Answers on a postcard please...

Another weekend goes by and one of my favourite sellers at the flea market had a few items from a late tinkerer called Bob. It seemed that Bob was always playing around with electrical stuff and for just a few dollars, some oddities came into my possession, with no intended purpose besides curiosity. 

It seems that Bob liked to work with wood as well, basically "bread boards" for his electrical projects which is where a lot of circuits were tested out in the early days, then in the 1960s solderless breadboards, like the ACE 200k unit shown in the photo, became a lot more convenient for learning the hobby and testing out hair brained schemes.

A couple of DC motors, the little one has a pulley on it, the bigger one has a propeller and some good quality alligator clips. The other thing of interest is the over designed bank of resistors. It is a fact that once you start collecting resistors it becomes strangely addictive, difficult to resist. I like these ones, they will look good in the collection. I like sausages as well, although they are quite difficult to collect.

There were some other things too, a few solar panels and a nice tool box for my soldering kit, a whole bunch of things that I am hoping will keep me busy in the fall and winter, although I suppose solar panels will be of little use in the shorter days but here, now that summer has arrived, there is no urge whatsoever to sit at my bench fiddling with resistors and light bulbs, but that will change.

The sun is shining and the garden calls, I will do some painting today, and the things that once belonged to Bob will wait their turn until later in the year, although I may put some voltage on that ACE circuit to see what those three LEDs are supposed to be doing, perhaps that will be the subject of the next blog.

Another month, more multimeters

A few days into the new month and another vintage multimeter arrives on my bench, obtained from an electrician who is paring down his "collection" and on first inspection, this multimeter looks very much like the horrendous Chinese death trap that I bought a few months ago, and subsequently sold in a hobbyist kit on marketplace. The new acquisition was obtained for seven dollars and I could see my wife roll her eyes as I gladly paid for yet another multimeter, but hey, come on, seven dollars.....

Now, not to be too excited, the vintage leather case is not the case for this particular multimeter, I suspect it is a case from a 1950's analog multimeter, genuine hide leather, the way they used to make them when there were less cows on the planet, that's an interesting concept right there, nowadays there are more cows, yet inversely, less stuff made from real leather?

The great reveal, a Gardener Bender GDT-190A. I deliberately added an extra letter into Gardner there, just because I think it sounds rather rude. Anyhoo, the old 1995 multimeter resides in the older multimeter case, the unit is in like new condition, which sort of reflects on how little the seller used it as he plied his trade. It was probably "special" so he deliberately ignored it over the years...

The similarity to that cheap and not so cheerful Chinese facade of a meter is very apparent, however this meter itself is very solid, has a good, genuine weight to it, no sense of disappointment, yet it was still made in China. It could have been the unwilling prototype for all the "830" type multimeters that they flood the market with nowadays, selling exploding mousetraps to all the fledgling electricians. It is apparent that Chinese crap in 1995 was far better than present day Chinese crap.

It was little bit of a struggle to get the back off, but now I know how, but will forget before I take the back off again at a future date. The internal electrical bits and electronics gave me a warm sense of happiness, and everything seemed to be in order, except for a couple of the soldered joints which appeared to have been done blindfolded or while juggling. I ask for forgiveness in saying that, I am an old white guy and was brought up in a certain way, during my apprenticeship, juggling while welding was discouraged.

A single fuse for the 2A current check, the typical shunt and next to that, three well soldered probe connectors, very sturdy. A little spring next to the large L7106CPL L9625 chip contacts aluminum shielding tape on the back cover and it is obvious where a good portion of the extra weight comes from, more robust circuit board, case plastics are thicker and a good portion of "real" electronic components including an IC the size of a small planet. 

The manual was very informative with diagrams, industry quality text and good sized fonts, the PVC test leads are typical of the time, but felt as though they actually had some copper running through them, nowadays the manufacturers produce test leads that sell for virtually nothing, so you can understand why they would not want to include any valuable materials. 

The overall impression was that, in relation to modern day offerings of this type, this particular model is a better alternative for home use, hobby type DC use, Arduino etc. I would still be reluctant to place the probes into a high current situation or an AC receptacle without using a robotic bomb disposal vehicle, but that is just me, crazy old tech geezer who wants to be older.

Laters....