Keep one at least. You can use them to cut/seal nylon, maybe.
Agree change out the capacitors. And test the power transistors, too.
BTW, don’t use a sponge to clean your iron - use this:
Amazon.com
Works great, and doesn’t cool the tip. I clean my tip almost every joint.
You could go old-school: find a multimeter that uses Nixie tubes, like they did in the old days. There are plenty on eBay, such as https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Heath-IMD-202-2-Bell-Howell-Schools-Digital-Multimeter-Good-Nixie-tube/174006141032?hash=item2883930068:g:jDUAAOSw~oldXyjh
That sounds totally awesome!
…but there seems to be a flaw. With a fine old piece of kit like that I imagine I might want to go through it with a fine tooth comb and ensure that everything is in good working order, and I might need a device that checks resistance, continuity, capacitance, and…
And then I’d have two restoration projects and no working multimeter!
Thanks, but these Seeburg machines are enough for me.
A quick update…
I finally got around to working on the Seeburg 1000 mechanisms (I have 2), and I found the meter to be absolutely perfect for the job.
Today I was just getting the motors to work so I could run the mechanisms outside of the enclosures. The mechanical side of these machines has a bit of electrical wiring to bring line voltage to the motor, so I had a bit of continuity checking to do to make sure I was hooking things up correctly.
The meter was super easy to use for this work.
Another device I acquired for this was one of the Quick Test gadgets that Big Clive always uses–this is an excellent tool for working with line voltage, as is the case in these machines.
I bought the US/Canada version (black/white/green) from Newark.
The soldering iron was still in its box and I feared that I might not get around to using it until the return window was closed, so I set it up today and tinned the tip.
For a guy who has always used cheap Radio Shack soldering irons, this thing is an absolute beauty. I am looking forward to getting on with the electronics portion of this project.
Thanks folks. I’ll surely be back with questions like “I can’t find this cap in this value…how close does it really need to be?”