Alrighty, I just got a free multimeter from my grandfather. He died a few months ago, and since I’m interested in electronics, I got to inherit this.
It’s and OLD (meaning probably 50 years) multimeter, and it has the stench of smoke all over it.
Any suggestions as to how to get rid of the smell?
Oh, and the case smells like smoke. It looks to be made of leather, so a washing machine is probably out of the question.
Is it a Simpson by any chance? Great old meters, those were. Sorry, no help on the smoke smell, though.
It’s not so much a question of the smell, but of whether it will taste good for breakfast. Which is to say, it’s probably toast.
That smell usually means there is a blowout somewhere on the circuit. Unfortunately, I can’t pinpoint which component(s) are burnt out.
I once blew out my multimeter trying to measure the resistance across the pins of a 220v socket. :smack:
I’m thinking the OP means cigarette or cigar smoke, xash. Perhaps he can clarify.
Perhaps a thorough wiping down with alcohol can help.
Oh, didn’t think of that Q.E.D..
In that case, I think you can wash electronic components/boards etc. in pure distilled water. I’ll check on that later in the day… so don’t go a dippin’ yet. Or maybe someone here can confirm/deny.
This is where I remembered that bit of info from :
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=136058&highlight=distilled+water
If it is a Simpson, you can still buy the manual for it (see this Google search ). I just got a 262, sans manual, and am quite happy with its performance. The 22 volt batteries it uses can be hard to find though.
Swabbing the case with alcohol, or even a cleaner like 409 should get rid of much of the smoke odor for you.
what? from your Grandfather?? fercrissakes put the thing away and buy a cheapo from wally…
Are you kidding, Tony?? I’d trade any modern analog meter (and most cheap digitals, too) for a Simpson any day of the week.
yeah.
I mean put it somewhere safe,and buy one to use.
If my Grandpa left me something like that I’d display it on my shelf with my other treasures…
Ah, gotcha. Not me. With reasonable care, those old Simpson meters will last just about forever. We had a bunch of 270s at the place I used to work at and I loved them. If I had one, it would only be relegated to the display case after it had died. I regret not holding on to one my dad gave me as a kid, but I was young and stupid then…
I woulod take the back off, let fresh air and sunshine do the deodorizing.
… A bit off topic.
I really can’t understand the attraction of something like this. (Not to the OP, but to the others in this thread getting sentimental about it).
Last week, the first LCD DMM that I ever bought died. I bought it 25 years ago. It didn’t last “forever”, but it was certainly a long time. It performed flawlessly all that time. Plus, no parallax error, no accidentally reading off the wrong scale, no non-linear resistance scale, none of that crap.
And I’m not going to try to fix it. It’s just a tool, and a very old one at that. I’ll get a cheapie for everyday use, and reserve the newer ones for datalogging, or high precision work.
What, honestly, makes analog VOMs attractive? To me, it sounds just like someone saying that hard point saws and tungsten carbide cutting tips take all the fun out of carpentry and machining, because anyone can use them without having to learn the painful and now useless practice of blade sharpening.
I’ve always had a soft spot for nostalgic electronic devices, which is probably why I own four or five Simpson meters. I love those things. But I’ll also be the first to admit that any $20 modern meter will outperform them. A modern meter is smaller, more accurate, more sensitive, more stable, has more functions, better readability, has much higher input impedance when measuring voltage, and (usually) lower impedance when measuring current. And it’s cheaper.
Desmostylus - analog VOMs do one thing very well that DMMs just plain suck at - they will show changing voltage or current with needle sweeps, quivers, twitches and such, rather than flashing a new number at you 4 times a second.
Just so. Which makes them wonderful for detecting bad spots on potentiometers, especially the carbon-film sorts.
His late Grandfather…
Eh your prolly right, I do get too sentimental over objects that once belonged to loved ones that have passed…
My newer DMMs have bargraphs across the bottom of the screen to show that sort of thing. Not that I ever use them for that. Pocket 'scopes are much better.
Is that a scope in your pocket or are you really happy to see me?
Guess it’s been a while since I’ve been shopping for test gear. The last scope I worked with to any great extent was a marvel of smallness at roughly shoebox-size. Next came the PC-based display/logging sort, but that was even bigger. 