Re: Quick-and-dirty testgear: mains voltage monitor.
I bought one identical to this at the Kempton radio rally earlier this year, the intention is to fit it into a standard blank single plate on the wall in my workshop.
A few years ago I was working on a DJ console which suddenly devoloped a nasty hum after repairing it. I was looking everywhere for a fault, couldn't find anything obvious, saw what I thought was a dry joint and fired up the trusty soldering iron, couldn't melt the solder on the tip, iron must be faulty I thought. Off to the kitchen to make a cup of tea as it seemed to be one of those days. 10 minutes later the kettle still hadn't boiled, suddenly it dawned on me, got the DMM out and the mains was down to 160V! Must have been a local substation fault, a device like this would have saved a lot of time mounted above the bench!
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