Learn Electronics Repair #11 - Test Equipment

[@stevenichol693]

Well I cooked my first meal in the pressure cooker today…Aldi 750gram gammon joint…5 small potatoes, cut in half…2 onions quartered…1 chicken stock cube mixed with 2 cups of hot water…set timer for 25 minutes. Absolutely brilliant…total time approx 45mins including warm up and depressurising…resulting in a wonderfully well cooked, tasty, meal for my wife and myself…excellent. Thanks for your videos.👍👍👍

[@cdforduk1]

Great stuff M8 ! Did my apprenticeship in electronics back in early 80's After 31 years as a Field Service engineer doing Board & module swap outs gone back to my roots & componant level diagnosis & repairs... Loving it & your knowledge & experience is fantastic !

[@JavierCanzobre]

I love this video as it gives you the reallity of what you need vs wish to have

[@gordthor5351]

One good reason to have an analog meter is to read engine codes on pre 1996 vehicles which use OBD1. The fault number codes will correspond to the number of short sweeps on the meter, with a long sweep in between each number.

[@w8lvradio]

The peak tester is something that we would have never even dreamed of in the 1970's! Thanks for video! 73 DE W8LV BILL

[@edic2619]

Really great information. Your shop is really nice. Thanks for this video.

[@hullinstruments]

The Aneng v8 multimeter costs a little more than the one you showed, but it is genuinely one of the best multimeters I have ever used. And has capabilities that are only found on some of the highest and expensive fluke meters. Ability to measure varying frequencies, inrush, variable frequency drives, and all kinds of other things I’ve had it open several times to clean the switch contacts or replace a fuse… i’ve actually had two of them for the past two or three years. I’m somewhat “qualified“ to judge the quality because I have my own small and humble metrology business. I do component level board repair for industrial and manufacturing clients, but I specialize in test equipment repair/calibration and other metrology associated tasks. I have an Beautiful family of NIST traceable certified equipment. And I work on insanely expensive test equipment for clients every day. So I’ve come to understand what makes a decent quality piece of test gear. I love lots of the cheaper equipment because of its reliability, perfectly adequate accuracy, and if I do something stupid and blow something up, I’m not worried about knocking my $10,000 multimeter out of calibration. I’ve worked awfully hard for my equipment, and I don’t mean to sound arrogant or brag about it, I only mention it because it’s what taught me to accurately judge the quality of test gear. And I’m somewhat experienced with a decent gear, whereas a lot of folks who buy the cheaper meters might not be quite as familiar.. Don’t get me wrong, I love my process calibrators and 8.5 digit benchtop beauties. But holy shit it really is a golden age of great quality dirt cheap test equipment.

[@hullinstruments]

I’d also like to add that your channel is one of the best new electronics and diagnostics channels on KZbin. Your “methodical faultfinding“ videos are some of my favorite troubleshooting videos of all time. Would be awesome if you made some more general faultfinding videos, that could be applied to most any type of circuit board. Thanks for the good content and have a great day!

[@nutgone100]

Thanks for the recommendation. I’ve been thinking about getting a new meter. I’ve got an old Vichy (Vichi?) cheap auto ranging Chinese meter I’ve had for years now & it’s been absolutely faultless, but it’s getting a bit old. I’ll definitely look into the V8

[@wubshetakaluwawa4258]

The education you are teaching is very good. A lot of knowledge and experience has given us a lot of knowledge for our teenagers. Thank you very much. I live in Ethiopia. Some repairs are not available.I'd like you to help me because I want to be a big debtor

[@Attic-Toy-Design]

Fantastic video! You have a lovely laboratory. A dream for many. You are a such incredible person and an exceptional electronic engineer.

[@alien8r33d]

An analogue meter is useful for troubleshooting older equipment, where voltages given in the service manual were likely read using an analogue meter with an input impedance of around 20k per voltage rather than modern digital meters that generally have an input impedance around 10M.

[@gordselectronicshobby3853]

An Analog meter is very useful for aligning AF, IF, and RF circuits.

[@transcanada9028]

Great video. I have an old Tektronix TDS 320 Storage Scope I bought about 10 years ago used on E-Bay and I think I may have used it twice. All it made me want is a good used analogue scope. The price of used analogue scopes have gone up quite a bit in the last few years and has priced them out of reach for me. E-bay prices have gone way up and the shipping has gotten just stupid. Oh well maybe one day. Enjoy your videos very much. Keep them coming.

[@bmck9097]

This channel is great. Thanks for doing this.

[@Rether16]

Fun fact, if you get a cable toner and hold it up to your atlas DCA when you turn it on it will play a little tune. It was coded but the beeper was never added during production. At least my Atlas UTP ethernet tracer does anyway!

[@allelectronicsrepairs7165]

Hi Richard, Greetings from Australia :-}. Thank you for another good video! Regarding Benchtop Power Supplies, somebody might be interested in KORAD KA305D. After going through the number of different brands, I found this KORAD BPS. Now I have two of them and I can't recommend them more! They have a two-step power-up system, which allows setting all the desired parameters, without shorting the probes. First, you turn ON the whole unit which lets you see what you are actually setting. Then you can connect the DUT (Device Under Test) and switch ON the actual power transfer. Or you can connect the DUT first - it doesn't matter. They also have 4 Memories to store your most favored settings. Each unit is 5A 30V, so if I connect them in series, I can achieve up to 60v or 10A in parallel. I really strongly recommend them! Regards, Jerry.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Thanks for the info. Ihope to get chance to review some bench PSU soon.

[@peterlapornik2185]

Hi Richard, thank you for sharing all the information about your equipment. Regarding your microscope, if you need to extend the distance between the bottom of the scope and what you are working on, then you can fit a 0.5x barlow lens to it (the cost should be about 20 euros). It will also allow you to view a greater area under your scope but still provide more than enough magnification.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Yeah actually I have a 0.5x barlow lens on the microscope. The problem on the videos is that the C Mount camera sees a much narrower field of view than I can see through the lenses. The seller told me this is normal and I bought a 0.5x adapter for the camera from him as well which improved it, but didn't actually fix the problem totally. This is why sometimes you see me working on something with the microscope and I go outside of the camera view.

[@peterlapornik2185]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair That's interesting, I see most people use a single 0.35x reduction lens for the camera mount. The aim is to use a single lens so you reduce any wobble. With your double boom stand that shouldn't be an issue.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

The adapter they sold me for the camera is marked SZMCTV1/2 from what you say I should need something like SZMCTV1/3 instead

[@goggo43]

One thing you need in a workshop is a camera to record where leads plugs and other parts go during later reasembly. I have a Peak Component Tester that would exceed 40 years old.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Definitely. I often refer back to my own video while working on a repair

[@edic2619]

Thanks great video.

[@Iceking007]

It's standard practice these days to find function/ frequency generators built into digital Oscilloscopes. That's something to consider. Digital scopes are certainly expensive and complex, there is something to be said for simple Analog scopes.

[@stephenburnell7122]

THANKS FOR YOUR VERY DETAILED VIDEOS.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Glad you like them!

[@andrewtucker6325]

Its nearly Xmas im starting to take electronics repair more seriously I'll be asking for electronic repair tools. i have a disability that has stopped me working i used to be a around builder and car mechanic.. I do repair most technology like phones xbox tvs pc's etc but i definitely need better tools i have a good soldering iron and heat station need a better meter and desolder vaccum ive got a really old oscilloscopes from the 1970s need to change the caps other than that its functional.. Love these videos richard keep them coming please

[@renefuller9241]

I have an 8 channel Saleae Logic Analyzer. That thing cost $500.00 dollars. A 16 channel one will run you a grand. It's probably more sophisticated than yours which is why it's more expensive (I hope :)) I bought it on March 28, 2022 for low level ST Electronics ARM boards programming (STM32F407G - Discovery Board). The good thing about logic analyzers is that they have 8 or 16 channels. An Oscilloscope has 2 channels only. You do have to have a powerful computer with a lot of memory, as everything runs through the USB connection. I would love it if you any videos on how to fix them and such. I'm learning a lot about PSUs from your videos. I'm not planning on fixing any (yet), but it's great material.

[@NewbFixer]

Superb young man!

[@scrappy4321]

Reasons for analog meter: (1) checking a potentiometer for smoothness (2) peaking or nulling when aligning 13:14

[@wtfojoxojo1918]

Thank you for the good advice.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

You are welcome

[@paulc9139]

I have one of those analogue meter for tuning up Radio I F sections for peaking the inductors , better than listening to the tone through the speaker.

[@Dutch_off_grid_homesteading]

Heya work only 1 time with a osciloscope don't know how to use it anymore hope you have a vid so I can learn again thannk you

[@thebrokeway9838]

let me see if i can find one....Love this guy!!

[@TheManLab7]

How many amps is your Variac, as it looks like 15A? Is yours an open Variac like most of them are. Mine was the same but like you did (Apart from Andy (Photonicinduction)), everyone sticks them in a box. Everybody LOVES old analog needle meter's. But due to how small yours are and the output always need to be accurate (but you can use a DMM for that). I'd swap them over for some eBay special digital one's 🙂 Going back to your load limiting supply using a couple of lamps. I use 9 magnetic ballasts with 9 switches for each of them. They're from 11w to 600w and to keep them out of the way. I stuck them on a couple of bits of ply and put them in the corner of my workshop. Just so their out of the way and not taking up any VALUABLE real estate. Going back to DMM's I've got at least 5 but a little while ago. I had a hunt on eBay n got myself a pocket multimeter which I ended up buying another one as they're pretty good value for the price. It's the same one (ANENG) your handling and I'm tempted to buy another one just because they're so cheap! I think it's still the only pocket multimeter that does 10A (but correct me if I'm wrong). It's definitely come in VERY handy in the past, as I've been tasting how much currently was running through some LED strips. My Variac (which is actually called a Variac) is an old one that's rated for 20A. But I've recently got a much newer one and that's for 30A n the windings are actually a lot smaller (even though they are gold plated). I've had it running WELL OVER 60A over a short period and it's never complained. It's so fun when you turn it on and it's not at 0 degrees n EVERYTHING dimms 😁 I'm still in the process of making it better, but as it stands. I've stuck a contactor in with a pust button. So if the power goes out, then it WON'T comes back on by itself. I'll have to physically reset it. I've also stuck 3 MCB's on the output but as of yet. I haven't put one on the input, as I've got quite a few things on the output to protect my lovely old Variac which I'll never sell. If you go on mine or Andy's channel, then you'll see it. Back then it was in a white box but now it's gloss black. I'm going to remake it as it was made up from leftover bits when doing the house. Going back to bench power supplies, I bought a cheap ish one off eBay a while ago. It's a single output, 5 memory, rotary encoder, 31V, 3.1A, CC, CV, OCP, OVP, current adjust to 0.001 and voltage adjust to 0.01. I also was looking for a much bigger n powerful bench power supplies which are German and are in immaculate condition and I paid 5% of what they are new. One's 72V at 30A and the others 300V at 6.67A. I've been looking for power supplies like those for WELL OVER 10yrs and I'll never sell them, same goes for my old Variac 😊 I really like your set up btw 👍🏻🙂

[@Iceking007]

Analog meters are good for needle deflection, and with no circuitry they are fast acting. Yes, Needle reaction can be slow, but there's no circuitry to think about reacting, it just does. Needle deflection can help with fluctuating or pulsing currents. I would say it's a necessary third meter.

[@SimonParkes]

And if that analogue meter is an AVO Model 8, it also looks amazing :D

[@hullinstruments]

SUPER TIP….. TLDR use TINY film thermistors that will allow you to track hotspots instantly without a thermal camera. OK so this is a bit long I apologize….. Yet again I’m sorry to leave another comment but when it comes to temperature detection, if you don’t want to invest in a thermal camera… Try this. Take the smallest thermistor you can find. Like the little thin film ones found in most inkjet printers, or found monitoring the temperature in a laptop battery pack or other battery pack. These things are tiny, They will be the tiniest little thermistors you’ve ever seen literally like The size of a large grain of sand. Like 1/4 the size of a piece of rice. The smaller the better because it has faster response and recovery since it has less mass Get a sharpie marker and disassemble it throwing away the ink portion…. But keeping the felt tip. Poke a needle through the felt tip and position the thermistor so that The legs of the thermistor pass through the felt tip and into the body of the sharpie. Run a few flexible silicone type wires at the back of the sharpie and connect to the thermistor. Instead of cheap multimeter leads will be OK as long as they’re flexible. You can usually get a decent set of silicone leads from Banggood for less than five dollars, keep in mind you’re cutting off the end of the probe so you don’t want to spend much money on them. Maybe even have a broken sit around and you can just step off the probes. use a little bit of super glue or epoxy on the end of the felt tip, not completely covering the thermistor but only leaving just a tiny little portion at the end exposed. thermistor should be pushed down to where it’s just barely sticking out, but a little bit of adhesive can protect it and make sure that it doesn’t get damaged but without covering the actual tip of it. Just so that the legs and things don’t get flexed or stressed. Because these things are tiny and just looking at them wrong and make them fall apart Now you can plug it into your multimeter on resistance mode, and it will respond instantaneously within like 1/100 of a second to the varying temperatures. It is literally so sensitive that when I set my multimeter up in a room and leave the room letting the thermistor stabilize… If I even come a few feet from the doorway to that room you can see the multimeters display start jumping up just because of the infrared heat from 20 or 30 feet away. It is ridiculously sensitive. You can literally touch the wall with your hand for a split second and even several minutes later the thermistor can pick up the change in heat where your fingerprints were. It’s that crazy sensitive. These characteristics are very similar to a thermal camera, but of course instead of seeing the difference in color you’re just seeing the multimeter resistance display jump up and down Now that it’s plugged into your meter, that you can sweep across a circuit board and it quickly find the warmest areas.. its a Thousand times more sensitive to heat than your fingers, this thermistor contraption is basically free, and will allow you to track down temperature differences at an incredible speed and efficiency. You can Google “thin-film thermistor“ or just rip open a rechargeable battery pack and you’ll see them taped to the 18650 cells. They’ll have a bit of kapton tape around them to keep them from flexing or stressing. I usually keep the tape on the legs but trim the very tip of the thermistor so it’s the only thing exposed. Keep in mind the legs of the thermistor are basically like human hairs they’re so tiny. The smaller the thermistor the quicker the response time as a bigger one would hold onto the heat and not recover instantly. I’ve made several of these using different types and resistance thermistors. Usually the resistance is between 50k abd 150k ohms Some recover a little faster than others depending on size, room temperature resistance, and the type of material the tip is made out of. Sometimes Glass sometimes epoxy , All kinds of different materials. I’ve had good luck with the glass tipped ones, I use a cheap diamond fingernail file to grind away the very tip of the glass getting extremely close to the junction inside of the thermistor. This improves sensitivity. But it’s honestly not even needed because they are already ridiculously sensitive The good thing about harvesting them and using all dried up sharpie markers is there free to make. Even if you do need to buy the thermistors they’re usually a few pennies apiece or maybe a dollar. I’ve even use some of the thermistors like sold in the 3-D printing community used to monitor the hot end… They make great heat detectors for troubleshooting. And are widely available So if you make a few with different types and resistances, some will be a bit faster responding so I’m a bit slower but that’s actually a good thing because sometimes you don’t want to respond and be super jittery. Not only is it basically free and incredibly useful for tracing down issues on PCBs.… but you can also use it to search for “heat leaks” in your home around doors and other places that could use insulation or attention paid to the cracks I have several thermal cameras that I use in my lab but these are just as useful, a little less convenient maybe but damn still super super useful

[@hullinstruments]

13:23 sorry to bug you with another comment. But the ESR meter you showed has a newer version this year and I believe for about the same price it will measure ESR and capacitance on the same unit. They look basically identical but I believe the price is about the same

[@Paul-q3f8j]

Tunning up I F stages, you can see the peak much easier, that's what I use mine for,

[@gordthor5351]

I agree that it is very important to have an instant beep for checking continuity. I am surprised that you have much more patience checking capacitors with that slow MESR meter. I have the same meter and it works, but it's slow and not very consistent. I bought the Blue ESR meter and it reads capacitors instantly and you always get the same reading if you test the same cap again. It costs 2-3 times as much as the MESR, but the build quality is much better and the performance is as good as it gets (instantly)

[@joeshmoe7899]

I just attach function generator alligator clips to multimeter leads. Set multimeter to mV AC. Set function generator to 100kHz sine wave. Measure a good cap for mV baseline. A bad cap will vary greatly.

[@treadmillrepair754]

I have the grampa of the Blue ESR meter, the Dick Smith ESR meter, both are the same. Last year I bought the GME-236 and is the best ESR meter that I bought.

[@midnightrizer]

i use my signal generator and logic probe and my ultra tiny scope it has like a 2 inch screen; 1 to 2 MHz for a visual on the signals for those two instruments.

[@nickgrotta5367]

You are the best.. Thanks

[@tricky778]

I just ordered a digital multimeter before the other things, because I need to eliminate a 30 or more quid pc power brick as the problem first. I ordered an amprobe am-520 because it's the cheapest I could find made by a Fluke company and which has both capacitance and temperature. I hope I made a good choice.

[@tricky778]

Now I'm worried I should have ordered the am-535 for smaller capacitances and voltages, it's less than double the price of the am-520

[@barrymerridan5891]

Hi, Thank you for a fantastic channel it is very interesting, I am interested in making one of your safety devices, could you please explain I little, how it works, and why do you have a 100 watt bulb and a 60 watt bulb. I also noted that there is no earth, is that meant to be, sorry if it sounds dumb, but I just want to make one, keep up the good work.

[@GripFreak]

Doesn't an analog meter have a higher test voltage for testing diodes? Wouldn't this be an advantage? Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. I subbed.

[@perttisalonen850]

Hello! I am grateful for showing the instruments on your workshop. Do you use a RF signal generator?

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

I have a signal generator that goes up to 10MHz but I don't really work on any RF circuits these days.

[@itswardy1919]

Hi Richard, can you give me some advice on what Microscope would be best to purchase? I live in the UK. Keep up the good work, your videos are great 👍

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Yeah I have some experience and opinions on microscopes and will make a video on that. In my own experience there is a one bit of imporatant advice I can give - (and I have owned and used both so can honestly comment) Get a cheap binocular (stereo) microscope rather than an expensive USB microscope! 'Nuff said

[@itswardy1919]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Thanks Richard 👍 also would it be possible for you to do a video on how to make / wire up the current limiter with the 2 lightbulbs please?

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

@@itswardy1919 Sure

[@iangriff50]

Analogue metres are far more accurate compared to digital. Love the 'lessons' keep doing what you do. Thanks.

[@paulmorrey733]

Thanks

[@rduwe9466]

I have lots of equipment everything you can get , but i have put it all in boxes in the garage i was to much ocupied with using all kinds of testers and i allmost repaired nothing .sinds i put it away and only use my multimeter i fixed a lot more items . so scope, frequenty generators , esr meter , short tracker, signal trackers, and so on only keep you of your work . a multimeter solves allmost all problems it just comes down to knowing how to use it and understanding how parts work and circuits . now i have a clean workspace with just a power supply and my multimeter and i am so much more productive . sorry for the faults in my writing its not my language

[@Motorman2112]

You don't need an analog meter to see how a reading varies over time, a DMM with a bar graph does the same thing.

[@computersrepaircotesaint-l7407]

I'm still using fluke 11 from 1993

[@davidmetcalf219]

can't believe you forgot to mention the kettle

[@daz41262010]

fantastic video Richard :) great explanations of all your test equipment :) could you do a video of making the light bulb setup please :)

[@Splaterson92]

NJ is

[@Splaterson92]

By by

[@VandalIO]

have you tried fixing car electronics?

[@JustinBellingerTV]

Was that the old City & Guilds 224 course you took in repair?

[@sydmichel]

Function Generator?

[@H2Dwoat]

Hi, any chance you could put a list of equipment in your blurb, with links if you could manage it (affiliate links) should help pay for your time.

[@davesdigitaldomain]

hi Richard, I'm interested in building the current limiter like yours, but I would like to add a amp metre into the circuit. would I need to put the amp metre after the bulbs and before the device under test ? In this arrangement if the lightbulb is lit would this affect the reading? If I've got this totally wrong where would i be best to put the amp metre. Thank you so much for your videos

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

This is quite simple - The current flowing through a circuit flows through all points in that circuit - so it does not matter if you put the ammeter before the light bulb, after the light bulb or even in the other mains wire - you will get the same reading.

[@JohnDoe-u3b]

What type and brand is the meter at 11:30?

[@VandalIO]

1:01:25 do you have the name for this halogen based mains short protection safety circuit?

[@michaelhartley8426]

Adjust the what??

[@harbselectronicslab3551]

you obviously dont do much radio alignment if you dont rate the analogue multimeter as a top priority

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Actually I do none :D Can you elaborate why the analog meter is important for this purpose/

[@harbselectronicslab3551]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Well I can understand it then....fair enough. Using an analogue meter is a "Visual" method of alignment......it is very easy to see the "peak" or or a "null" with an analogue meter rather than a digital display counting all over the place up and down......you can get a very precise adjustment watching the position of the pointer while you adjust a slug in and out etc.......getting a really sharp reading is really difficult any other way.......they are very useful when the actual value isn't important......just a peak or a null.

[@zedcarr6128]

9:42 I have an LCR meter in this form factor, and it's absolute rubbish. Don't waste your money.

[@Hellhound604]

Had to laugh at your comments about a variac and insulatiion transformer, only part there that you left out was the series light-bulb for current limiting, do you need it???? I guess old-schoolers like us would go "YES", but looking at some other youtube channels trying to work on SMPS or other things with a live earth, without understanding the basic principles, my comment is "Stay away" unless you don’t value your live or your precious oscilloscope. For lots of fault-finding you can get by without 7nderstanding the underlying principles, but where HV gets involved, you need at least some theoretical knowledge… speaking from experience… miracle I survived as a kid, building valve equipment with valves working directly from rectfied mains…. 😱😱😱😱

[@Hellhound604]

Sorry, commented too early on the essential series-light bulb, now you brought it up…👍👍👍👍👍