Equip your electronics bench- Help!!!

[finom1]

I wolud like to personally thank everyone who has shared their wisdom with my son and I.

I would like to especially thank Oldway for going out of his way to help us!!!

There was allot of Head-Banging going on around here!!!

I will be uploading pictures of test bench equipment & other items. I will also provide a list.

Thanks again everyone.

[finom1]

Here are a couple more.

Thanks again!!!

[finom1]

Here is a couple more.

Thanks again!!!

[finom1]

The last for now. The Qty of 3, 5 drawer file cabinets are full of Radio & TV Repair Manuals and Schematics, hundreds of them!!!

Oldway, I got the B&K Precision 1476A Scope for $50 in its original box with test leads & manuals. They said it was on display and never used. The line cord was never unwrapped from the scope. It had Styrofoam stuck to it still!!!

Thanks again for all you guidance!!!

[finom1]

Oldway, I forgot these pictures. Could you stop over to the US and upgrade this so it will calibrate to 5% Tolerance?

Thanks again for all your help and patience!!!

[oldway]

That's great, you and your son will have a lot of fun.
You could not do better.
Back in the old good time when electronics was an art more than a science.
Congratulations. 

[finom1]

Oldway,
Bless you for sharing your wisdom with us!!!

I have to finish the basement including a full bath for my wife ( The Boss) then I will start a new subject of where this one has taken us!!!

Thanks again!!!

[finom1]

Oldway,
This will be arriving on Tuesday - Vectorviz WP-30 combination isolation transformer and variac - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_XZD8Sow6E.

I will post the picture after I unpack it.

Thanks again for your help!!!

[bitseeker]

@finom1: You guys scored a ton of goodies! If you can't have fun with all that cool gear and parts, you're doing it wrong. Looking forward to seeing your projects.

[finom1]

Thank you.

We tried to take the advice and guidance that everyone was giving us and put it into action!!!

This is a great place for like minded people to share their wisdom to help the next generation to carry on the Electronics Restoration & Repair. Just very friendly people, willing to explain in a way that helps a total beginner how to do things and do them safely!!!

WE hope to contribute what we are learning through our start up with our new Test Bench project so we can help others start up, as you and others have helped us!!!

Thanks again for sharing your wisdom with us!!!

[oldway]

Now, you first "electronic" job would be to test and repair all your measuring intruments.

After so many years, I believe they need for sure some new electrolytics capacitors.

For low voltage capacitors, you may replace all of them, for high voltage, measure the capacitance and ripple and if it is out of tolerance, replace them.

See here for the Eico 377:
http://www.johngineer.com/blog/?p=1193

[finom1]

I am in the process of buying the Electrolytic caps for the Eico 950B & 1% Precision resistors.

Wow, the 8 uf 525 wvdc & 4 uf uf wvdc are expensive and hard to find over here in US.

I was also going to recap the Heathkit Regulated Power Supply Model PS-4.
C1 = 20-20 uf 350 wvdc, to hard to find so I was going to use Qty - 2 of 20 uf 450 vdc $11.11 each
C2,C3 70 uf 450 vdc $ 2.79 each
C4,C6 20 uf 450 vdc $11.11 each
C5, 40 uf 450 vdc $11.22

I got the unit free when I purchased the file cabinets for $3.00 each. He was glade to move the extremely heavy file cabinets. The gentleman was closing his repair shop of 40 years and was moving out of his warehouse of 17 years.

When the Vector Viz WP-30 comes in, I think I will try to reform the Electrolytic caps first for the PS-4  before I buy new ones!

What do you think of that idea to try to save money, reforming the Electrolytic caps?

Looking forward to hearing how you would handle this expensive restore for a piece of equipment I am not keeping. I will sell it on ebay.

The Vector Viz WP-30 Variable Isolation Transformer will be used instead.

Thank you!

[oldway]

My philosophy of repair is to replace only what really is needed.

The only thing I always replace without testing are the low voltage electrolytics capacitors because they are cheap and easy to buy.

For resistances, I only replace them if it is necessary.
You will certainly measure that these old carbon resistances are often drifting but it does not always change the correct working of tube circuits.
The tube circuits are very tolerant on value of the resistances and voltages.

For high voltage electrolytics capacitors (mostly in the power supply) , ESR has pratically no influence on working of tube circuits.
Only check the value of capacitance, if correct, they don't need to be replaced.

Never power on an old tube equipment directly on full mains voltage.
Apply progressive voltage with your variac, beginning with 50% of nominal voltage and increasing it of 10% every hour up to nominal voltage.

Look if current is right and if rectifier tube anodes don't became red hot.

This is enough, you don't need to reform the electrolytics capacitors.

[finom1]

Thank you, I will follow your advice.

Thank you for sharing!!!

[Johnny10]

I think those caps you were quoting prices on were for HI-FI  audio quality.

Try https://www.tubesandmore.com/products/capacitors?filters=Type%3DElectrolytic

Large selections of parts at reasonable and unreasonable prices.

You have a great selection of equipment for your hobby.
I started out in a similar way... not having a lot of experience in tube equipment and then buying and repairing a lot of older equip.
That IT-28 capacitor tester you are looking at works great. I just bought an old unit for 14 dollars and have restored it. It is very quick at checking for leakage, slow for finding capacitor value ! And really accurate.   I love the green magic eye !
But I also restored a Sencore LC-102 which is quite fast.

Good Luck on your journey.

[finom1]

Thank you for that information!!!

[finom1]

I have a question about what to do when it comes to Vintage Capacitor Analyzers.

I was looking at a Sencore LC-53 Z Meter Capacitor Inductor Analyzer on ebay. It looks like it will go for around ~$200 looking at history.

Should I buy the Sencor LC-53 Z, then sell the - Solar Capacitor Analyzer, Eico 950B, PYRAMID ELECTRIC CRA-1 CAPACITOR RESISTOR ANALYZER that I bought (Total cost ~$150)?

If I buy the Sencor, then I could restore and sell the other testers on ebay for more then I paid for them.

I guess my question is, should  I;
1. Buy the Sencor and sell the other Capacitor Testers.
2. or Just keep the best out of the Vintage Capacitor testers I have.

Thank you for your input.

[Johnny10]

Hey Finom,

I was just reading the posts over, you have had  4 months with all the equipment and parts you purchased, have you built any amplifiers yet?

As for cap testers... why get rid of the units you have?
For my tube amps the old testers work fine for me.

For the micro-controlled electronic projects, I do like the Sencore LC102 unit I rebuilt.
The Sencore units are very pricey since the repairs have been posted on the forum.

[finom1]

Good advice, I will just keep the best of the ones I have and sell the rest.

I have not built my Electronics Repair Room yet, The Boss(My Wife) wants me to finish her side of the basement first. I have installed a water treatment system, for softening/PH/Hardness/Filtration etc...
Bought a one piece shower and aSaniflo SaniPLUS - Macerating Upflush Toilet, etc... Very close to framing in her side.

I am sorry for going off topic here. I want to respect the forum & it's members.

I will start a new topic when I start to build the room. I have been accumulating more electronic parts & tube amps from vintage organs headed for the dump.

Thank you for your help.

[ez24]

Saniflo SaniPLUS - Macerating Upflush Toilet

How do you like this?  I was going to get one but they do not like angles and slopes - strange