Test Equipment Anonymous

“No job is complete until the paperwork is done.” My record keeping consists of 4 loose leaf volumes. Volume 1 is projects, voltage references, vehicle service records, etc. The other 3 volumes are all my TE listed in separate dividers. The data recorded is service history, calibration record, modifications (if needed), etc. The programs used are Open Office* and TinyCAD. The data is backed up via an off line hard drive plus Google Drive. Service manuals if softcopy are kept in a separate data folder and also backed up same method. Hard copy manuals are on a shelf in the TE lab closet. So that's my record keeping. What does everyone else do?

*I'm fully aware that Libre Office is a better program but Open Office meets my needs.

1. Scan it to PDF (Image Capture on Mac)
2. Bin it
3. Organise it
4. Mirrored in iCloud + backed up to AWS S3 + 2x Time Machine local backups alternated off site every quarter.

I wouldn't continue using Open Office. It is dead and completely full of security holes and problems. Just opening documents downloaded is a risk. LibreOffice is not different - it is the successor product at this point.

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 7:46 pm
I wouldn't continue using Open Office. It is dead and completely full of security holes and problems. Just opening documents downloaded is a risk. LibreOffice is not different - it is the successor product at this point.

I don't use Open Office on any downloaded documents. Text documents and spreadsheets generated by me that don't go anywhere except my own files. All downloaded manuals are PDF's.

I sing la-la-la, cross my fingers, and hope I don't get dementia.


get dementia.


get dementia.

MED6753 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 7:38 pm So that's my record keeping. What does everyone else do?

I keep a load of disorganised scrappy notes. I have pdf manuals on my computers and a few paper manuals I ought to scan and put up on the usual sites. It's in my nature.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 8:27 pm I sing la-la-la, cross my fingers, and hope I don't get dementia.


get dementia.


get dementia.

Well it's a thing I've noticed, but didn't want to mention. But since you've broken the ice....

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 9:10 pm I have pdf manuals on my computers and a few paper manuals I ought to scan and put up on the usual sites. It's in my nature.

Yes, and I've done that for manuals that aren't already available. Mine are a damn sight more readable than many

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 9:36 pm

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 9:10 pm I have pdf manuals on my computers and a few paper manuals I ought to scan and put up on the usual sites. It's in my nature.

Yes, and I've done that for manuals that aren't already available. Mine are a damn sight more readable than many

Definitely more readable than the 4 dpi keysight scans...

Generally, TE for which there's no manual isn't worth buying, unless for very little and with an eye to things like knobs and the case. Even if it works, there are likely to be irritating faults which you can't adjust out, and a serious fault makes it useless.

I must drag out the flat bed scanner and scan a couple of manuals, which either don't exist online, or there are only a few crappy circuit diagrams. I've downloaded enough over the years and feel an obligation.

Zenith wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2024 10:08 am Generally, TE for which there's no manual isn't worth buying, unless for very little and with an eye to things like knobs and the case. Even if it works, there are likely to be irritating faults which you can't adjust out, and a serious fault makes it useless.

I must drag out the flat bed scanner and scan a couple of manuals, which either don't exist online, or there are only a few crappy circuit diagrams. I've downloaded enough over the years and feel an obligation.

Just so. My latest ones are three ages of Fuller calculator manual (1916 - ?1447?), and and Otis King calculator manual found in one of the Fuller cases (go figure!)

I tend to use my 2005 printer's 600dpi scanner for anything up to A4. A3 schematics are either gimp-ed together or hugin panorama-ed together. Finally post processing reduces a page to a very legible 30-90KB TIFF image, which I insert in

I take the view that the size of a download, within reason, doesn't matter much these days. 100MB isn't that much for most of us, but lack of resolution is. Circuit diagrams stretching past A4 just have to be accepted as a couple of A4 prints. If you want to print them off, most don't have an A3 printer anyway, but producing an approximation to the way the diagram folded out in the manual, involves the artistic use of scissors, Sellotape and Pritt.

There's something nice about having a proper paper manual, but I run out of bench space with them and in some ways having it on a flat screen is convenient.

I'll have to think about this, but generally I've been happy to have any sort of legible manual at all, especially downloaded for nothing.

Zenith wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2024 9:10 pm I take the view that the size of a download, within reason, doesn't matter much these days. 100MB isn't that much for most of us, but lack of resolution is. Circuit diagrams stretching past A4 just have to be accepted as a couple of A4 prints. If you want to print them off, most don't have an A3 printer anyway, but producing an approximation to the way the diagram folded out in the manual, involves the artistic use of scissors, Sellotape and Pritt.

There's something nice about having a proper paper manual, but I run out of bench space with them and in some ways having it on a flat screen is convenient.

I'll have to think about this, but generally I've been happy to have any sort of legible manual at all, especially downloaded for nothing.

For the occasional A3 printout, I just go to a local printshop. Cheap enough.

What I don't like about many scanned service manuals is that the page (dis)order discards the possibility of expanding the schematic to the left and the BOM/layout to the right.

I dislike 100MB files with a 10MB file struggling to get out[1]. They are inelegant, contain unnecessary noise, and can take a long time to process/display the next image. I also dislike underscanned and overcompressed files too; the Solartron 7075 is a particular pain in that respect.

One advantage of non-scanned manuals is that you can search for word. OCR is a reasonable second-best, but is misleading when (not if) it fails.

[1] Much like post 1980 novels, for that matter

Big monitor, non crappy PDF reader. Problems solved

27" 4k/5k is a nice spot where you get a decent DPI and can fit two pages on the screen or one A3 easily with some room at the edge for navigation.

Preview on the mac is exceptionally good as you can text search it even if it's not OCR'ed and it's about 1000x faster than anything Adobe have managed to come up with. I'm sure there's a Windows/Linux equivalent.

bd139 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2024 10:23 am Big monitor, non crappy PDF reader. Problems solved downgraded by using brute-force

FTFY, but you also need to add "fast processor".

I don't think you need that fast a processor. This is absolutely the bottom end Mac mini which I bought off a colleague for a respectable £250. The monitor cost a hell of a lot more than that...

What you need is a decent PDF rendering engine, graphics stack and OS, which is why I don't use Windows or Linux

tggzzz wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2024 10:41 am

bd139 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2024 10:23 am Big monitor, non crappy PDF reader. Problems solved downgraded by using brute-force

FTFY, but you also need to add "fast processor".

Also "with after-market cooler". When I tried turning a ~ 300 page pdf into an OCR version, it had all six cores and twelve threads at 100% for a long time and the processor began to heat throttle. That was a Ryzen 5 5600G. Most things it zips through in seconds and the stock cooler has coped well enough.

My daughter has a 5600G in her desktop PC and had the same trouble with it. I shoved a fat Be Quiet cooler on it and it is behaving now.

Mac ... whole box 21 watts flat out. Runs cold. Destroys the Ryzen 5600G and Intel 13500 desktops I've compared it against completely . There should be ARM boxes on the PC side but alas piss up/brewery combination is never possible there.

That was the only time it's been overwhelmed. I've been happy with it, but I didn't get it for serious gaming or video editing. It pays to open it and remove the dust every few months. I might well get an aftermarket cooler.

I have chaos.

Having said that, I've made an effort to make a central repository for my electronically stored manuals. My distributed file system (think of a NAS but for grownups with too much time on their hands and a desire to do sysadmin work.) has a volume for them; it currently stands at 3816 MiB. I mostly work off the free downloads, but did buy a few off of Artek; plug-ins for the 5441 scope.

I can print A3 at work, if need be, and I sometimes do.

I have not used Adobe Acrobat for ages; Preview on the Mac is so much better. What BD wrote, period.

bd139 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2024 11:21 am I don't think you need that fast a processor. This is absolutely the bottom end Mac mini which I bought off a colleague for a respectable £250. The monitor cost a hell of a lot more than that...

What you need is a decent PDF rendering engine, graphics stack and OS, which is why I don't use Windows or Linux

Yeah, welcome to the "Third age of Good-Enough Computing". I do this on a 40" 4K TV screen with a 10-year-old FX8350 machine and GPU, and it performs flawlessly. Where shit turns pear-shaped is when I have 100+ tabs open, and I fucking deserve it when that happens.

mnem
pants are highly overrated.

mnementh wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2024 12:41 pm

bd139 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2024 11:21 am I don't think you need that fast a processor. This is absolutely the bottom end Mac mini which I bought off a colleague for a respectable £250. The monitor cost a hell of a lot more than that...

What you need is a decent PDF rendering engine, graphics stack and OS, which is why I don't use Windows or Linux

Yeah, welcome to the "Third age of Good-Enough Computing". I do this on a 40" 4K TV screen with a 10-year-old FX8350 machine and GPU, and it performs flawlessly. Where shit turns pear-shaped is when I have 100+ tabs open, and I fucking deserve it when that happens.

mnem
pants are highly overrated.

I too have a 10 year old FX8350 and it seems to be coping very well, stick a decent graphics card and plenty of RAM in the mix and you're golden. I was thinking about upgrading to Win 11 but as that would also require a new MB and CPU as well as new RAM and maybe new SDD to fully unleash the power, I decided that for the time being I'll stick with what I got and the new RX6500XT GPU. The old GPU I stuck into the Linux machine as that only had a half sized GPU with 1GB RAM, so now I have a better Linux machine and still have a perfectly respectable Win 10 machine as well.

Oh, I'd shoot myself if I had to wait on spinning rust on any of my DOSboxes. Put a SSD in there ASAP, they're so cheap now; even a SATA one will be a completely new machine.

mnem
Spinning rust is for tertiary archive, if at all...

mnementh wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 1:49 am Oh, I'd shoot myself if I had to wait on spinning rust on any of my DOSboxes. Put a SSD in there ASAP, they're so cheap now; even a SATA one will be a completely new machine.

mnem
Spinning rust is for tertiary archive, if at all...

It already has 500GB SSD with the OS on it and all the spinning piles of rust are SATA already, the machine is not that old., the MB was released in 2011.

It depends. For some things like archives and films, you don't need high speed and big SSDs still not cheap in comparison with HDDs. Also for backups

I can't see why 1TB HDDs are still made, especially for laptops.

A reason why HDDs are still used in surveillance systems is write endurance.

I wouldn't assume SSDs have poor write endurance. HDDs just take longer to fail because you can't write to them fast enough to write enough times before they have a mechanical failure. Lots of extrapolation is required. In context a half full WD Purple will get you 80MB/sec if you are lucky. A half full 990 Pro will sustain write 7000MB/sec. Also SSDs tend not to completely fail and remain readable. HDDs go "click" and you've had it and any RAID recovery process has a large risk window on large volumes.

From a statistical failure perspective, it's actually more reliable to have one (decent) SSD than two HDDs in RAID1.

Some anecdata: we haven't had a single HDD in production for 10 years and we have had no SSD failures. The Hitachi enterprise TLC drives wore out after 4 years at a gigabyte/sec sustained write. And they gave plenty of warning that things were going awry so we bought more. Now we're in AWS, on EBS which is SSD backed. Again, no issues but that's because it's a SAN system really.

Simply your data is far safer on an SSD but it's even safer on two SSDs and safest on two SSDs, one of which is not plugged into the computer.

As for what is cheaper, not collecting shite is the cheapest way to manage your storage. Everything I've ever done, every photo I've ever taken, every video I've ever made is in here. Films / archival, forget it - life's too short to manage all that.