this web3 code breaks between node3 v30 and v33.

test.js

var config = require('./testconfig.json');
var Web3 = require('web3');
var fs = require('fs');

var web3 = new Web3(config.rpcAddr);
var mycontractBin = fs.readFileSync(config.contract_bin, 'utf8');
var mycontractAbi = require(config.contract_json);

var defaultGas = 0xfffffffff;

var account;
var mycontract = new web3.eth.Contract(mycontractAbi.abi);

var debugeverything = true;

console.log("initialize... ");
web3.eth.getAccounts().then(e => {
	account=e[0];
	console.log("initialize: account ", account);
	mycontract.options.from = account; // default from address
	mycontract.options.gasPrice = '1'; // default gas price in wei
	mycontract.options.gas = 0xffffffff; // provide as fallback always 5M gas
	mycontract.options.data = mycontractBin;

}).then(function() {
    deploy();
});


function deploy() {
    console.log("Deploy:");
    mycontract.deploy({
	data: mycontractBin,
	arguments: [123456] 
    }).send({"from":  account,
	     "gasPrice": '1000',
	     "gas" : '0xffffffff'
	    }, function(error,transactionHash){
		console.log("Inside function call from send");
		console.log(error);
		console.log('Ethereum transaction', transactionHash, 'successfully posted.');})
	.on('error', function(error){ 
                console.log("Error: ", error); 
           })
	.on('transactionHash', function(transactionHash){ console.log("txHash: ", transactionHash);  })
	.on('receipt', function(receipt){
	    console.log("Addr: ", receipt.contractAddress) // contains the new contract address
	})
	.on('confirmation', function(confirmationNumber, receipt){ console.log("confirmation callback ignored");})
	.then(function(newContractInstance){
	    console.log("hit -then- clause of deploy");
	    console.log(newContractInstance.options.address) // instance with the new contract address
	});
}

testconfig.json is very simple and obvious:

{
"rpcAddr" : "http://localhost:8545",
"contract_bin" : "/tmp/mycontract.bin",
"contract_json" : "/tmp/mycontract.json"
}