Voltmeter - what am I missing?

[patrick_g]

aaah- the Simpson 260, have one out in the shop somewhere. Its probably hiding with my old HeathKit VTVM.

My VTVM was a Knight Kit although I built a lot of Heath stuff. I am commercial radio telephone licensee with ship's RADAR endorsement as well as ham radio type. I definitley appreciate what you are saying regarding tuning with a digital meter, PITA!

Especially fun are the circuits that have considerable hysteresis such that if you pass the max point you have to back up A BUNCH and start again say if you are supposed to stop at the 80% of max and not set for "max smoke."

Just recently handling some of my older stuff that was stored away. Found sets of diddle sticks and such to fit every imaginable core. Couldn't bring myself to toss them out.

A funny you may appreciate: When I was in the USAF a seargent in comms used to do some commercial 2-way radio work on the side. Whenever he aligned a radio for a customer he always taped a diddle stick sized to fit the IF cans to the back of the case. He said they were the best 15 cent investments he ever made. The first time there was any difficulty with the radio some "genius" would want to open it up and take a look. They would see the diddle stick provided for their convenience and proceed to apply it to something it fit, namely the IF cans. Guaranteed repeat business for the clever seargent.

Pat

 

[Soundguy]

I wasn't trying to imply that there did not exist an analog voltmeter capable of that sensitive of a reading.. I was generally refering to non lab grade equipment that a consumer would use.. IE.. a 5$ to 10$ job from radio shack or an auto store that was designed to have about 3 scales and read ac/dc volts on a lil 2" meterface.. perhaps an ohm funcction mayvee 1x, 10x and kx.. maybee low range amps...

I do remember early flkes and simpsons. My first meter was one of theose nice simpsons that used multi-d cell batts and had a nice leather case and was the size of a full set of binocs..

soundguy

Soundguy (et al), I do have sensitive and accurate DMM's too, not so old fashioned as to avoid them. In fact I was an early user of digital voltmeters (1964, primitive, bulky, cumbersome to use but damned accurate) provided by the USAF, built by John Fluke. I bought my first personal digital meter from Valhalla Scientific (San Diego) which was about 10x12x2 inches had a wall wart and 4 (I think) internal D cells. It measured AC-DC volts and amps (up to 10) capacitance, resistance, and frequency too up to 10MHz. It was really leading edge stuff way back then, ca 1970-73. This was back in my medical electronic instrument designing days (dual beam ultraviolet spectrophotometers for blood analysis and other fun instruments and stuff.)

Pat

 

[Treemonkey1000]

I get the luxury of testing and calibrating DMM's and VOM's here in the Calibration lab that I work in. One of my favorite meters for troubleshooting transistors and connections is a good old Simpson 260. I can see the needle swing as I am going along testing junctions. If I want accurate readings we have really accurate 8.5 digit DMM's from Hewlett Packard and Fluke. Even their handhelds are fairly accurate. The cheap handhelds that you buy online or Autopart stores tend to be off by a bit.
I liked the story on the Diddlesticks.. Although getting in and tuning a tank circuit was something I tried to avoid. This thread is getting closer to a Electronics reminiscing now....

 

[Soundguy]

Aluminun/brass.. or plastic core adjusters? I used to have a nice set on non mag metal ones.. but havn't seent hem in years.. just have those cheap plastic jobs now..

soundguy

My VTVM was a Knight Kit although I built a lot of Heath stuff. I am commercial radio telephone licensee with ship's RADAR endorsement as well as ham radio type. I definitley appreciate what you are saying regarding tuning with a digital meter, PITA!

Especially fun are the circuits that have considerable hysteresis such that if you pass the max point you have to back up A BUNCH and start again say if you are supposed to stop at the 80% of max and not set for "max smoke."

Just recently handling some of my older stuff that was stored away. Found sets of diddle sticks and such to fit every imaginable core. Couldn't bring myself to toss them out.

A funny you may appreciate: When I was in the USAF a seargent in comms used to do some commercial 2-way radio work on the side. Whenever he aligned a radio for a customer he always taped a diddle stick sized to fit the IF cans to the back of the case. He said they were the best 15 cent investments he ever made. The first time there was any difficulty with the radio some "genius" would want to open it up and take a look. They would see the diddle stick provided for their convenience and proceed to apply it to something it fit, namely the IF cans. Guaranteed repeat business for the clever seargent.

Pat

 

[patrick_g]

This thread is getting closer to a Electronics reminiscing now....

Yup, just treading water, waiting to hear the final sitrep from the OP.

Super accurate multi-digit digital meters are not so well suited to testing most transistor junctions as a 260.

Pat