Should I rebuild my Eico 950 Cap Tester?

[Troncones]

I picked it up, along with boxes of other tube related stuff, at a garage sale about a year ago. I want to start going through the boxes and separate the treasures from the junk. I need to make room for new treasures? This is the first piece under review.

Would I have a use for it building new amps?

I don't plan to spend time messing with old caps.

[HollowState]

Originally Posted by Troncones

Would I have a use for it building new amps?
I don't plan to spend time messing with old caps.

Probably not unless you do servicing, need to check and reform old electrolytics or identify unmarked capacitors & resistors. I don't think it's very good for modern day matching of componets either because it's accuracy now is probably only 10%. I still have a Heathkit C-3 which I built as a kid. It still works well, but I use my Secore and Gen Rad units much more.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by HollowState

I don't think it's very good for modern day matching of componets either because it's accuracy now is probably only 10%.

I have one of these, and it has a function selection where you can match capacitors. put the cap to be matched on the left set of terminals, and candidate caps on the right set of terminals, and if they match you'll get a peak of eye opening straight up on the control knob, "1" on the "ratio" scale.

If you do decide to get rid of it, there are people who would be interested in buying it, maybe this board has a swap forum or ebay. Or if you part it out, the eye tube would be something radio restorers would want, and it has a "plate" power transformer inside that can provide around 500V at low current.

[bob91343]

I used to own one of those and didn't find it too useful. It wasn't terribly accurate and in some cases was dead wrong.

I graduated to laboratory quality stuff and now am spoiled. Having said that, the EICO is fun to use and has a cachet to it. If it were cheap enough I'd buy it, just for the fun of getting it working and seeing how accurate it is, and then pass it to my friend who loves retro stuff. I may have the manual.