Blue Ring Tester

[@TrevorsBench]

Nice trip down memory lane. I built a ring tester from plans in a magazine decades ago so I could test flybacks & coils back when I repaired CRT TVs and monitors. I'll bet that's the same circuit all dressed up in the sexy blue case. Mine was housed in a crappy project box with the crooked line of LEDs drilled through the cover. It did work a charm though Thanks for the awesome vid Chris, Cheers

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

Thanks Trevor I think you could be right on the origin of the kit. Apparently home brew ring testers were all the rage back in the day. You never know I may get around to doing a TV repair sometime

[@fullwaverecked]

Good Lord Chris, I defiantly love me some of your brand of humour. Sadly I must help a friend move, but I shall return to get me some as soon as I am able. Always a pleasure! And Thank you! Cheers!

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

Thanks so much for watch and nice comments. I hope one day you can join me on the live chat. My best regards Chris

[@gavinthomas8880]

Interesting video Chris. Also impressed with your VHS Archive!!

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

What do you mean VHS it’s all on Betamax!

[@gavinthomas8880]

@@allthegearnoidea6752 Ha!

[@raceingdemon6464]

Lovely Video Chris I Vaguely Rember Building a LOPT Tester From a Practical Television Mag From Back In The Day When I Was Mucking About Trying To Fix Tellys Thanks For Uploading Regards mike.

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

Yes see there are some very good homebrew examples around but as you know I am very lazy

[@davidv1289]

Thank you, Chris for an interesting kit build and beautiful scenes from your garden. A while back I purchased and repaired a Sencore LC53 Capacitor and Inductor Analyzer to check and re-form large power supply capacitors - nice because it goes up to 600 Vdc and measures leakage in microamps. It also has a ring tester function that displays the number of rings . I have to admit I have never used that function. After your demonstration I want to drag it out and connect a few coils and transformers! Regards, David.

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

Thanks David. The LC53 sounds really interesting you should get it out and give it a try. Thanks regards Chris

[@Radiocruncher]

That intro brings back some distant memories 😉. That’s a good tip re the sticky resistor legs. Poor old Jim 😁 he seems to enjoy what he’s doing though. Nice build and great to see it working on the scope. Overall I think it’s a nice bit of kit and worth building. I wonder if you could add a small lcd meter to it? Cheers Graham

[@GeorgeChristofi]

I like that little kit Chris. Might have to find one.

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

Yes it was a fun little build I would recommend it. Thanks regards Chris

[@Brettski777]

You cant have enough test gear Chris. Sadly I dont think I would have use for this in my box of tricks. Can you build and oscilloscope kit next please :-)

[@Andrewausfa]

Hi Chris, that looks a fun little kit. There was a similar circuit in one of the Australian electronics magazines I think. There's a quick and dirty version using a scopes calibration output, obviously there's no factor but you can see the rings and any damping where there are shorts. Regards - Andrew

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

I think this circuit or similar was supplied by Dick Smith in Australia. Apparently it quite popular to build these back in the day.

[@ZilogBob]

It is basically the same circuit. In fact I designed it and the Blue tester is a modified clone of it.

[@zx8401ztv]

It looks like it's showing the ability of a coil to store energy levels over time. Long storage with little loss is Quality i think. But i really never understood Q and never needed it for repairs. I can only see it being useful for comparison of coil losses, as long as the coils are identical. Coils have capacitance between the windings so the natural frequency of resonance would have been handy to know. I suspect a bit of test gear to give meaningfull values would cost a kidney lol. Its like using a beeper to test continuity, handy but crap ha ha :-D Hopefully you've had a laugh at my lack of understanding, i do lol. Smashing video chris, i always enjoy your kind of madness :-D

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

As you say it’s basically the inductors ability to ring and just like a bell some bells ring better than others. I’m sure this would be useful for diagnosing LOPT and switch mode inductors but definitely not a must have tool. Thanks for watching and comments. Best regards Chris

[@thomasives7560]

Great project video! That device seems quite useful to have around, I might have to purchase and build one. A power switch (I didn't see one) would be a good addition to the unit. Another old-school piece of RF test gear that comes in handy is a GDO (grid dip oscillator), which helps to tune coils in radios, filters, and antenna matching systems. I built one of those from a Heathkit kit, and it proved to be quite useful for many RF projects. You can estimate Q with a GDO by varying the frequency of the oscillator around the resonant frequency, which helps to determine how well an antenna will perform on different bands. For wideband operation, you don't necessarily want high Q, since the performance will diminish greatly as you stray from the resonant frequency. It's also quite useful for tuning a 455 kHz IF section properly. Regarding line/mains transformers and audio transformers, I think those are intentionally low-Q to prevent ringing oscillations, which could cause noise in a power supply or amplifier instability. In any case, this was quite entertaining, so thank you for the video and for the humor. Cheers!

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

Thanks for watching and great comments. It does have a soft power switch in the form of a push button I would have been better if it had a self power off feature as I did forget to switch it of. I do have a GDO but personally never found it that useful as I found it difficult to interpret if the dip is real or a false positive etc probably just needs more practice using it! Definitely useful back in the day but with the advent of relatively low cost scopes, spectrum analysers and frequency counters I get better results. But as with all things there is a degree on personal preferences. As you say in many applications low Q is an advantage in some circuits. Best regards Chris

[@TechneMoira]

Interesting little kit. I wish though you would have checked whether the number of rings on your scope sort of correlate with the number of LED's that light up... that way you could estimate how many times a particular coil rings, which would be a measure of its efficiency (like in a deflection coil or a TV flyback transformer) where you could write on your instrument a simple reference where amber = 3-5 rings for example. Then again it doesn't seem very sensitive for small coils or large transformers... but of course, as you mention in the video, you wouldn't want a transformer to have resonance of some sort anyhow

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

Yes you quit correct that would have been a good test I just didn’t think of it at the time. Thanks for watching and great comments regards chris

[@hestheMaster]

I'll have to remember the time it takes to repair a valve type radio in the Lindenas Scale at 12:50 . So would watching the grass grow would be like a 0.1 dL on the scale ? (Remembering that watching Jim repair a valve radio is a 1 dL then.) Slightly faster. 🤣😆😂 So right about 1 dL being equal to 6000 gS ( glasslingers) ! I like your sense of humor Chris , both accurate and creative! Glad you got the snow I usually get here in the Midwest USA. Lovely tester kit and nice demonstration. Note, as the Master I do have an aversion to "blue boxes" however. Could rate this video at 10 dL.

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

You know I didn’t mean to beat on Jim. At the end of they day he is doing things his way and enjoying the hobby what more could you wish for. I do watch his videos but they can be infuriating LOL. Thanks so much for watching and great comments regards Chris

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

Our of interest how did you hook into the Doctor Who thing?

[@hestheMaster]

@@allthegearnoidea6752 Actually it's a twist on both Doctor Who 's evil opponent Moriarity (to the Whovian Sherlock Holmes Doctor) and the RCA Victor saying of "his Masters voice".

[@hestheMaster]

@@allthegearnoidea6752 Jim probably should of taken the name All The Gear No Idea but that one was already taken. LOL

[@danishnative9555]

The world would certainly be a much different place if there was no resistance. Strike a bell and it keeps ringing forever. Generate infinite high voltage. Many more physical and electrical examples can be made. Un-damped oscillation would make for a weird & spooky life.

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

You make some interesting points. Thank the gods for entropy. Thanks for watching and comments regards Chris

[@danishnative9555]

@@allthegearnoidea6752 Entropy applies to all antique radios too. Even humans. It's a vicious cycle.

[@tubeDude48]

I have their BlueESR meter. PROBLEM: Keep your soldering iron very low in temp! The PADs on the board are very THIN! *NOT* *EXCEPTABLE!!* If you lay the I.C.'s on their side, and bend them straight, they will plug-in easily if you don't have a bender!

[@allthegearnoidea6752]

Yes the pads are a bit thin I would have made them bigger but it wasn’t a problem. I usually run around 370 but don’t hang about etc. Thanks for watching and taking time to comment. Best regards Chris