Got lucky and scored three Philips PM5131 function generators for 20€ each.
They were sold as working but "defective".
I called up the seller and he said that the signal was unstable and noisy.
Hmm do i smell crusty switches? Perhaps scratchy pots?
The seller also said that he couldn't be bothered to fix them, which sounded weird to me but to each their own i guess.
He was selling three of these function generators for 20€ each and at first i thought about only buying one but the deal was too good to let go so i got all three.
I just brought them from the parcel machine and am waiting for them to warm up before i look any deeper into them.
They're actually so cold that all pots except one are very hard to move because the viscous grease is all frozen.
Anyways, while they're warming up i started taking a look at the outside and it looks like they've been banging around for a while.
There's dents on the sheetmetal case and even the BNC sockets are bent.
Found a cal sticker and looks like these came from Germany, last cal date shows 10th month of 2012, so it's been a while.
I don't think there's much to go wrong inside these. I've looked through the manual and it says that the outputs are "short-circuit-proof" so i don't think the will be much to replace inside other than old electrolytics perhaps. I hope there's no RIFA menace inside.
Also took a look at the schematic and read about the working principle of the device. It's completely analog and everything is controlled through the switches and potentiometers so any bad contact will manifest itself in the output, which i'm pretty sure is what's going on with these.
What do you guys think? Will this be an easy fix?
I'm super keen to get these fixed.