Useful cheap small tester...

[Yorkie]

What sort of physical dimensions has it, David? I might just purchase one myself - as you say, can't have too much test equipment can we

Colin

The main PCB is 8.5 cms x 5.5cms Colin. The two line display, which plugs into the main PCB is 7cms long x 2.5 cms tall. When you attach a component and press the 'Test' button, it momentarily says 'Batt Test OK, and give the battery voltage, then reads out the measurement of whatever component is attached. After several sseconds, it switches itself off. There are three terminals (five actually - T1 and T3 have a pair, and T2 just has one). This enables components to be tested in series if desired, and I forgot to mention that the tester also tests transistors, though the gain figure in the display is termed 'B' (Beta) rather than the more usual 'HFE'. I've attached a pic of the readout of a 50-yr old germanium transistor under test.

If no component is attached or if it's faulty, the meter states: 'No, unknown, or damaged part attached'.

It could be used as it is, but it's fiddly to plug in the wires of components to the little sockets, and some wires are too thick, so as I said, really, the meter needs to be boxed up and to have three short test leads attached. There's no facility to zero the capacitance, so the test leads need to be short or if measuring small values of capacitance there will be a few pFs in the test leads, but that's really no big deal. I think most people will probably find the inductance test as useful as anything, because many of us will have multimeters that include HFE for transistors, and a cap test.

Just a neat little project really, at a bargain basement price.

I've had a Peak transistor tester for some years, and they're an excellent firm to deal with, and British too, but frankly, with the passage of time, they've become a tad pricy. I know there are those that like to buy expensive test gear and bandy names like Fluke around, but I dare say that most stuff nowadays (including Fluke no doubt), emanates from the orient. This PTH PCB on this meter is a work of art, so it may be cheap, but it's far from being 'cheap tat'.