[Radio Wrangler]

Those semiconductor testers offer to do an awful lot but they only really work on devices which are in good working order, and only if they're low to medium power types. The thing they don't do is analyse a damaged transistor and tell you what it was before it blew up.

There's a huge variety of discrete semiconductor devices, and testing leaves a lot of ambiguities.... This diode breaks down at 7.48v at lowish current. Is it a) an 8.2v zener tested well below its rated current, b) the base-emitter junction of a bipolar transistor, or c) a low threshold high frequency detector diode d) a 7.5v zener tested close to its rated current?

I suppose the main use of such a tester is in trying to identify known good devices which have been mixed up in the same bag.

The little LCR meter with the SMT tweezers is worth its weight in gold in this age of unmarked chip capacitors.

The ESR meter has paid for itself as well.

David