For a while I’ve wanted one of those Simpson multimeters like we have at work, with the big needle analog meter…
Today I found something a little neater. Someone set one of those Harbor Crack multimeters down on top of it and I laughed and groaned at them all at once.
The gunk on the faceplate cleans off easily. Now I just need to make up new test leads and it’ll be good to go.
The meter has a hilarious ballistic to it. It’s not entirely undamped, but it basically overshoots the reading once then drifts back down onto it. I’m guessing that’s the result of the armature coil being a bit heavier than usual from all the turns to make it… super sensitive.
On a side note I’m looking at the schematic and there’s no diode to rectify AC to DC for the meter… This means the meter must actually have a field winding for AC measurement and thus, by design, it’s true RMS! Not bad at all for a meter made in 1948.