New arrivals 13.

Here are a few "new" test equipment just arrived to my lab. I can tell that I almost have everything I dreamed about. Actually I have to go back to my electronics journey (There other things I'd like to achieve until I get there, but looks like, back on track)

From up to down:

HP 53132A Universal Counter

I already have an Agilent 53131A. I not really need this higher precision one, but as I had the opportunity to upgrade for not too much money. The 53131A has the HS oven. It will move to this one.

YEW (Yokogawa) 2533 Power Meter

I wanted to have a power meter for a while, but the cost of those was not acceptable for a home lab. I got this one for a reasonable price. Also, this is a 3 phase unit, what is a plus.

This is capable to work up to 600V but the power supply is 115V unit, so not compatible with the 230V mains here. Fortunately a few years ago, by mistake I built an external 115V AC supply (nothing fancy just a small transformer in an appropriate box, with the required connectors and mains switch), what come handy now.

HP 4284A Precision LCR meter

This is an awesome piece of kit. I wanted to have a continuous tuning high frequency LCR meter for a while. This is capable to work until 1MHz what is much better than my current HP U1733C.

Burabu find

Today I was on Burabu (local hamfest).

Scored these things:

The Mean Well supply for 1500Ft (less than €4), and all of the other things for 10.000Ft (~€25).

I got those just for the enclosure or maybe the power supply.

Looked around. I found loop power amplifier for €877 on the internet. Most probably its real value is far from this. I just thinking if it can be sold online for substantial money, or just scrap it as I planned when bought it.

New Arrival 11. - kind of...

New Old arrival.

The things I picked up today are not new, not even for me.

A friend started a community lab a few years ago. I donated to him a bunch of test equipment. Actually I had a much smaller lab myself, and I over collected things.

Then came the COVID. This killed the the lab. 

My friend finally gave up, repurposed the lab, for his own purposes.

Most of the equipment I gave, has not too much use for him. He felt, that it wouldn't be appropriate, to give away those things. So we agreed, that the equipment he doesn't need, or used come back to me.

Today I went to the lab, and picked those up.

Bunch of FreeScale (now NXP) development boards, a CubieBoard, two BeagleBones, and a big Analog Devices Backfin development kit.

Also some nice test equipment:

Fluke 8500 multimeter, a Fluke/Philips PM3082 Oscilloscope (Even, I have a second one from this), a Tektronix 1240 and a 1241 logic analyzer.

For the logic analyzers I even have the original carrying case for the probes (with full of probes).

My plan is to switch on, test, and sell most of the things above, as I barely need them (may keep, some of it, but this is not the main plan)

New Arrival 10. - Additions to my lab

There are many other things arrived since the last "new arrival" post, but today, I'd like to focus on the additions to my lab.

Agilent 53131A

Actually a few years ago I bought a 53181A Frequency Counter. Actually one of my former projects required a two channel counter, so it was itching in me, to get the bigger one.

For surprise my old 53181A had the high stability oven option. So now, I moved the OCXO reference to the new unit. I'll sell the 53181A finally (no, don't ask for the price, I've the buyer for it).

I finished the project were I think before, I need the analog multimeter, during the weekend - without it. Before that I scored this nice Hioki FET multimeter.

I don't know, if or when will I need it, but for ~$40 is nice addition to my lab (actually building some bench unit is still in my focus)

I still have one half junk PM3082 oscilloscope lying around. I didn't give up to repair it. There is no picture on the CRT. My suspect is the high voltage supply. Playing with the 16500V rail is not a child play.

I scored this for nuts, to achive the task (when I have time for it):

Fluke 80K-40 probe in carrying case. Good for 40kV.

Two additional equipment. Those are not yet arrived. Those are somewhere at the currier services

Bruster Digistant 6405

Yes, I have already a similar unit, but for GBP60, I can't leave it there.

Boonton 8201 Modulation Analyzer

No, I will not become an RF guy. Actually I've four Panasonic/Leaver VP-8193 units. I want to test, repair them (and finally sell three of it).

I read through the service manual. I have most of the required or similar test equipment mentioned in the manual (Audio Analyzer, Oscilloscope, Low frequency spectrum analyzer, multimeters, etc.)

The only missing piece was the Modulation Analyzer/Measuring Receiver. The manual mention HP 8901A/B or 8902A. Those units are going for insane price on the eBay.

I was thinking to try to simulate the function with my HackRF SDR, but I think the result will be questionable, and probably need some programming, what is time.

I was so fortunate to score this unit for the third of the cheapest HP 8901A. I think this one has the same, or better function, and optically looks much better, than any HP unit I seen online.

New Arrival 9.

2023.01.05: It is kind of funny (or annoying you can judge).

My resin printer was ordered at the beginning of December in one single order.

Before Christmas arrived:

Shipment 1. - The printer itself

Shipment 2. - The wash & cure machine

Shipment 3. - 1l resin + air pure units

Yesterday arrived one single extra wash container (Shipment 4.). And still things are remaining. I don't know, how much this cost to AnyCubic.

2023.01.06: I was working a project previously. It is a replacement of the TCA530 IC what can be found in many FM radios before the era of the digital synthesis (PLL). It is a precision power supply for varicap diodes and AFC circuit. As it has an internal heated reference, but reside in a PDIP package, it intend to die after 30-40 years.

So I found a schematic for the replacement. I made some minimal adjustment on it, and shrink to fit two small PCBs, make it a pop in replacement (it is just higher than the original IC, but most of the cases it is not an issue).

This unit has some issues (questionable AFC performance, different reference voltage), so I intend to develop a v2 version, but now, from my own ideas and not a publicly available circuit diagram.

For this I was eagerly needing a working original IC.

I ordered two, it wasn't cheep. Arrived. One of my family members took the package.

It was put somewhere in the flat, so disappeared forever.

Ok, so ordered second time, now it is here

No, please don't even ask. It is not for sale. At least until, the v2 replacement is ready.

2023.01.09: The local government operated post are mostly a bunch of idiots. A package arrived for me to a post office, what is not the close one to the delivery address and not the central distribution center. They just put there (I guess) randomly.

Anyway. Picked it up:

Finally: spare screen protector, vats, fep foils arrived. With this my Anycubic order is complete. Five separate shipments of one single order. I think it is neither economical nor environment friendly. 😕

Anyway, I can start my resin experiments as soon I get there, to have time for it.

Same day. Currier came:

Big ass ESP32 board. Ordered it for some USB/Bluetooth HID experiments. I've an idea in my mind, so, we will see (as soon the current projects ready)

Same shipment:

Four different microphone module. I need it for my current project. I'll write about later. It has a same secrecy as my Melodyn project was - it can be presented when the surprise factor is over. In mid March.

2023.01.14: I was on the monthly HAM flea market as usual in the last few month.

As previously this time also picked up some interesting things.

AC milivoltmeter. Yes I know it is East-German, it is not the best quality. But it look clean, and I guess for $15 still worth it. I wanted to have an analog AC millivolt meter, but two channel dual needle configuration, but for a while, I can use this if needed.

A bonus thing (unfortunately, not mine):

It is a Bizerba weight scale large VFD display. Got it from a friend on the flea market, to do the hard work of reverse engineering, additional hardware design and driver writing for Arduino.

New Arrival 8.

I mainly forgot to continue the new arrival series. Actually I just picked up some things today.

First a Philips PM6668 1GHz frequency counter for an insane €25.

As I have two counters already on the side of the ones I designed, I didn't keep it as I bought it for a friend who were looking for an RF counter for a while.

Also picked up three Leaver (Panasonic) VP-8193D generators for €125 each (to be honest, I payed for those at least a month ago already, just didn't find the time to pick it up)

One of it has a service sticker stating, it is dead, the others are untested, so those can also have problems. Some repair job is waiting for me on those.

On the side of the generator also picked up an ultrasonic cleaner for €75. It was a bit dirty, already cleaned it. It is bigger unit than my previous one. Also has a tap to drain the water, has heater and timer.

As a surprise the size is the same, what used by the ultrasonic record cleaners, what I intend to have. Now I don't need anything else than build the rotating mechanism for this. So, I have a new project. 😂

Unboxing day

Finally after Christmas I arrived to my lab.

Look what arrived

First a whole set of Anycubic Photon Mono 4k printer:

To be honest I've no idea yet, how to make this thing working. Lot of reading, YouTube videos are waiting for me before I have the courage to start to print on it. Actually a 5l isopropyl alcohol I ordered for washing is not here yet. Also I may need some additional things to buy for keeping the whole thing clean.

I need to figure out soon, how to use this, as this little guy is eagerly waiting to be printed out:

Actually a few years ago I bought a Parkside column drill at Lidl. I'm not really happy with it from various reasons. Now here is the replacement:

I thank for my family those things. I'll get good use of it.

New Arrivals 7.

It's been a while since I wrote about, what is arrived, so this will be long.

Power AMP board

I bought a few 2x30W D Class amps. It cost $1.73 each. Actually I have a yet secret project, where I need it (just one, but bought 5, who knows, when it is needed)

Loudspeakers

Also for the project above. Four full range 3" Aiyima loudspeakers. I don't know if they are any good. I just hope, it will be good enough.

Akai AT-52

I've a project, I put a bit aside. Some of the people know me, knows that I'm a kind of collector for the old Akai Hi-Fi gears. The project is to repurpose the Akai AT-A1 tuner to a network audio player. I've a big setup of the "A" series equipment (VS-304, AV-U8, AM-A3, EA-A7, DT-A2, AT-A2, CD-A7, GX-R66, GX-R88, GX-R99, AP-A2). I feel it would be a great addition to this set.

Nowadays, I found an entry in the international Akai group on the Facebook. Somebody built a similar thing for the "Reference Master" series. "Accidentaly", I also have a Reference Master set. So I can't resist to order an AT-52 from the eBay for $8. The same unit he used for the project. Now I have it, I'll put on the list of future projects also.

Here is the link for the unit I seen. The video is somewhere in the comments. If you are not a member of the group,  you will not see it! Sorry.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/582950145140634/posts/4288775054558106/

Gimbal parts

I was writing previously about my gimbal project idea. The things I ordered for it, arrived.

The gimbal itself.

The remote control radio board.

And the unexpected. This little fellow was in the Electrodragon package arrived. I guess, by accident. I don't know, what this is good for, but I intend to figure out later.

VFD

Somebody was selling a bunch of nice VFD displays for just a few coins (around $0.5 each). So I bought ten of it.

Looked around a bit and find a suitable driver IC PT6324. Ordered from Aliexpress, it arrived also. Some design and build will follow in a separate post.

VXI function generator

I have several VXI mainframes already. Even function generator in it. But I couldn't resist. Bought an HP E1340A for $30. Brand new, in it's original box.

Nuvoton Dev kits

Postponed, but not forgotten project of mine to build a decent, new generation for my GPIB interface. Until now I built it based on ATMEGA328P + CH340G and an other version on ATMEGA32U4. Both using USB-CDC and the Prologix protocol.

During my later research I realized, I may utilize USBTMC for the interface. Yes, probably this still can be achieved with the 8bit AVR. But, would not be more fancy to use 32bit ARM for this?

The problem is that most (almost all) of the ARM MCUs built with 3.3V power and logic levels. The GPIB is still a 5V business. Yes, you can find ones tolerate 5V signals - but not generating it. If it come to the integrated USB requirement, the picture is even worst.

The only manufacturer I know, who added automated level shifters on every GPIO pins of the ARM MCU (only for Cortex-M0) is Nuvoton.

Previously, I played with Nuvoton MCUs with some success, until the CooCox IDE development and support completely dead. From that moment any free development platform seized to exists for Nuvoton MCUs.

A few years passed, and things happened:

• Nuvoton created his own Eclipse based free IDE
• Started to sell MCUs and dev kits directly on their web site.

The project above come into my mind, so I blow the dust from my old dev kits. Than I realized, the one I intended to use for this project is faulty. Unable to finish even the MCU initialization sequence.

This were the point, when I ordered new dev kits and MCUs for this project directly from Nuvoton.  They even provide 90% off from the first 5 MCUs from each type as sample. Those arrived also:

Pomona clips

Find some nice Pomona test clips locally for SO chips. These are never enough, so bought it.

Color headers

When I build something on a breadboard, it is always a struggle to connect to the external word. Specially for power connections (No I don't mean those nice breadboard capable power supplies. Those are only good for logic supply.). What if I build a small box with pin headers and banana sockets. If I do it this way, I need some color coding. So here a few colorful pin headers for this.

Magnifier

Have you ever had some equipment, what accidentally always fall into your hands when you need its functionality? Not because it is the best in its class, or whatever. Just because you feel it is best for you in that moment. For me, one of this things is a tiny folding magnifier. I have one for decades already. It was just a marketing gift.

As it serving me for long while, just pop into my mind: Why I don't try to find it online and buy a few to keep it around wherever I go. Found it on the AliExpress, so it is here now.

Door lock

This little fellow, you can find on many electronic equipment, mainly on the doors hiding additional buttons and knobs. I also needed it for my secret project mentioned above.

HP 3457A

I looking for it for a long time already. Usually find it on the eBay for high price, and from the other end of the world with horrible shipping cost.

I just realized this unit is selling from Hungary on the eBay. I had a hunch. I didn't know the seller profile but it felt like the guy I bought my VXI things and the Panasonic FM generator.

I wrote to him on the messenger. Is this yours?

The unit was in my hands two hours later.

From the desktop multimeters, never enough. 😆

New Arrivals 6. - (special edition)

Today, I only want to write about one thing arrived, as it is a bit special to me and need some more attention.

This is a bit strange, nostalgic story.

In my childhood I was living behind the "iron curtain". There we have very little possibilities to get things from the western part of the world. I had obsession to music, the audio electronics in my teenage years. Even I was "working" as a DJ in the school. I had two cassette decks, built a mixing station for this.

I was eagerly need a headphone. My mother time-to-time had the opportunity to travel to the west. Once she bought a headphone for me (some no-name thing, but I was really happy with it).

Years elapsed, more and more Hi-Fi things arrived to the country. To support the music and Hi-Fi loving audience, a magazin appeared on the local market: http://www.hifimagazin.hu/

Once they was running a headphone test: http://hifimagazin.hu/HFMCD/HFM/CIKKEK/HFM2410.HTM

There were AKGs, Beyerdinamics, Sennheisers, etc. the good big names. Those were first unavailable in the country and also as a moneyless student, I can't afford them even if it would be on sale locally.

I just find the KWH HOK-80 on the list, what got good verdict, was available for the money acceptable to me, so I bought it based on the article.

It had great sound, but you had the feeling when you put it on, like your head would be in a machine vice.

You can't tolerate this "comfort" for a long time.

I was a gadgeteer kind of guy already these days. So I built the orthodynamic panels from this headphone to the one I got from my mother years ago. Case closed, I had a good enough headphone (Also built headphone amp for it).

Few years later after the "iron curtain" fallen, I got other interests, turned to the computers instead of the audio electronics. Once I landed the already unused mixing console and the headphone to a friend.

Never seen them again.

Two-three weeks ago (30 years after the story above) I read an article about some highend Technics loudspeakers https://longkft.hu/audioblog/technics-sb-afp1000/ (it was a repost on the facebook).

The article is talking about the east-german headphone I had previously also as the technology is the same as the one used in the Technics monster.

When I read it, the long forgotten story above pop into my mind.

Looked around on the eBay, and found a HOK-80 for a few bucks. Today arrived.

Even this one arrived in the original box, with the original documentation and warranty card.

What a surprise, the original east-german invoice was also in there.

165 east-german mark. I was looking around the exchange rates. If I'm not mistaken, it would be €33 today.

Nothing changed regarding the comfort. The vice feeling on your head is still there.

My son has a gamer headset. He completely destroyed the cabling, the switch and volume knob of it. Finally I bought a bluetooth one for him (can't hurt the cable). I just throw the headset to a drawer years ago with the thought "I'll repair it later" - never happened.

Now I picked it. It would be a good donor candidate for my new project. I want replicate, what I did in the '80s (sort of).

I will build the orthodynamic drivers into this Gigabyte headset's shell, add a proper, detachable headphone cable and done. This will be one of my next projects.