I remember this beast. We had one in our high school electronics class. that was back in 74, 75 and 76. It sucks getting old man. Thanks

Hey Brad, my Dad would have been really proud of you. He was a hands-on civilian electrical engineer with the Navy for about 30 years. He built all kinds of test gear.

So Sorry to hear about your wonderful grandmothers passing. I too was close to my grandmother. It's like loosing an angel. You posting brought back many fond memories. Bless you in your time of loss, your a great guy. My condolences to you and yours.

Really nice piece of gear. I adore old test gear, and I adore those magic eye tubes even more!

I am now obsessed with magic eye tubes, thank you for that.

Hi Brad, thanks for the video! I got one of these brand new old stock sealed in the original box from an electronics store that was closing down. I also got an eico VTVM in kit form NOS at the same time. One thing to be careful of on the 950B: when you test a cap at high voltage, don't turn the voltage knob down too fast. The cap actually discharges through the pot. If you turn it down too fast, it will dump the voltage through the pot and burn it out. It's really hard to find a replacement. This was apparently more of a problem with the 950A, but I had the pot fail on the 950B as well. The power factor test is similar to an ESR test. The lower the power factor percentage, the lower the ESR. I think this only works on the two highest capacitance ranges, so it's good for testing power supply filter caps. I still use my 950B. Great piece of test gear. Thanks for sharing!

I love the amps, but I really love seeing these more obscure tube devices. Also Eico is probably one of my favorite companies from back then. Just beautiful engineering.

Cool tester. Eico made some great gear back in the day. Enjoyed the walk through with the manual. THANKS Brad!

Wow, that manual really is fantastic. Seeing the explanation and schematic of the bridge with the "power factor" pot in the circuit made the whole power factor thing click. I've just done the same thing- pulled down the ol' Sprague Tel-Ohmike TO-5 after much time spent upon a closet shelf. Just rebuilt the whole thing, hand-rolled the critical cap values, and replaced the flaky main pot with a new one from Mouser, but it's well-shy of the 7.5k called for in the schematic so I've added some trim pots on each side. It's getting there. One thing it's doing perfectly is measuring sub-10pF caps, which I think is a pretty cool party trick. These things really can't be beat for the leakage test, though.

Remember, you are putting big voltage in those . Good ones will charge up . Discharge them .

That's a GREAT cap tester! I have one, can't be without it!

This is awesome Brad! I have one of these and the Heathkit IT-11. Fantastic units!

NOTE: There is a capacitor rated at 525VDC in this device. There is a reading of -520V on the schematic I initially misread as -320V. The transformer actually has 560V potential across it in total, so I made a mistake using 450V caps. A better solution is to use two 22uf 300V+ caps in series, which I will go back and do. That will give you well in excess of the spec the schematic calls for on the 525V cap. Sorry for any confusion.

IMHO, one of your better videos Brad. I would check the voltage coming at the capacitor in High Voltage situations. These circuits were designed when the voltage was around 110v, so the when you place the switch on 400v, I'd bet the voltage is higher. I know I get around 127 volts at the wall here in Florida.

I have one of these on the shelf waiting to be serviced. This will help, thanks a lot =)

Love seeing these type of restoration videos from you 👍🎸 best to you man

Interesting testing the old parts with the equipment that they came from.

That magic eye tube is so cool

Thanks Dude I've got this very tester & need to give mine a TUNE-UP

You should build the Mr. Carlson's Lab low voltage cap tester. He claims that it's highly accurate and can test for bad caps at lower voltage. I have seen it working and it appears to really be good.

In “comparator” mode, you could even check inductors if you have a known good inductor, since it’s comparing the reactive impedance at 60 Hz. So if you have an audio output transformer that you know is good, you could compare it (the primary) with a “supposed” replacement, though the operating frequency will probably limit it to inductors no smaller than a few mH, I suspect. 🙂

Proper nice tactile test gear. Really cool video Brad 👍

This is so cool

Finally a cap leakage tester operating on proper voltages rather than the 9V on the LCR-T4 component tester from Banggood. Just don't let Terry from D-Lab come close to the tester, he might turn it into a guitar amp :-)

oh my, I think my dad had one of those...looks very familiar... He got Electrical Engineering degree in the '60s and built a lot of his equipment from kits... Had a huge Oscilloscope too and a multimeter the size of a lunch box. I sure wish we saved that stuff.

Very nice

I was exactly 4 years old when this was made, as it was made on my birthday.. TRW means Thompson, Ramo, and Wooldridge.

Sorry I missed the live Brad, was set to go then passed out from the COVID. Gonna check it out now.

Hey, nice one! I've got a RLC meter with a X/N comparator mode and now I know the use case for it :) Sometimes you need a matched pair of resistors / caps (e.g. when making a high end stereo amp, a phase inverter circuit etc.) and this is where it comes in handy.

Actually your chair sound is cool ! It don't bothers me @ all !👍

Yep, Eico DID make kits. I had an Eico FM receiver kit my father built. ( I unbuilt it...) Nice to see ya' got that R/C bridge workin' well.

nice piece of equipment... it will come in handy... like I say "old school or no school"

Mr Carlson has some very informative vids on on these old testers and warns of the dangers of their use and their failings remember to DISCHARGE Electrolytics? Nice video Dude. thanks.

about your chair, brad: if you get some kind of office chair, spring for some aftermarket wheels for it, there are now rollerblade-style wheels that are made to replace the crappy little plastic casters on most office chairs. they've made a world of difference on mine! my chairs roll around so much easier and the whole chair is much more comfortable. a set of 5 can be found on amazon for ~20 bones, or 30ish bucks at lowes. well worth the extra money!

Congrats Dad.... Go team Redish...!

Woo Hoo like number 174! Nice job Brad.

C2, C3 &C4 are precision capacitors. C4, in particular is AKA a reference capacitor. This is is basis for the capacitance measurement. I'm guessing if you don't have a precision device here, you measurements will suffer.

You could also wire two 4.7 uF/160V electrolytics in inverse-series (i.e. with either the two “+” leads tied together, or the two “-“ leads), and get a (roughly) 2.35 uF/320V rating. Good enough, especially for tube gear. 🙂

I always watch the estate sales and auctions for this kind of gear. Ones that Don't meet all the test specs I want usually sell easily, so there's minimal risk to me.

Great Video Brad. Very simple circuit that old 58 machine. How does the newer digital circuit compare to the 58 in terms of simplicity?

What component is the Green Magic Eyes? The Green Magic Eye is an special LCR network because it has that Wide Black Window that opens and closes to know if the capacitor is leaking or not.

i have been in the process of trying to add a taste of distortion on one channel of my Bantam Bass amp. it is from the early 80's. My brother gave this to me many years ago, and I have tried everything to make this sound like some of your mods to a type of marshall. I would send it to you for a mod of your choice, if you would take it on. I used to co own a tv and video (vcr) shop with my older brother in the 70`s. I have created a pretty good schematic of what i've done and it works kind of but bleeds from the non modified bass channel to the normal modded channel and the middle and bass tone controls don`t seem to do much. Also the distortion sounds more like a big muff on seditives. I really love watching you and hjave done much stuiding on the tube amp designing but it is just so much different than adding non polar caps to speakers to change the frequencies. anyway, I had asked Uncle Doug, which he is a pretty smart guy, but doesnt do the kind of mods you do, and I appreciate your videos and have watch every one more than once. Could I please at least send you my schematic and when you have a moment take a look and give me a little insight. Or I could send you a pix, and maybe you could use it on you channel. Sorry to carry on........ it`s been a month of watching, swapping (with a decade box and resistance box), soldering and all that, and this is my last hope. Thanks so much for all your informative KZfaq videos. Mark Bruno

thats pretty cool! what do you know about the green poly caps in 70s marshall amps? i have them in mine and im wondering if i need to check/replace them

You might want to test your cap leak test voltage output from the tester. Make sure after changing some of the caps inside that what the dial is showing is close to the actual output.

That line capacitor should be a Y-rated cap.

So which came first: the capacitor or the capacitor tester?

I notice you use CRC Contact Cleaner in the green can. What is the difference of that and the blue can? Does it clean better?

Brad! I have a question about a 2018 Les Paul. I bought just the body and neck and installed the electronics myself. Bridge is grounded, ive shielded the entire inside cavities with copper, and have tried multiple different pickups. It squeals uncontrollably like the pups have gone microphonic. I cannot for the life of me figure out whats wrong with this thing. Ive also taken pups that squeal and put them in a different guitar to make sure it wasn’t the pups. Ive went with the traditional 50’s style and the Seymour Duncan style and doesn’t make a difference…. I really dont know what would be causing this other than a curse. Ive also re bought new Gibson pots 3 times and was very careful not to heat them up too hot. 🤯

if the chair is perfectly good, but just a bit squeaky. then I would locate were it's coming from and either put a little grease on it or some tightening up.?

Really cool, but why would you use this over a modern tester that just gives you an LCD readout?

This is one of the “unsafe” models since you can easily leave hundreds of volts in the cap being tested when you remove it from the tester. The “safe” models have a momentary switch that guarantees the cap is discharged before you remove it. Mr. Carlson stresses this feature often. All my brown turd caps test perfect as yours did.

Hey Brad, Friendly reminder to make sure monetization is on for all your older videos, Cuz with this KZfaq ad blocker war, they are really pushing the ads. so far 8 minutes of watch time, they pushed 3 ads to me, so make sure you're getting your fair share from them MF.

Cool, but where`s the interview with Gordon and the Boaz 1 demo??

now whats happened? never a dull moment eh? I get it

On a curious side note, I've been meaning to ask why your merch doesn't have Voltage represented by the letter E?

Can you recreate Brian May’s diki box?

Magic Ei

Brad, dude. The champ handle, is finished. I need an address.

Hey Brad, do you need a new nice pocket knife? I'd love to send you something if you give me some kind of idea of what style of knife, blade shape, steel type, brand, etc. that you like. Let me know, i have a lot of brand new knives in my collection if you want one.

👍✌😎

Lol never noticed the chair 🪑

I just don't get the love of the 'Gibson' bumblebee caps because they are absolutely garbage when they get old. Your better off with a standard orange drop but I'll take a bag full of them just to sell for daft money on ebay to people with more money than sense.

2 weeks, man

Just a word of advice. When you test leakage and you turn it quickly back to 0 on the voltage pot, you’re discharging all the voltage to the tiny wire in the voltage pot. If you slowly turn it and give it time to dissipate all the heat that voltage pot will last much longer. Thanks for the video.

Hey Brad. Oil your chair! :)

Just goes to show that bumblebombs arent even good as resistors xD

Hey, European on my boots!

KUL

Biden capacitors . no bodys home

Unimpressive and confusing...sorry.