18-05-2015, 09:49 AM
Is it fast enough to characterise transmission lines? (Any excuse to share this video again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9m2w4DgeVk)
I trust that earth connection isn't just a twist-tab on the capacitor? Perhaps the tag belongs to the clamp - I can't quite tell from the pictures
We have a 542 in the office at work. We've no idea what to do with it, but we can't bear to throw it out - obviously. But I can't bring it home unless I want to get a divorce Anyway, after much deliberation, we decided to power it up. It hadn't been used in more than 20 years, but it worked just fine - no drama, no fireworks, no overheating. Perhaps the only thing it needs is a bit of oil in the fan bearings. What impressed me most was how accurate the PSU rails were - the -150V rail was spot on. By "spot on", I mean 150.00V exactly! In common with many of their designs, this rail is used as a reference for all the others, so naturally they were all pretty good (the resistors scaling the rails look like very nice precision carbon film jobs). Something else that really impressed me: once it had been powered down, I randomly sampled a few of the carbon-comp resistors and found that they were all comfortably within spec. So what were the US manufacturers doing differently to us?
I trust that earth connection isn't just a twist-tab on the capacitor? Perhaps the tag belongs to the clamp - I can't quite tell from the pictures
We have a 542 in the office at work. We've no idea what to do with it, but we can't bear to throw it out - obviously. But I can't bring it home unless I want to get a divorce
Anyway, after much deliberation, we decided to power it up. It hadn't been used in more than 20 years, but it worked just fine - no drama, no fireworks, no overheating. Perhaps the only thing it needs is a bit of oil in the fan bearings. What impressed me most was how accurate the PSU rails were - the -150V rail was spot on. By "spot on", I mean 150.00V exactly! In common with many of their designs, this rail is used as a reference for all the others, so naturally they were all pretty good (the resistors scaling the rails look like very nice precision carbon film jobs). Something else that really impressed me: once it had been powered down, I randomly sampled a few of the carbon-comp resistors and found that they were all comfortably within spec. So what were the US manufacturers doing differently to us?
