

Have you tried just throwing it in the bin and switching the light on yourself? Seriously. It's useless. All of it. The only reason Amazon even introduced Alexa was to provide a sales uplift of "hey alexa, order me some more shitpaper" at which point it can ship you "480 rolls of overpriced anal sandpaper from the lowest chinese bidder". Anything else probably doesn't work because unless it drives revenue at Amazon, no one gives a flying fuck if it works or not.

It's a wasteland of shite and you bought a little plastic and electronic portal into it.

Edit: incidentally I don't work with that division. Alexa is retail which are a completely different side of Amazon.

[Specmaster]

Get them to sort out their Alexa app then, it bloody well bugs the hell out of me when I ask Alexa to do something like switch the lights ON etc and the thing responds with I can't find any home automation devices on Daniel's account, Daniel is one of my sons and who does not have an Amazon account. I'm the Amazon account holder and everything is set up in my name, so WTF is going on there then

Have you tried just throwing it in the bin and switching the light on yourself? Seriously. It's useless. All of it. The only reason Amazon even introduced Alexa was to provide a sales uplift of "hey alexa, order me some more shitpaper" at which point it can ship you "480 rolls of overpriced anal sandpaper from the lowest chinese bidder". Anything else probably doesn't work because unless it drives revenue at Amazon, no one gives a flying fuck if it works or not.

It's a wasteland of shite and you bought a little plastic and electronic portal into it.

Edit: incidentally I don't work with that division. Alexa is retail which are a completely different side of Amazon.

No, I was given Alexa as a Christmas present, so I saw a way simply controlling the power and lighting in my lab without major rework moving sockets / switching which would have to get HA approval, which TBH I doubt they would grant, and instead, would want us to give up our 4-bed house for a family who needs it more than we do and move to a smaller house which would send my lab down the shitter for a start, and I'd be forced to spend time sitting with SWMBO watching untold crap on TV and bored to death or divorced. Alexa allows me to switch on and off bits of kit in my stacks that do not have a power switch on the front panel (designers take heed) and access to the rear of the kits is simply a no no, so remote switching is a must, and Alexa does provide that control, cheaply and simply.

[MED6753]

Get them to sort out their Alexa app then, it bloody well bugs the hell out of me when I ask Alexa to do something like switch the lights ON etc and the thing responds with I can't find any home automation devices on Daniel's account, Daniel is one of my sons and who does not have an Amazon account. I'm the Amazon account holder and everything is set up in my name, so WTF is going on there then

Have you tried just throwing it in the bin and switching the light on yourself? Seriously. It's useless. All of it. The only reason Amazon even introduced Alexa was to provide a sales uplift of "hey alexa, order me some more shitpaper" at which point it can ship you "480 rolls of overpriced anal sandpaper from the lowest chinese bidder". Anything else probably doesn't work because unless it drives revenue at Amazon, no one gives a flying fuck if it works or not.

It's a wasteland of shite and you bought a little plastic and electronic portal into it.

Edit: incidentally I don't work with that division. Alexa is retail which are a completely different side of Amazon.

No, I was given Alexa as a Christmas present, so I saw a way simply controlling the power and lighting in my lab without major rework moving sockets / switching which would have to get HA approval, which TBH I doubt they would grant, and instead, would want us to give up our 4-bed house for a family who needs it more than we do and move to a smaller house which would send my lab down the shitter for a start, and I'd be forced to spend time sitting with SWMBO watching untold crap on TV and bored to death or divorced. Alexa allows me to switch on and off bits of kit in my stacks that do not have a power switch on the front panel (designers take heed) and access to the rear of the kits is simply a no no, so remote switching is a must, and Alexa does provide that control, cheaply and simply.

So do these. Cheaply and easily. I've had a similar version for years and they work great. No bugs no bullshit. Obviously these are for USA/Canada 120V but I assume you can get 240V version over there.

https://www.amazon.com/BN-LINK-ES1513-5 ... s9dHJ1ZQ==

[Specmaster]

Have you tried just throwing it in the bin and switching the light on yourself? Seriously. It's useless. All of it. The only reason Amazon even introduced Alexa was to provide a sales uplift of "hey alexa, order me some more shitpaper" at which point it can ship you "480 rolls of overpriced anal sandpaper from the lowest chinese bidder". Anything else probably doesn't work because unless it drives revenue at Amazon, no one gives a flying fuck if it works or not.

It's a wasteland of shite and you bought a little plastic and electronic portal into it.

Edit: incidentally I don't work with that division. Alexa is retail which are a completely different side of Amazon.

No, I was given Alexa as a Christmas present, so I saw a way simply controlling the power and lighting in my lab without major rework moving sockets / switching which would have to get HA approval, which TBH I doubt they would grant, and instead, would want us to give up our 4-bed house for a family who needs it more than we do and move to a smaller house which would send my lab down the shitter for a start, and I'd be forced to spend time sitting with SWMBO watching untold crap on TV and bored to death or divorced. Alexa allows me to switch on and off bits of kit in my stacks that do not have a power switch on the front panel (designers take heed) and access to the rear of the kits is simply a no no, so remote switching is a must, and Alexa does provide that control, cheaply and simply.

So do these. Cheaply and easily. I've had a similar version for years and they work great. No bugs no bullshit. Obviously these are for USA/Canada 120V but I assume you can get 240V version over there.

https://www.amazon.com/BN-LINK-ES1513-5 ... s9dHJ1ZQ==

Yep, I got some of them as well, but unlike where you live, I'm in a densely populated city and loads of other people also have similar devices. I also got my late Mother a set of those, and she found, like I did, someone else would operate their wireless controlled device what ever it was and ours would also operate, and that could be rather dangerous having devices switching at random. I also had a wireless doorbell and I tossed into the dustbin as the bloody thing would activate randomly, especially in the middle of the night.

So in your situation living in the wide open spaces like you do, they are a perfect solution unless one of your nearby neighbours has a set as well.

[bd139]

No, I was given Alexa as a Christmas present, so I saw a way simply controlling the power and lighting in my lab without major rework moving sockets / switching which would have to get HA approval, which TBH I doubt they would grant, and instead, would want us to give up our 4-bed house for a family who needs it more than we do and move to a smaller house which would send my lab down the shitter for a start, and I'd be forced to spend time sitting with SWMBO watching untold crap on TV and bored to death or divorced. Alexa allows me to switch on and off bits of kit in my stacks that do not have a power switch on the front panel (designers take heed) and access to the rear of the kits is simply a no no, so remote switching is a must, and Alexa does provide that control, cheaply and simply.

Fast isolation is number 1 requirement if you have any bench gear. I would reorganise everything so you have at least a reachable master switch somewhere. Asking Alexa to turn shit off when there's a RIFA pumping out smoke is not an option

Life lesson here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXTboF8kusw

[Specmaster]

No, I was given Alexa as a Christmas present, so I saw a way simply controlling the power and lighting in my lab without major rework moving sockets / switching which would have to get HA approval, which TBH I doubt they would grant, and instead, would want us to give up our 4-bed house for a family who needs it more than we do and move to a smaller house which would send my lab down the shitter for a start, and I'd be forced to spend time sitting with SWMBO watching untold crap on TV and bored to death or divorced. Alexa allows me to switch on and off bits of kit in my stacks that do not have a power switch on the front panel (designers take heed) and access to the rear of the kits is simply a no no, so remote switching is a must, and Alexa does provide that control, cheaply and simply.

Fast isolation is number 1 requirement if you have any bench gear. I would reorganise everything so you have at least a reachable master switch somewhere. Asking Alexa to turn shit off when there's a RIFA pumping out smoke is not an option

Life lesson here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXTboF8kusw

That was so funny Seriously though, I do have speedy isolation of all the stacks right by my right hand and it gets operated every night and whenever I leave the lab for any length of time, I want no stinking bloody RIFA releasing the magic smoke on my watch, and certainly not when I'm not there to switch shit off

[tggzzz]

Get them to sort out their Alexa app then, it bloody well bugs the hell out of me when I ask Alexa to do something like switch the lights ON etc and the thing responds with I can't find any home automation devices on Daniel's account, Daniel is one of my sons and who does not have an Amazon account. I'm the Amazon account holder and everything is set up in my name, so WTF is going on there then

About as good as the Tesla voice control.

A salesdroid couldn't show me how to do something basic[1] safely (oops), but said it could use voice control. OK, I said, show me. He managed to turn on the seat heater (oops).

A car that heats your bum but doesn't allow you to see out properly?! Gimme a break! And then there's the DoubleSpeak that "full self driving (beta)" means the driver is, repeat isn't, repeat is, repeat isn't in charge of what the car is doing.

[1] put airflow over the windscreen to demist it