[dconant]

I have traced the wiring to #47 and it shows like the schematic. There is no hole in the back of the chassis for that and there is no adjustment nut or screw either.

[462ron]

OK, it was just a thought as it looked similar to me like a trimmer for alignment purposes! 

Ron

[morzh]

Ron


It sure does. Only there is no hole.



Dconant

Here's the idea: if you haven't done so already (I am lazy to go and re-check), desolder one lead of that "trimmer" and measure the capacitance. I bet it won't be any close to a few nanofarads. But...

[dconant]

Mike I did that already and can't really get any kind of reading. My little Honeytek A6013L reads 0 on all scales. One schematic say it is .001 and another with a resistor in series says it is .006 and another schematic says it is a .006 without the series resistor. I will dismount that cap/trimmer so I can take a back side picture of #47.

I powered the radio up and it plays. Have not spent too much time on that yet, just happy it worked after all the work I did on it. Complete recap without testing in between. There is a problem involving that extra switch on the power switch post with it though but I want to do some testing before I post more info on that.

[morzh]

Are you telling me you do not own any decent DMM, that can measure capacitances from a few pF and up? Even todays CCC (Cheap Chinese Crap) DMMs could do that. Do yourself a favour, spend $45, if you don't want a Fluke.

[dconant]

No I'm not saying I don't own a DMM. I have a CCC one (Thsinde 18+). I forgot that could read caps. I did purchase a Fluke but sent it back because I could not stand the stiff cables that came on the probes. The CCC one I have has decent probes in my opinion.

Here is the cap in question. Both front and back pictures. With my CCC it reads 1.094 nf. So .001 then. Now I'm stuck on calling my meter CCC.

[dconant]

I measured the current through the resistor I am using as a replacement for the speaker field coil and got 40ma. So that amounts to 5.28 watts with the resistor being at 3300 ohms. So a 10 watt should do right?

[morzh]

Yep. 10W is probably enough.

Also, if the meter measures Farads, then it should also have that "Delta" button where you nullify the capacitance it shows when the leads are just hanging. (Fluke does).
This way you will now the true capacityance.

While I am surprised this thing is a 1nF, but that at least explaines its existance: the padders do not go into that range.


One more piece of counsel:

1. Fluke's stiff cables.
Fluke is the Cadillac of meters. It is THE Meter. If you could not stand the probes of it, you should've gone to Amazon and buy CCC leads (I did when I needed extras) for very little money, that conbnect to Fluke and many other meters. Instead of getting rid of the meter as a whole.

2. Using old equipment.
We all have this "Oh, I want to use old outdated equipment, because it feels right". OK, imagine a dental doctor using a hand brace on your teeth instead of modern hi-speed ultrasonic one.
The tools, the more modern they are, the better they are. You are FIXING old stuff, yes, but you are not obligated to use old stuff to fix it.
Also, before using any tool of old, at least make sure it is working. You should not trust a measurement without some sort of caliration done, even if simple home-brewed one.
I swapped my old small tube RF generator for digital HP one, and I could not be happier.
Tools are to be known working tools, and not just something that kinda works. This is my approach, and it works well.

[dconant]

I knew that Fluke was the Cadillac so with that in mind what Fluke would you recommend I get?

[radiorich]

Hello Mike,
Yes, I have 3 Fluke meters one being my first Fluke 77 and other being Fluke 87.
My third is Fluke clamp -on amp meter .

Sincerely Richard

[morzh]

There is no such thing as bad Fluke.

This said, they are expensive. A Fluke is easily 10x the price of comparable CCC meter.

At home I have 189. Excellent machine. I inherited it, some as a few other devices.
At work I have 87V. Also excellent machine.

Any True Rms Fluke meter, capable of all basic measurements, is good. The choice comes down to the price you can afford.

[dconant]

Thanks Mike. I will check them out.

[RodB]

Mike, ...you get a commission?

[morzh]

Rod

I wish...

I am not sure I'd buy the Fluke, had it not fell in my lap for free. $500 to $800...it's a lot of money for a DMM.
My point was not in selling Fluke, my point was, as long as you have it, the leads shouldn't be the reason to send it back.



I even have a Fluke isolation transformer.

[MrFixr55]

I think that Danaher, the company that owns Beckman-Coulter (the company that I worked for 41 years) owns Fluke. They also own Tektronix. Back in the 1980s, Beckman Instruments manufactured a line of great DMMs that would run for a year on a carbon-zinc 9V battery. Due to our alignment with Smith Kline (at the time), they sold off all the non-medical divisions, including Helipot and the electronics division. (Dr. Beckman invented the Helipot and made a fortune off of it. Google Arnold O. Beckman, read the Wikipedia article on him, it is a very interesting read. He rubbed elbows with the likes of Frank Jewett of Bell Labs, Walter Shewhart, the 'father of statistical process control', Lee DeForrest and William Shockley. He died in 2004 at the age of 104.) In a strange twist of fate, Beckman replaced the meters that we Field Engineers were using with Flukes when we needed functions such as capacitance, frequency, duty cycle, etc. that our RMS3030s did not have. We were eventually bought by Danaher, who owns a bevy of companies including Fluke, Tektronix, Pall, and prior to a spinoff, owned Matco Tools, Easco Tools (the company that manufactured Craftsman and Husky hand tools), Jacobs Chucks, Jacobs Engine Brakes (The "Jake Brake" that you hear when an 18 Wheeler slows down) and other companies.