New old multimeter

[Deleted member 8987]

Somebody gave me a new one of those red HF units when they were giving them away at HF. Died. No fixing it. Trash.

My main unit is this:

Oddly, available "new" at Amazon for $301. The outfit shown is $277. Cases extra (mine has the old style case with manual).

My secondary is this Triplett 630:

Me and digital instruments and sound systems do not play well together.

I remember when I did FDR final test and repair at Sundstrand, had nothing do do, went into the dungeon....and shelf upon shelf of early "digital" meters with code wheels. Couldn't read them. Anything other than dead stable voltage the wheels just spun and spun, back and forth. Think powered odometer in your car, but bigger numbers.

 

[John Turney]

Fry's Electronics is still around, with rather large brick & mortar stores in the San Jose area and online: https://www.frys.com/. They seem to be busy, but the parts also seem to be a minor part of their business.

 

[TR3driver]

FWIW, Nuts & Volts had a recent article where the author built a precision voltage reference and tested (among other meters), an old Simpson 630NA. It was off by less than 0.5% at 2.5 volts!

 

[YakkoWarner]

We have a Frys here in Austin TX area that still carries a lot of the test equip and discrete components that RS used to have. Oddly enough the small town about 15 miles east of Austin still has an open Radio Shack store, I popped in once mainly out of curiosity and nostalgia but it is now just a retail outlet for other brands and some old stock from the former days. They had mostly cell phones, electronic toys and very bottom end consumer audio stuff - there were a handful of components still hanging on the wall but certainly nothing like what they used to be.