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Re: how high would you stack them?
On Sat, 03 Nov 2018 08:45:31 +0000, you wrote:
Hmmm... Good ideas from you all! What works for me at the moment is a<snip> I have a similar approach. The local "club" stores sell a metal shelf unit, four two piece posts 1 inch in diameter, six wire shelves (try to find the ones that are not like trays), casters, and with plastic compression clips that allow you to space a shelf every inch increment. I have four of them for equipment and parts, and each one has a fitted masonite layer on the shelf that keeps equipment feet from being trapped in the wire shelf, (1/4 inch masonite, cheap, and the local box store cuts it for free). On the back of one or two shelves is a long outlet strip. On the top shelf is an under cabinet light. Made from the remains of an IKEA table (single post design with casters, variable height) is a U shaped workbench. The top is 1 inch melamine (white), doubled. Reasonably sturdy. Outlet strip screwed under the bottom of that one. There's an extension of that which holds the soldering station, microscope, 3D printer and desoldering equipment. The four shelf units are arranged as a beveled corner, two against a long wall, one beveled, and one against a wall. The units have two shelves at bottom and somewhat above for storage. The main shelf is at the height of the workbench. The beveled shelf unit has no bottom shelves, and allows access behind the shelf unit without having to move it. On that beveled shelf is a 7904, a tm5000 rack, on top of it is an HP 16702B logic analyzer, space for a metcal soldering unit and the lab computer. Above that shelf is another with a 7103 scope, two fluke 8040 DMMs, and a 2430A. Above that shelf is another with an HP 3456A voltmeter, a 4262A LCR meter, ah HP 5316A universal counter, a Sencore LC76 capacitor tester, and a Tek 1910 digital test pattern generator (TV). Further than that is storage. Each rack unit has one or two variable intensity multi-color LED strip lights for enough illumination to be able to see controls, but not wash out displays. Your choice of color. Further around the room are calibration/powersupply/RF, tektronix module storage, main LCD screen, digital scope, calibration station for scopes, parts and project storage, etc. It all works, but is subject to revision as I get new equipment or work on something else. Harvey ------ Original Message ------ |
Re: how high would you stack them?
Hmmm... Good ideas from you all! What works for me at the moment is a
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wooden bench in my garage. I made an equipment shelf for it a few years ago. Then a couple months ago I put casters (a few bucks apiece for 275 lb ones at Harbor Freight) on the bottom after beefing up the 2 by 4 's. Now I can move it out from the wall to get at the back. When I move the car out of the garage, of course. Three 12-outlet power strips (from HF, of course) on the back and about half are used. Heavy stuff like SR780 and 8566A spectrum analyzers go on the lower shelf, 8350B sweep oscillator, power meters, power supplies, etc. are at either side of the benchtop, and Tek 5110, 7603, and 7904 and HP 54504A scopes and Wavetek 166 function generator, etc. on the top shelf. Got to keep the center of gravity low so it doesn't tip over. Now I just need a new chair with the seat about 4-5 inches higher than my current chair because the casters raised the benchtop by that much. Next project... Oh yeah, I screwed my HP 8494H and 8495H step attenuators upside-down on the bottom of the top shelf so they don't take up any bench area. GPS disciplined oscillator, distribution amp, and SDRKits vector network analyzer will be similarly mounted when I can scrape up enough dough to buy them. Bench space is at a premium because it's only a 5 by 2 foot bench, and the sides are taken up by the sweeper stack and power supply stack. I'm a musician as well as an EE, so I organized my bench by frequency, with low frequency (pitch) on the left and high frequency on the right, just like a keyboard or a (right-handed) guitar. DC power supplies at the extreme left going up to the 26.5 GHz frequency counter (HP 5343A) at the extreme right. The bench is squeezed between the door going into the house on the left and the water heater in the corner on the right. Someday I'll add a wheeled 19 inch rack, but that's a ways out. I think I can make it fit against the right wall between the water heater in the corner and cabinets along that wall. Most difficult part is selling the idea to my wife! Good luck putting 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag! Jim F ------ Original Message ------
From: "Reginald Beardsley via Groups.Io" <pulaskite@...> To: [email protected] Sent: 11/2/2018 7:56:32 PM Subject: Re: [TekScopes] how high would you stack them? I am just finishing an exercise in cramming a lot of gear into a small --- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. |
Re: Tek 465 "B" Sweep
Hi jeff Responds to stress.....dry joint?...something never soldered?....pcb crack?...resistor cracked?...As you can tell I'm not an expert but pressure related
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faults seem to fall under such headings rather than complex circuit issues. My Regards -----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Urban Sent: Saturday, November 3, 2018 4:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [TekScopes] Tek 465 "B" Sweep Has another problem. The front end of channel 1, the lower V/div. settings result in a distorted square wave, and I mean distorted. Sometimes overpeaked and sometimes underpeaked. I have determined it must be around the X100 attenuator, but not the attenuator itself. the problem occurs when it is supposed to be bypassed. I disturbed the contacts a bit to no avail but putting stress on the body of the attenuator assembly affects it, makes the problem come and go. Some deoxit will be here tomorow but I doubt that is going to fix it. All other ranges are stable, why only the ones that need that doodad bypassed ? why not all of them. Plus being gold plated they never corrode so the only thing that can happen to them is shit condensing from the atmosphere or something like that. I looked it over and RTFMed the R & R of that assembly and it is typical, doable but kinda like working on as Tektronix scope, know what I mean ? I figure maybe the case settled or whatever and isn't letting the fingers seat on the contacts quite perfectly. It could also be solder connections but those are extremely rare in Teks as far as I've seen. I wonder if maybe the bearings or whatever holds the drum might be out of kilter. I figure I'll wait until the deoxit is here and clean it anyway while it is all apart. But all in all I am glad the sweep problem is fixed. I could just run it on one channel if necessary. I dunno, it is better than any of my other scopes right now. Maybe I'll sell a couple of beaters and pay for this one. Actually I want my 7603 back that I sold when I gave up on it, and I think I'll have it when I get my cohort's 7834 fixed. They both have regulation problems and they are coming up soon. I am getting back into it, and liking it. Actually being able to see helps quite a bit. Remember I fried that 7603 because I couldn't see worth a shit. I got plugs reversed and dumped the +130 into the +5, it wiped out the H switching IC but I had one luckily. Eventually I got it running, when I no longer owned it. I LIKE that 7603, I don't care it weighs as much as piano. (well a digital one anyway...) I'll keep you posted, and am looking for ideas as usual. I'll have pictures and whenever the gallery gets really organized, pictures like that can become part of information on how to work on those things for future reference. Not really a tutorial but something like it. I'll bring all my Tek business here. -- Jack |
Re: Tek 465 "B" Sweep
Has another problem. The front end of channel 1, the lower V/div. settings result in a distorted square wave, and I mean distorted. Sometimes overpeaked and sometimes underpeaked. I have determined it must be around the X100 attenuator, but not the attenuator itself. the problem occurs when it is supposed to be bypassed. I disturbed the contacts a bit to no avail but putting stress on the body of the attenuator assembly affects it, makes the problem come and go. Some deoxit will be here tomorow but I doubt that is going to fix it. All other ranges are stable, why only the ones that need that doodad bypassed ? why not all of them. Plus being gold plated they never corrode so the only thing that can happen to them is shit condensing from the atmosphere or something like that.
I looked it over and RTFMed the R & R of that assembly and it is typical, doable but kinda like working on as Tektronix scope, know what I mean ? I figure maybe the case settled or whatever and isn't letting the fingers seat on the contacts quite perfectly. It could also be solder connections but those are extremely rare in Teks as far as I've seen. I wonder if maybe the bearings or whatever holds the drum might be out of kilter. I figure I'll wait until the deoxit is here and clean it anyway while it is all apart. But all in all I am glad the sweep problem is fixed. I could just run it on one channel if necessary. I dunno, it is better than any of my other scopes right now. Maybe I'll sell a couple of beaters and pay for this one. Actually I want my 7603 back that I sold when I gave up on it, and I think I'll have it when I get my cohort's 7834 fixed. They both have regulation problems and they are coming up soon. I am getting back into it, and liking it. Actually being able to see helps quite a bit. Remember I fried that 7603 because I couldn't see worth a shit. I got plugs reversed and dumped the +130 into the +5, it wiped out the H switching IC but I had one luckily. Eventually I got it running, when I no longer owned it. I LIKE that 7603, I don't care it weighs as much as piano. (well a digital one anyway...) I'll keep you posted, and am looking for ideas as usual. I'll have pictures and whenever the gallery gets really organized, pictures like that can become part of information on how to work on those things for future reference. Not really a tutorial but something like it. I'll bring all my Tek business here. |
Re: how high would you stack them?
I am just finishing an exercise in cramming a lot of gear into a small space (bench area 4' x 7', room 10' x 7'). I'm using shelving on the double slotted standards with 2 & 3 tab brackets. In addition to the electronics bench, I have 5 computers, 3 monitors on articulated mounts, 2 UPSes and 2 printers. It's "cozy" ;-) Hand tools and soldering gear are mounted on articulated monitor mounts with the soldering station controllers on a lazy susan.
I only went 8" high mainly so I can pull an instrument without having to disturb more than one other instrument. The shelves are about 20" deep. I currently have HP 34401A size instruments stacked, but I found that if I shove a 2 prong Pomona banana plug to BNC adaptor into a 34401A, the top one wants to slide around, so I'm likely to make sub shelves for each instrument using 1/2" or 3/4" EMT standoffs and 1/4" plywood with stop blocks glued to the plywood to keep things from moving when plugging stuff in. My radios, soldering gear and one scope are on 100% extension sliders so I can store them in the corners and easily pull them out for use. At present I only have a dozen instruments active, but I quickly ran into a problem using regular IEC cords and power strips because of the volume of cables. To resolve that I made a power cable out of 1/2" EMT and handy boxes with each handy box feeding 4 instruments. It took a couple of iterations to get it right. If stud locations in the wall are an issue, *bolt* the shelf standards to a piece of 3/4" plywood at convenient spacing and then screw the plywood to the studs. My instrument stack is only about 27" high, but that's because I have almost 600 parts bins lined up two deep above them. The front row will be on rails and carriages so I can slide the front row to one side to access the rear row. The backs of the benchtop instruments rest on the lowest shelf so the faces of the instruments are inclined at a comfortable viewing angle. The setup is still not complete, but it's getting there. Probes and cables are in Pomona racks on the wall behind the door which opens inward. I'm going to add a second set of racks to the back of the door. The only downside I see to this is I've spent most of a month figuring out what to put where. And it's hard or impossible to reach things on the top shelf without a stool even though I'm 6' 2" because the bench is really in front of the shelves. Reg |
Re: how high would you stack them?
In storage I have 500 series and 7K scopes stacked 5 high.? Never had issues with bent cases.? One of my 19" racks is basically a stack of gear too.? Heavy HP scope on the bottom, gradually getting lighter on the way up.
-Dave From: John Ferguson via Groups.Io <jferg977@...> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, November 2, 2018 12:13 PM Subject: [TekScopes] how high would you stack them? I apologize for my simplicity, but I have height but not a lot of bench space. It occurred to be that there might be a limit to haw many scopes/ TM's one might stack so the question is what are you guys doing. I have a TM 504 with full load of modules on top of bench with a 2445B, next, and then a 2465.? I would like to stack another 2445b on top of that.? (Don't ask why I have 3 similar scopes - they sort of followed me home [legally]) It looks like putting the TM504 on top would make most sense weight wise, but would make it harder to see screen on bottom scope. What is most number of these things you'd put atop a very substantial bench? john |
Tek 371 test fixture
I am working on a tek 371 with a friend of mine , it has no test fixture and these things are never seen on ebay , so our idea is to make one . We are in the process of using a test fixture which will be modded to house a transistor with sense leads .
I am wondering that because this is a high current and high voltage setup what would be an appropriate wire in addition would the length be critical for accuracy, i do not have a unit to look at so i assume all as it relates to designing on that will perform well . If someone has some experience with this unit could you chime in and explain as much as you can , or if pictures are possible of the inner workings that would help. Thanks . |
Re: how high would you stack them?
Hi John,
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Interesting question! 33 years ago my wife and I agreed to split our residential office 50/50. I gradually appropriated about 2/3rds of it. At first I had plenty of room. Then I had test equipment on each desk. My desks wrap around roughly 300 degrees, and I sit in the middle. Of course eventually I ran out of desk surface. Then I had to go up since under all of my desks there were shelves or filing cabinets. Right now my desks have TM5006's stacked either four or five high. I have full height 7K scopes two high. I am pretty much at my limit. Any higher and the top row of instruments would be at an awkward height above eye level. I have so much equipment stacked this way on my desks that I was definitely concerned about the floor not being able to handle the load. During our remodel a few years ago I had the floor reinforced for peace of mind. I have several friends with four or more filled full height racks, plus other test equipment on their desk(s) so other than my "Test Equipment Figure of Merit" (TEFM) being higher than theirs I'm not alone in this respect. You can calculate your own personal TEFM as follows TEFM = (Your Test Equipment Volume) / (Total Volume of your lab - space you occupy). An ideal TEFM would be between 0.5 and 0.75. In my case I have been out of room for a long time and more stuff keeps appearing so I'm above 0.95 and drowning in unfinished projects and equipment waiting to be fixed so I can get it out of here. Whatever makes you happy! Dennis Tillman W7PF -----Original Message----- -- Dennis Tillman W7PF TekScopes Moderator |
Re: 425 Mil vertical module needed....seeking
Hi Harvey..of course take your point on the final comment you made...whether the depot has 'everything needed' to test
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the card to environmental spec was in my mind. I suppose in a way it's like say the ART-13 or BC-348...serviced by depot but post WW11 some number were completely refurbished for Pan Am and other airlines, which may have required (speculating) testing in actual conditions to warranty their reliability. Finding a defective part is finding a defective part..and replacing it..is same wherever done. Military designed some redundant circuitry I believe but I wonder...when your blokes repaired at component level, did they also replace a string of components say between the crook one and the next junction or just the dud? I experienced the easy-extraction system system with the URR391 for example but my experience with CRO's outside of the odd occasion is quite small. My regards -----Original Message-----
From: Harvey White Sent: Saturday, November 3, 2018 9:51 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [TekScopes] 425 Mil vertical module needed....seeking On Sat, 3 Nov 2018 04:16:17 +1000, you wrote: You'd be surprised that the basic difference (perhaps) in the MIL units vs. the commercial units is the ability to remove subsystems. This does not always follow with (for instance), TM500 and TM5000 series. Scopes, however, I'm willing to go with a different model. Having said that, the schematics are often quite similar, and if you can repair a MIL unit without black boxing it, you can repair a civilian unit (especially by swapping boards.... <innocent look>). The similarity happens when you do what's equivalent to depot level test (and my job was mostly designing flightline test equipment). Regardless of the complexity of the item, once you start to diagnose down to a component (if possible), it's really the same thing, regardless of where it happens, depot, manufacturer's testing and rework, or your own lab. Harvey Hi thanks Harvey....yes that's about it.....time saving with a good spares -- Jack |
Re: how high would you stack them?
On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 15:12:44 -0400, you wrote:
I apologize for my simplicity, but I have height but not a lot of benchBecause the bottom layer is either a 7000 scope, or the equivalent in height, with one or two layers of test equipment beyond that.... by the time I get to the third layer, it really wants to be storage. It's a height issue due to how high I wish to look, rather than mechanical (I use individual steel shelves where needed). Harvey
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Re: No contribution from David Hess since July 18th
These connectors are for CATV trunk and feeder lines. They are a special ceramic that expands while heated, and grip the outer aluminum so tight that it will break before it sucks out during a sudden temperature drop. They are installed with an open flame from a propane torch. You tighten the connector to the housing, prep the hardline and slip into the connector as soon as it is hot enough. After it cools, you tighten the center conductor. They are very RF tight, and have a very small insertion loss, or much of an impedance bump. I believe the ones we used were from Raychem, which specialized in Aircraft and Military connectors.
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Michael A. Terrell -----Original Message-----
From: Jack <goldmort@...> |
Re: 425 Mil vertical module needed....seeking
On Sat, 3 Nov 2018 04:16:17 +1000, you wrote:
You'd be surprised that the basic difference (perhaps) in the MIL units vs. the commercial units is the ability to remove subsystems. This does not always follow with (for instance), TM500 and TM5000 series. Scopes, however, I'm willing to go with a different model. Having said that, the schematics are often quite similar, and if you can repair a MIL unit without black boxing it, you can repair a civilian unit (especially by swapping boards.... <innocent look>). The similarity happens when you do what's equivalent to depot level test (and my job was mostly designing flightline test equipment). Regardless of the complexity of the item, once you start to diagnose down to a component (if possible), it's really the same thing, regardless of where it happens, depot, manufacturer's testing and rework, or your own lab. Harvey Hi thanks Harvey....yes that's about it.....time saving with a good spares |
Re: No contribution from David Hess since July 18th
On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 08:05 PM, Dennis Tillman W7PF wrote:
I think that the use of UTC + offset and communicating that offset would *avoid* these problems for all systems and persons involved and not create any. All systems and persons would include users, contributors, databases, search systems etc. Raymond |
Re: 425 Mil vertical module needed....seeking
Hi again Michael...I will not go any further with the reply I sent you on TREC77 as it dawned on me (I'm a bit slow) that it is not connected to the Tektronix
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but happy to hear more on my own email if you wish. -----Original Message-----
From: Michael A. Terrell Sent: Saturday, November 3, 2018 5:17 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [TekScopes] 425 Mil vertical module needed....seeking Did you mean the PRC77? if so, both of its predecessors, the PRC10 and the PRC25 were module based radios that were designed to be repaired by swapping in spare, pre-tuned modules. I did Interchangeability testing on the PRC77, along with final test at the Cincinnati Electronics factory. Michael A. Terrell -----Original Message----- From: Jack <goldmort@...> -- Jack |
Re: how high would you stack them?
If these are all about the same width you could make a rack cabinet with shelves. Open front and back with a little space above each unit for ventilation. Might be that there are shelving items at Home Depot that could be used like side pieces with holes for the clips to hole the shelves. Its worth a look anyway. It would be more stable than just stacking. I know about having more stuff than you have room for.
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On 11/2/2018 1:01 PM, Dave Daniel wrote:
For many years I had a stack of the following sitting at one end of my bench. From bottom to top: --
Richard Knoppow dickburk@... WB6KBL |
Re: No contribution from David Hess since July 18th
Hi Michael....can one buy "pre-shrunk" wire (which actually means before it is shrunk but going along your lines...)to fit into the pre-shrunk heat shrink?
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-----Original Message-----
From: Michael A. Terrell Sent: Saturday, November 3, 2018 5:25 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [TekScopes] No contribution from David Hess since July 18th I guess that you've never seen the heat shrink connectors for .500, .750 or larger hardline that have to be heated to allow you to slide the cable into? They are pre-shrunk. Michael A. Terrell -----Original Message----- From: Dennis Tillman W7PF <dennis@...> -- Jack |
CFL and LED EMI at the bench
FYI I had a huge problem with this. But adding a $3 Chinese EMI filter across the power leads in the light fixture solved it quite nicely. I now keep a bunch them on hand along with various size clamp on ferrite chokes.
I also use a small loop on a scope probe to track down noise. My HP Z400s emit quite a lot of noise at the PSU fan aperture, so I cover them with a 4" square of 1/8" metal screen (aka hardware cloth). There's also some emission from the fronts, but I've not fixed that yet. My initial probe loop was about 1/4" and wound on the shanks of drill bits to be a snug fit on the probe tip. Now that I have suppressed a lot of the noise, I plan to make some larger diameter loops. Naturally, I've taken this to demented levels. All my instruments are now powered via a custom harness made of 1/2" EMT and cut off IEC cords with 5/16" flex steel sheathing. Except for the GPSDO feed, all the instruments are powered though a single switch with the soldering gear on another switched circuit with a hardwired light to make it obvious that the soldering gear is under power.. The motivation for this was the discovery that while the front of my GW Instek MSO was quiet, the other sides emitted a huge amount of SMPS noise which was readily picked up by the power leads for other instruments. I've yet to make measurements of the conducted EMI present on the power line, but will eventually. I also plan to add an isolation transformer and a large EMI filter between the feed and the wall mains outlet. An additional factor was having a dozen instruments stacked on a couple of shelves. I initially used a regular power strip but the fat wad of power cords at the strip became very awkward. My entire workspace is 7 x 10 ft, 4 x 7 ft for the bench and the rest for my chair, 5 computers, KVM switch, dual monitors and a pair of printers. It's "cozy". |
Re: how high would you stack them?
For many years I had a stack of the following sitting at one end of my bench. From bottom to top:
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HP 8660D signal generator HP 8556B spec an (both sections) Tektronix TM-5006A, fully loaded HP 3456A precision voltmeter Heathkit GC-1000 clock These were in a single stack on a very heavy wooden/laminated bench top which sat on two steel 3-drawer pedestals I bought from Global Industries. I had no support problems and no heat dissipation problems. I have also had two 7000-series ¡®scopes stacked with no problems, but I always worried about knocking the top off because there is no way to have them interlocked. DaveD Sent from a small flat thingy On Nov 2, 2018, at 15:12, John Ferguson via Groups.Io <jferg977@...> wrote: |
Re: 425 Mil vertical module needed....seeking
Hi Michael....how interesting....no not the PRC, I know the sets you mean though....this was a 'pioneer' set...CW on Tx/Rx and AM on Rx only. RT654A/TRC 77. Still sought after
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as a great set....crystal locked but can VFO their current drain on Rx was very small....The US equivalent of Special Air Service regiment (they don't like being called SAS by civies) used them. I think the term was 'pioneer'...Parts of it were hinged to swing up for service...well so did the p/s of the BC 342 I guess so maybe that's not so modular! I own one so I must have a closer look..it's been on the shelf for some years, I never even tried it for working but set about trying to collect the associated bits and pieces...not easy here as the gear in strictly USA. I think there is one of more TRC77 groups amongst the Hams....I recall seeing a very long photographic blurb on them. I t was a lot easier to carry lightweight spare modules than complete units...but that was really 50's technology emerging as weight diminished with solid state and extra low voltage. What I see as the forerunner of the PRC 77, the BC1000, was not an easy repair. Did you find much card failure? My regards -----Original Message-----
From: Michael A. Terrell Sent: Saturday, November 3, 2018 5:17 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [TekScopes] 425 Mil vertical module needed....seeking Did you mean the PRC77? if so, both of its predecessors, the PRC10 and the PRC25 were module based radios that were designed to be repaired by swapping in spare, pre-tuned modules. I did Interchangeability testing on the PRC77, along with final test at the Cincinnati Electronics factory. Michael A. Terrell -----Original Message----- From: Jack <goldmort@...> -- Jack |
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