Hunts CRB capacitor tester

[Yorkie]

All in all its somewhat a Frankensteins monster! I am proposing to revert this to the original layout. In the next month or so know that I have cleared out my garage to free up some workspace (I'm blushing at this point having let David see my 'tip' that i can now call a garage!)

Regards

Rob

Crikey Rob, it really has been got at! What puzzles me is the thought process which passes through the minds of people who do such things, then don't document what they've been up to, or the rationale behind it. Surely the older an item is, the least one should radically alter things, and the more one should try to conserve what's there. Metal rectifiers are known to fail - they often still work, but don't attain the required voltage. However, a silcon diode can be placed in the paxolin tube, along with a series limiting resistor to preserve the original appearance.

It sounds like your only hope would be to to do as you intend to Rob - re-work it alongside an original and working CRB.

Your mention of a string of resistors brought to mind an Ekco AC86 which came into a friends hands and had allegedly been 'professionally restored' for a previous non-technical owner who put his trust in the 'restorer'. I've attached some pic showing several strings of resistors and appalling soldering. In one instance there are no less than nine resistors in series! In one instance if you look closely, you'll see two resistors with their wires twisted together, but apparently not even soldered.

As to your garage, I'm glad you hadn't tidied up when we called as I'd have had the hard word - 'why can't you be neat and tidy like Rob?' You should have seen the state of my garage today! I've been turning Perspex on the lathe as mentioned in my post about Fenman knobs. There were fine streamers of Perspex waste from the lathe, all over the bench, the floor, and me. I was just about to clean it up when Jennifer appeared in the garage with a cuppa. After 49 years of marriage she still considers me to be 'work in progress' rather than beyond redemption. She doesn't get cross with me - she just says things like 'look at the state of you - you look like Wurzel Gummage'.

I've got a chum in the village who's a fellow woodturner. His worshop is immaculate and he's such a natty dresser that he's never owned a pair of jeans and when he's mowing his lawn or woodturning he looks as though he's dressed for a wedding, with a sharp suit and fancy tie. He's so fastidious that he has what he calls a 'plug park' in his worskshop. It's one of those six-way extension socket jobbies, except it has no lead, and no power to it. It's screwed to the wall with each socket marked 'Bandsaw, Pillar Drill, Lathe, Dust Extractor' etc. When he's finished in the workshop, he unplugs all his equipment and puts the plugs in each marked socket so the power leads and plugs aren't dangling.

Do what? I bet he drives his wife nuts - he does everyone else!

So don't make the garage too tidy Rob - you might build up false hopes in Angela's mind that you've turned over a new leaf:D