Andy's archaic analog electrical test equipment

[AndyD]

Every year or two I drag out my old testers for a clean-up.

Thought I'd share a few of them with you.

This is one of my first clamp meters. It still works fine.


This mega tester is over 20 years old and still going strong.


And this one is even older and still passed calibration earlier this year....


This is my RPM tester for motors. It nearly didn't get allowed on a site recently, the H&S brigade made me fill out a full 8 page risk assessment just for this tester.

[AndyD]

Dave please can you give the topic a more appropriate title...you can use your artistic license, I think the board did some kinda auto-restore cached text thing and renamed it

[Dave A]

you can use your artistic license

You shouldn't have

Looking at that RPM tester, I'm not surprised they got you to fill in a risk assessment. I take it there's a direct mechanical connection involved

[ians]

I noticed you didnt add a the magnifying glass you use to see the readings on the screen (old age), could it be why you still use analog meters. These pics are just giving away your age, can you still remember how old you are? Do you own a stabiliser, to hold your cup when drinking coffee or do you keep forgetting where you left the coffee

[tec0]

love old tools

coolest stuff ever

[Citizen X]

Every year or two I drag out my old testers for a clean-up.

Thought I'd share a few of them with you.

This is one of my first clamp meters. It still works fine.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3074[/ATTACH]

This mega tester is over 20 years old and still going strong.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3075[/ATTACH]

And this one is even older and still passed calibration earlier this year....
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3076[/ATTACH]

This is my RPM tester for motors. It nearly didn't get allowed on a site recently, the H&S brigade made me fill out a full 8 page risk assessment just for this tester.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3077[/ATTACH]

Good morning Andy,

All this equipment reminds me of my dad's equiment. He practised as an electrician in the late 60's, the 70's, 80's and early 90's..

[AndyD]

Lol, thanks Dave, couldn't have titled it better myself and easy Ian...I'm not that old, mid 40's and can still locate my coffee although I do need glasses for most things nowadays.

I keep meaning to get some new test leads for the ammeter but they're not even 30 years old yet so no rush I suppose.

The rotation tester does require direct contact with either the motor shaft or the pulley wheels. H&S weren't very happy about anything that requires getting so up close and personal with the motor and belts. They insisted on the wearing of gauntlets, I declined suggesting this would be even more dangerous. We completed a risk assesment for the device and a separate one for the wearing of gauntlets. Eventually they caved in.

[AndyD]

Here's another fairly old Kyoritsu multimeter still in fulltime use on my workbenck.

[mikilianis]

I had one like that,worked well, still dont trust digital instruments battery's tend to go flat at the most crucial moment

[AndyD]

I agree, I'm not a massive fan of digital instruments, they're okay if you need extreme accuracy but how often do you need a voltage or resistance reading to 3 decimal places which is kind of ironic when most instruments are only accurate to within a few percent.

Digital tester have an extremely high input resistance which makes the prone to giving confusing readings. It's quite common to see a digital tester show 65 volts for example or some other random but substantial figure on a circuit that's actually isolated but because of capacitive coupling with adjacent circuits they pick up a surface voltage which is meaningless but confusing for the operator.

Long live analogue!!!!!!!!

[AndyD]

I know this is polluting the thread with a digital tester but here's a side by side taste test of ammeters. The Fluke rubbish on the left was purchased less than ten years ago so by comparison it's a spring chicken. It melted in the back of my car in Maputo 3 years after I bought it. The case distorted to the point it was unusable, what you see below is after a repair with a heat gun to get it back to a point where the batteries stayed in place and the clamp ends met in the middle again. Next to it is an analogue ammeter that was purchased 15 years previous to the Fluke and is still passing calibration tests today.

[AndyD]

Here's the last one for the week. I'm not going to tell you what it is but you're welcome to guess. Answers next week

[bergie]

megger?

[Justloadit]

Watt/Power meter?

[ians]

athingymabob?

they must have saved that thingymabob on the ark, because it has 2 screens