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ICE 680G 4th series - teardown

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mimmus78:
Safety in this leds?  :-DD

Anyway it should be interesting to know how it worked the ohm multiplier (Villard multiplier?).

ac427:

--- Quote from: Fraser on September 04, 2013, 07:06:48 pm ---I sold these in the late 1980's when working Saturdays in an electronics emporium. They were quite an expensive meter. I still have a brand new 680R and the smaller Microtest 80 which was bought for me as my very first multimeter. It has served me very well over the years and I never needed the 680R.

Feedback from customers was excellent, I.C.E. was a well respected Italian meter manufacturer. Certainly not the cr*p that was available at the time in the form of Radio Shack, Altai etc.

I.C.E would supply ANY spare part you needed to keep the units running and at a very reasonable cost. They were the 'Hameg' of analogue multimeters.

With regard to the batteries used. The Microtect 80 uses a Mercury 1.35V button cell and the 680R, IIRC, uses a standard, easily available, AA cell. It does not need some weird 22.5V cell like the AVO 8. The ICE Microtest 80 mercury cell issue has been addressed by the photographic equipment collectors who have had 1.5V to 1.35V adapters made in the format of the original battery complete with voltage correction  :)

I have to admit that the PCBs and components used in most analogue multi-meters are a tad agricultural, so do invite scoffing from those more used to the fine art of modern precision electronics. But these meters still function well and give me an analogue meter any day for real time trend monitoring and adjustment of levels that have a habit of wandering. I find the modern 'analogue' bar graph displays such as on my Fluke 87 III harder to use in such situations.

The real down side with analogue meters was the input impedance 10,000 Ohms per volt on DC is awful when compared to Digital meters 10 Meg Ohms. You had to be knowledgeable when using an analogue multi-meter....there were many traps for newbies !

Metrix used to produce a Hybrid analogue/digital multi-meter that was basically a modern digital multi-meter with an analogue meter movement driven from a D to A. I would like one but have yet to track one down at the right price.

I consider the Analogue Vs Digital comparison of multi-meters to be similar to that of the mechanical pocket watch Versus the digital clock. One can be fine engineering art at its best whilst the other (Digital) can be brash and uncouth, but does the job well  :)  The ICE multi-meter has a very fine Jewelled meter movement just like a vintage analogue pocket watch. The meter movement was the most expensive part of the whole meter.

Thanks for taking me back down memory lane.

--- End quote ---

Perhaps the 680G was different. It uses the 2r10 or type 8 battery.

I'm a bit late to the party but Maplin used to sell these as well, when they were a proper electronics supply business.

I remember the mains lead. Blimey, the cable was thinner than the meter probes. Speaking of close shaves, it could probably double as a shaver cable for the brave :-)

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