Somewhere I have a pocket pass/fail valve heater checker. It's badged 'Eagle' so it's not home-made. It's a metal box about the size of a tobacco tin containing a pair of AA cells, a torch bulb and a limiting resistor (so it won't burn out D-series battery valves). There are a number of valveholder with the heater pins wired to said simple continuity tester. A B9A, pins 4 and 5. A pair of B7Gs one using pins 3 and 4 the other using 1 and 7 (that one is labelled 'for battery valves). An octal certainly with pins 2 and 7 used, I have an idea that pin 2 is linked to pin 8 to test certain rectifiers.
It is a very basic test but it weeds out the real duds.
As for 'pass/fail' meters on 'real' valve testers, as I said the AVO VCMs can be used to read mutual conductance, anode current, etc in 'real' units. Are there other models that can't be used like that?
And related to the sub-thread, I want a voltmeter with markings 'tingle' 'ouch' 'b***dy h**l' and 'sent to the hereafter' on it
