Need advice on old Gen

[GuyFawkes]

Have to agree 1000% with doug, but there are some instruments that are invaluable.

A few years ago I lent my last oscilloscope to someone and never got it back, feeling the loss I just replaced it (surprise surprise, from ebay) with a 50 buck hitchi 40 mhz dual trace v423  job.

Now I'm not a sparky or electronics bod, never have been, never will be, but I bought the last scope because I knew a guy who had one, and used it for everything conceivable, from testing if his engine points were wearing without diassembling anything, through checking HT coils, you name it, always remember him showing "sinusoidal" mains 240 VAC, which was not what I was expecting to see on the screen. He then got into electroplating and anodising at home, and used to scope for that too... an astonishingly versatile tool.

I can only imagine how an oscilloscope combined with the hands on thing can tell someone like doug everything he needs to know, without picking up a spanner, or resorting to computer modelling or data acquisition.

[Doug]

Well I kind of miss the Surge comparison tester. Its would send a high voltage pulse into a machine winding and show you a picture of the reflected wave coming back. This could tell you all sorts of intersting things about insulation, internal shorts in coil groups and in some cases if someone had modified a winding or cut out a defective coil (hack job).
A resistance bridge is also nice, it can see sutle differences between coils that a regular DMM can't
High pots are nice for checking insulation but in the hands of twit they can realy do a lot of damage.

I own non of these tools now, I do have some tricks that I'm not sure if I should share with the group for fear of someone getting hurt.

When I first started working for the International Nickel Company, they sent me underground to a mine called Coleman, my job was to keep 3 electric trucks running. All of my previous experience and education was useless when faced with a machine loaded with analog electronics, Swedish and German parts and prints I couldn't read.
I recall one awful night when one broke down on the ramp blocking all access and shutting down production.
I tried everything, all it would do was hop growl and trip out, no matter what tools I used or tests I ran I couldn't pin point any problem. In disgust I picked up a nice heavy palm sized chunk of realy dense high grade ore off the ramp and hurled ( with all my frustration and rage behind it ) it at the back of the cab. The lights went out, the service motor stopped and the only noise to be heard the driver woken from her slumber asking "what the @#!* was that?". Then then the computers rebooted she restated ther truck and finnished the shift with no more problems. A few days later I found a loose plug on the pulse transformer for the main converter.
I also dicovered I liked trying to fix the 2 million dollar truck with rocks and threw things at them all the time ( just kidding... maybe..... ) .

Tools are nice experience is better.

Doug