Old Redundant Test Equipment

[David Simpson]

It's happened once again - got in touch with a possible source of old equipment - to be told that theirs were skipped just a week ago! What a waste.
I've had a couple of successful contacts which have produced several old items(for free, even though I've offered money), which have been fully restored with several hours of TLC. But yesterday was the third time I've been told about skipped items.
Therefore I would suggest to you chaps out there - to contact(as I have),ASAP - Tech.Colleges, Secondary Schools, Equipment Hire Firms, Marine Radio Suppliers - in your locality, and ask about old analogue or early digital equipment. It breaks my heart to think that old Avo's, Oscilloscopes, Sig.Gens, Sailor Valve Radio Tx/Rx's, etc - are now dumped in a landfill somewhere. I would further suggest that ,as I have, offer to sign a "letter of indemnity" - should some safety concious head of department suspect that we'd be daft enough to take risks with HT or EHT equipment or components.

Regards, David

[Oldtestgear]

The reality is slightly different from what I have been told recently. Most old equipment is well built & therefore worth money as scrap. The tragedy is that a lot of equipment is worth more as scrap than as a working item. I phoned an equipment broker today & was told they recycled everything that would not sell as the scrap was valuable.

Times change and never for the better.........................

Phil.

[pmmunro]

David,

I've been round this cycle too, and in the same area. I had a similar experience to yours - some small successes and tales of recently filled skips. On one or two occasions however I have been "just in time" through my own my own efforts or those of a sympathetic colleague.

I worked in further eduction for a few years and did all I could to disabuse students of the unconsidered assumption that digital instruments "must" be better than any analogue type.

Unfortunately this attitude coloured the respect with which instruments were treated. For a time the chief technician and I had an agreement - I repaired as many of his multimeters as I could in exchange for any which were redundant. Amongst my acquisitions were two beautifully made Crompton wattmeters in almost new condition which had both been destroyed by the same "student" in the same morning. He had obviously decided that he didn't need to read the instruction plate and had just applied more and more current to the moving coil in an attempt to get a deflection - without any current in the field coils.

On another occasion another inmate nonchalantly sauntered into a lab swinging a Model 8 Mark 6 Avometer in a shoulder-high arc. My suggestion that this was irresponsible was countered by the statement that his instructor had told him that, offshore, no indicating instrument was worth repairing and, since this one didn't work it was scrap anyway. Clearly neither had any regard at all for the quality of the instrument. (In fact this one was in a uneconomically repairable state as someone had burnt out the current transformer - but I did acquire a good movement for the scrap value of the meter).

You will also have to take into account the nature of a certain kind of administrative mind which can see only the "book" value of equipment. The conventional wisdom is that electronic equipment has a useful life of 3 to 5 years (from the PC world) and therefore a multimeter, or any other piece of equipment, made in the 1960s must have long since become worthless - even an embarrassment - even if it still functions exactly as designed. The same (small) mind is likely to insist that redundant equipment must be destroyed before disposal so that no-one else can get the use of this (worthless) equipment.

PMM.

[mikelect]

Originally Posted by pmmunro

The same (small) mind is likely to insist that redundant equipment must be destroyed before disposal so that no-one else can get the use of this (worthless) equipment.

PMM.

The worse case I have encountered of this type of thinking is of a well known electronics manufacturer here in Wrexham who when a production run has finished destroys all of the associated test and measurement equipment and also scraps 3 year old cars when their sales reps change cars, the mind totally boggles at the waste

Mike

[newlite4]

I must confess that only last week I had the displeasure of disposing of some two hundred black bakelite ammeters and voltmeters (of all denominations) as well as around fifty wattmeters in mottled brown bakelite cases. The "Magnetics and Drives" section had closed down six months ago and with floor rental running at £200 per square metre per year, all of the plant and equipment had to go. Sure, the instruments were mostly still within 1% accuracy and were (prior to exposure to severe rain) still in mint condition but they were all bought in 1963, how much longer could they have been kept. With so many instruments, coupled with the limited timescale available, there was just no way that they could have been saved.
Neil

[Brian R Pateman]

Six posts deleted as Off Topic.

This thread is now closed.

Regards,