The March of Technology

[John PurdyParticipant @johnpurdy78347]

I just treated myself to a new FNIRST LCR-ST1 LCR bridge to replace/augment my old Heathkit IB-28 impedance bridge and though a comparison of the two might be interesting.

IB-28                                                         LCR-ST1
Cost                  $131.15 1974 CAN$                                 $41.39 2025 CAN$
Test Freq.          1000Hz (Ext. input available)                      100/1000/10,000 Hz Selectable
Range

Resistance         100 mohm – 1M ohm                                10 mohm – 10M ohm
Capacitance       100 pF – 100 uF                                       1pF – 22mF
Inductance        .1 mH – 100H                                           1uH – 10H
D                     .002 – 1                                                   Not Specified
Q                     .1 -1000                                                  Not Specified
Accuracy

Resistance        +- 3%                                                     .5% – 5% Range and test freq. dependent
Capacitance      +- 3%                                                     .5% – 5% Range and test freq. dependent
Inductance       +- 10%                                                   .5% – 5% Range and test freq. dependent
D                    +-20%                                                     Not Specified
Q                    +-20%                                                     Not Specified
Additional Parameters
ESR                N/A                                                          Yes
X                    N/A                                                          Yes
Z                    N/A                                                          Yes
Pwr. Supply

120 VAC 10W                                            250 mAh lithium batt.

Recharged via USB cable

Data Logging

N/A                                                          All parameters for any measurement on Excel

spread sheet downloaded via USB cable

Some Other Comparisons
Size            9″H x16.5″W x 6.5″D                                     1.75″H X 2.325″W x .75″D (less probes)
Weight        11 lbs (4990 gm)                                           43.5 gm (with probes)
Active Components
2 x 1U4 2 x 1L4 tubes (valves)                       1000s of transistors
1 x 1N191 germanium diode                           10,000s LEDS
1N2071, 4 x 1N4002
Display        2.5″sq 100-0-100 uA                                    1.025″ x .625 LED matrix display
D’Arsonval meter

How technology changes in a few (well 50 I guess), years.

John

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Amazing! It’ll be very interesting to hear how you get on with it John.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

I do love a boat anchor!  (Heavy valve based electronics in a giant steel box!)  Waiting for the valves to warm up was part of the fun.

Heathkit made a lot of useful hobby equipment, mostly sold in kit form, so the buyer had to assemble it himself.  Designed down to a price for the hobby market compared with much more expensive lab equipment, but usually performed well.

Kits are double edged!  Great if you like building things, very annoying if you only it needed to measure stuff.   The ‘March of Technology’ killed Heathkit because the cost of commercial electronics kept dropping whilst complexity shot up.   My pudgy fingers can handle valve sized components but I struggle with subminiature equivalents.  Resistors so small I need a loupe to see them and if one pings out of the tweezers it will never be found.

Another double edged feature is boat anchors require a skilled operator.  Their controls often have to be adjusted skilfully, which can be fun,  but is time-wasting compared with an automatic modern instrument.   Automatic is great until it fails on an edge case, which an old school manual might resolve with careful twiddling.

All my boat anchors are long gone, sob.   Sad reason:  no room for them in a house full of kids and a wife with a knitting machine!

Boat-anchor designers were remarkably clever at getting lots of functionality out of a small number of simple expensive components.  Now designers have a wide choice of dirt cheap complex components that can do much much more, but the results aren’t necessarily better!

A tiny box kept in a drawer that just measures whatever is plugged is more convenient than a 16x9x6″ 11lb instrument that needs a skilled driver.

If I had room, I’d collect boat-anchors, they are lovely!

Dave

PS Sorry the forum mangled John’s comparison table.  Not his fault.  Apart from screen-shooting tables and posting the image, I’ve failed to find a way of just copying tables or programs in as text.   The forum editor deletes spaces it considers unnecessary.

 

 

 

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Surprised with the plethora of ridiculously cheap mini sub circuits there is a need (for Joe public) to determine LCR measurements today with the “Use and chuck” society we are now encrusted in.

Regards  Ian.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Well!  Just in the process of making another EM impulsed clock and repurposing a small electromagnet bobbin.  I know it works in a clock but would really like to know its inductance so I ordered one of these.  Not to mention the box of 300 assorted miniature ceramic caps I just bought which are all labelled in very small low contrast letters that I can hardly read – how nice to be able to just measure one to check.

Worth noting that the FRNSI “UK store” has a special offer on at the moment, at a price that’s comparable to Banggood etc. https://www.fnirsi.com/products/lcr-st1

[John Haine]

On John Haine Said:

[…] Worth noting that the FRNSI “UK store” has a special offer on at the moment, at a price that’s comparable to Banggood etc. https://www.fnirsi.com/products/lcr-st1

All looks very impressive  … That tester and their other kit

MichaelG.

[Circlip]

On Circlip Said:

Surprised … there is a need (for Joe public) to determine LCR measurements today with the “Use and chuck” society we are now encrusted in.

Shouldn’t be!  Electronics, embedded, computer, maker and ham radio are enormous.

Although traditional metalwork might be fading it’s clear other technical interests are growing.  Not clear to me where it’s going though, hobby engineering is evolving.  Don’t dismiss anything!

Dave

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

My latter three decades of working life were an interesting span from largely-analogue measuring systems to PC-driven ones.

Testing the items being developed involved tuning them to resonance by manipulating large variable capacitor + inductor matching-units, cleaning the output signals from the measurements side by band-filters fitted with decade switches; and observing the signal quality, pulse shape and measuring-gate cover by oscilloscope.

Trying to read those neon-tube “Numicators” in which each digit was represented by a grid, and later, digital voltmeters using bar-type l.e.d.s, was not easy! As the signal frequencies and levels moved away from their strongest and steadiest the numbers flashed increasingly rapidly, so trying to assess a mean level by sight was something of an art. In three dimensions by “Numicator”, with its stack of grids viewed end-on.

Initially we wrote all settings and readings for each frequency step over the test band, onto a simple pro-forma; then typed them into a BBC Microcomputer to be calculated and printed as lists of numbers.

Later, the system gradually became automated. I was told previously, every step had to be calculated manually, and tests that now took a couple of hours or so could take three days!

Even so the programmes were all written locally, in Hewlett-Packard ‘Basic’ as we used mainly HP and Solartron instruments. HP ‘BASIC’ holds a way to write simple character-strings for driving the instruments, I suppose a bit like the CAD/CAM G-code in principle. Unlike domestic-appliances, such instruments are or were supplied with very comprehensive instruction and servicing manuals written to be comprehensible, and these included their relevant codes.

By the time I left the laboratory, and subsequently retired, those tests were perfomed using a PC connected to the work-pieces via only an analogue/digital converter and appropriate amplifiers. All the instrument settings and the analysis were now by programmes still written locally, in a graphical-display system called Labview, but I think Matlab is similar, and no doubt others are available! Creating the programmes is a sort of 2D CAD process, using virtual wiring-diagrams. Even the oscilloscope is part of the display.

….

I did have one darkly amusing experience with these developments, at the stage of HP_Basic.

We had one particular test-rig driven in this manner, for which I wrote the operating-instructions as part of gaining ISO9001. That had been enforced by our primary customer rather than to help us, and I soon recognised it as one of the biggest legal rips-off invented by people it never affects. (It was based heavily on the UK’s DEF_STAN system but unlike that, guarantees only production-conformity, not product-quality as well.)

The bizarrely “management-ese” pro-forma supposedly necessary, inveted by the company apparently from American “business college” hand-books, held the real instructions as an Appendix to a dozen pages of bureaucratic rhubarb. These even included some pages that would have been blank were it not for their central banners therefore falsely claiming “This page is blank”….  for no known reason.

I was quite proud of my manual, which replaced one long out-of-date by fundamental changes to the way the equipment performed the same test. I duly recorded it with the official Reference File number, and put our copy in a folder hung from the machine itself.

That was deliberate: “auditor bait”, not for the professional external auditors but for a posse of internal clipboard-wielders who strutted around the place verifying lots of box-ticking. I noticed if they could verify the manual’s existence, type and Reference, they were ‘Appy, and this machine was prominent.

They never examined the instructions for completeness, accuracy, ease of use (by the relevant people), up-to-date, etc. Only the preceding rhubarb. I was tempted to slip a knitting-pattern into it to see if they noticed, but had noticed they always left their sense of humour at home on Internal Audit days.

Just as well… in the short interim, my line-manager rebuilt the instrument yet again, so putting my technical-authorship success well out-of-date!

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

I also experienced the ridiculous side of ISO9001, but an even worse idea that was enforced upon us as software developers/programmers was Function Point Counting.

In essence, a way to evaluate what a piece of code was worth, and could therefore be charged for. All very good, but amongst the calculations was a variable multiplier. If the “worth” of your code didn’t fall within the expected range, you could just alter the multiplier value until you got the anticipated (acceptable to management) result!

We didn’t use the process for very long. 🙂

Rob

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I do wonder at the people who invent such grotesque practices, but also the gullibility of so many senior directors who when presented with some Bright Shiny New Initiative, adopt it with great fanfares and cost, making no difference and quietly dropping it when the next BSNI appears.

Our managers never thought of costing software by counting code-lines, as far as I know. More likely they simply balance the creation costs and the return by sales or by business improvements. The specialist programmes supplied as part of some of our products had to work whether having 100 or 100 000 “function points”.

However, they did latch onto a piece of meaninglessness called “TQP”. I forget what it stands for, but its fanfare was glossy advertising leaflets and a “home-made” video awful enough for a candidate “What Not To Do” example in advertising-trade courses. It made no difference, we soon forgot about it… then a year later the ISO9001 demand arrived with its top-down, rigid bureaucracy principle; totally opposite to TQP’s alleged but fictitious claim to advance employee’s initiative!

 

…..

 

Those experiences I outlined, from largely-manual instruments and a very simple calculating routine in BASIC on a separate computer to fully PC-mounted test routines, took place over little more than two decades….

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

There’s nothing wrong with QA if applied sensibly. Any reputable organisation will have procedures for calibrating measuring equipment, checking calcs, making sure you use the correct material etc. The problem comes when you employ QA ‘engineers’. Where I worked one of the bonus targets was to produce more procedures, at one time there were several different ones for performing and approving calculations. In vain did I argue that we should only have one, and that if you didn’t need a procedure to meet the rquirements of ISO 9001 you shouldn’t have one, because if you haven’t got one you can’t fail the audit.

I did once comment to a QA man that if I designed a lead lifejacket all he would be bothered about was whether we’d used the correct grade of lead. When the chap who cuts the grass at the local sports field had ‘ISO 9001 approved’ emblazoned on his van I knew that common sense had left the room

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Very unfair to post that link JH – I will now end up buying something I really need when I had just managed to resist the temptation to buy another lathe I don’t need.

Nostalgia corner.
In ’77 if getting the machine to plot a graph with the mechanically scanned BWO (freq gen) one had first to practice turning the potentiometer to match the drift of the valve receiver. The other project in our clean-room were working on the MARECS satellite with state -of-the-art equipment. After loading the boot program every morning into the PDP8 using binary on switches it could load its program off Phillips cassettes to do automatic testing of dozens of data points per day. At lunch time we loaded Star Trek played on the teletype – no screen.
Later I managed to buy a couple of ‘HP controllers’ because the accountant didn’t twig HP had deliberately not used the term computer to make it look like normal test gear.
Before ISO the equivalent was DEF-STAN-0521. What a useless piece of information to still clutter my brain along with the key frequencies I was setting our product to back then.

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

PS Sorry the forum mangled John’s comparison table.  Not his fault.  Apart from screen-shooting tables and posting the image, I’ve failed to find a way of just copying tables or programs in as text.   The forum editor deletes spaces it considers unnecessary.

One possibility, which is also a bit of a faff: save the document as a pdf, and use an on-line pdf-jpg converter.
Still doesn’t solve the problem where someone might want to cut and paste text from the table/spreadsheet though.

Bill

[John PurdyParticipant @johnpurdy78347]

Dave

I have quite a few Heathkit units I have built over the years while they were still around, including their AR1500A HiFi receiver that I built during evenings (kept me out of the mess) in my barrack room in CFB Wainwright while flying on exercise with the army summer of 1974. It’s still going strong. My only complaint with their kits was their propensity to use house numbered semiconductors. The AR1500 has many and if one of them fails it will be a guessing game to find a replacement.

As far as the formatting goes I have run into this before with the old forum and hoped it would be sorted out with the new one but obviously not. When I first submitted this post I got a full screen msg. “Page Requested Not Found”, but when I checked in the topic my title was there with the addition of (awaiting moderation) added. Clicking on the topic brought up the same error msg.  About three hours later I decide to try again. But this time when I went to the topic the “awaiting moderation” was missing and clicking on it brought up my complete original post, but the option to edit it was gone!

John

So far I have used it to sort through some unmarked chip caps. Sure beats trying to use two normal probes on the multimeter.  I have checked it against some .1% resistors and capacitors I have and the readings are well withing the stated tolerances. One thing I haven’t figured out yet is if there is a way to delete items from the Excel spread sheet. It just keeps adding them, could get a little unwieldy after a while.

John

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

The arrival of ISO9001, Lean Six Sigma, TQP and similar in the workplace is a red alert.

Works like this.  The board meet and the Accountant presents the financials.  They are dreadful; the organisation is slowly going bankrupt, root cause before I retired was usually low productivity.

The board can’t go public with this because it will cause shareholders and the banks to withdraw funds asap, thus crashing the company immediately.

They can try to address why productivity is low.  This often boiled down to everyone doing their own thing, winging it,  high waste, and doing the job in time-honoured ways.  Spanish practices, theft of time and material, high staff levels with low skills, and inefficiencies galore.  A Slack Alice paradise, bleeding money from every orifice, but Slack Alice doesn’t understand that.  And no-one explains because the bad financial news will leak and destroy the company.

Therefore the problem was addressed surreptitiously.  One way is to have the team apply ISO9001.  The team are supposed to review their processes, write it all down, and improve them.  Then productivity improves.

What actually happens is no-one outside the board takes the job seriously. Seen as a bureaucratic tick box exercise to be fudged and quickly kicked into the long grass.   And it’s easy to fake ISO9001 because no-one checks!  Today ISO9001 has a poor reputation because it was usually applied incompetently by lazy clowns.  The board hoped their team were responsible adults, and they weren’t.  As the team didn’t fix anything, productivity doesn’t improve and a year or two later the firm goes bust or is bought out.   Mass redundancies follow.

ISO9001 often meant the organisation is in the Last Chance Saloon, but it’s seen by everyone not in the financial know as a waste of time.  The awful truth was it was actually their only hope.  The team happily carry on in la-la land until the company breaks and the redundancies start.  Then they’re baffled: all seemed fine to them!

British industry is notorious for low productivity.  We think it’s good enough to produce quality products without worrying about how much they cost to make.  Sadly, quality isn’t enough on it’s own, because customers won’t buy anything that’s too expensive.   Having continually improved good processes is part of the answer.   Nigel blasts TQP in typically British fashion, presumably not knowing that the Japanese significantly improved productivity by applying it properly.  Japan made better stuff for less money with far fewer employees than we did. And the same is being done by many other foreign manufacturers.  British sales sagged and too many of our industrial firms went down the toilet.

Dave

 

 

 

 

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

No Dave, Nigel is lambasting the way such things are imposed by senior management who don’t understand how to talk to their employees.

It’s often left to some external consultant, who turns up in a fancy car, has a quick walk around the premises, does a presentation loaded with jargon to the department heads, gets a nice lunch from the depot boss and is never heard of again. The new paperwork is then delivered by some poor sap from head office, who repeatedly stresses that ‘all you have to do is complete the forms; nothing else will change’.

Does that explain why the people on the shop floor, or that actually speak to the customers(you know, the source of income) match the cynicism from above?

That’s without mentioning some of the asinine ‘solutions’ that work their way down; my favourite was the stock issue sheet that each level copied from the preceding one in a different colour before the clerk could update the computer record. The actual solution was for the issuing storeman to book the stock out of the computer as he passed it to the requisitioner, which saved hours every week. We got that implemented when the stores manager dumped the fancy, multicoloured new paperwork in his bin and used his lighter on it in front of the perpetrator….

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Nor was Dave’s assessment of ISO9001 true for us.

We were a government department being fattened up for selling off, and AN Other Gov. Dept, our main customers, forced us to adopt the nonsense, as many other firms were forced by major customers to do so.

That it was a management control system, not a product or service guarantee scheme, seemed to slip by un-noticed, and it became all the rage. For a few years in the 1990s the weekly business pages of our local paper usually carried portraits of directors grinning like Cheshire cats at having been granted this “coveted” but footling bit of paper at vast expense.

For its primary weakness is that it does not try to dictate how you control the condition of what you sell, but how you run your firm; by insisting on tying everything to written Procedures, Work Instructions or Guides so the end result is consistent. It can be rubbish but as long its consistent rubbish… Though of course then you’d lose custom but be so hampered by corporate rhubarb and ISO-ism no-one would dare suggest how to improve it.

We had all three of those classes of document, but I never learnt the differences. I don’t think many others did, either. We were not though, at the whims of self-styled “consultants” charging vast fees for selling snake-oil to gullible directors. The directors taught themselves, and consequently invented such a pile of nonsense that the external certification body actually told them, “You have gone far too far!”

We also had another advantage: until flogged off cheap we were civil-servants, whether techncial, administrative or in support roles like store-keepers, and this did give us a strong team ethos possibly lacking in remotely-owned commercial outfits. So there was little “us-&-them-ism”: we had to do what they upstairs told us, of course, and we had the odd spat but on the whole there was considerable mutual respect, helped by most of “them” having gained their rank by proven experience. Few if any had been thrown in at the deep end merely on the basis of degrees in “management”, none had prentitious titles like “Chief Rhubarb Officer”, and so they knew what had to be done, not what “management consultant” types think trendy.

…….

Errrr, what was this thread’s subject?

Ah, The March of Technology”.

I.e. the advances of systems that facilitate the rapid breeding, promulgation and death of fashionable Those Which Can Be Dones rather than valuable Those Which Need Be Dones – for managing a successful organisation.

Consider the environment: do you really need three carbon-copies of that memo about identifying the need for another blank page titled “This page is left intentionally blank”?

[Author]

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