Documenting Avo Design

[kalee20]

I thought the Avo 8 was in production to the early 2000's! Obsoleted when a few critical workers retired - they made a strategic decision not to pass down the training and knowledge.

[Sinewave]

Originally Posted by kalee20

I thought the Avo 8 was in production to the early 2000's! Obsoleted when a few critical workers retired - they made a strategic decision not to pass down the training and knowledge.

The last Avo 8, the mark 7 rolled off the production line in 2008.

[Pamphonica]

Andy,
a big thumbs up from me. This level of detail is very hard to find, and also gives an insight into the design thinking. These sorts of documents will be hugely important in future, as some of this information becomes harder and harder to find.
In terms of next jobs, I would think that the "Mainstream" Avos such as the 7 and 8 would be excellent targets. Many are still out there so there is a good base of both interest and feedback.
Personally I would also be very interested in seeing any original information on the earliest Avos (Original and models 2,3,4,5,6).
More power to your elbow, anyway, and thanks for the hard work.
-Jeremy

[AndyGilham]

Originally Posted by kalee20

I thought the Avo 8 was in production to the early 2000's! Obsoleted when a few critical workers retired - they made a strategic decision not to pass down the training and knowledge.

The last Avometer 8/7 was assembled in October 2008.
Although many of the skilled ladies assembling these instruments were close to retirement, that was not the reason for its demise. The company still contains a lot of skill.
The problem was purchasing the parts. The tooling for the front panel moulding was on its last legs, being held together with banding strap.
Parts of the cut-out were hard to obtain, and movement springs could only be purchased from Swiss watchmakers.
I remember back in 2000 having to sample approve the cut-out switch plate from a new vendor, and it failing miserably.

Andy

[Craig Sawyers]

That is a fascinating bit of AVO8 history. Like Jeremy I was of the opinion that it was a skills issue. That it was procurement that led to its demise, and dying tooling puts the record straight.

I take it that making a new moulding tool was out of the question? I suspect that the size of that would have put hard tooling into the many hundreds of k territory.

Craig

[ajgriff]

Surely the final determinant in the decision to cease production will have been simple lack of demand. If sufficient demand had still existed at a viable price point money would have been found to invest in producing the parts. It is gratifying however that the company is prepared to support Andy's sterling efforts.

Alan

[AndyGilham]

We did look at new tooling, but that was running into £80,000 to £100,00, so a lot of commintment, for not a lot of products at that stage.
But as you are all aware, the price of the Model 8/7 was heading towards £900. This cost came down to sourcing good quality parts, the time to build and the relatively low volumes produced. It was a sad day to see it end, and it took a brave product manager to make that decision......but it had to happen!

[Craig Sawyers]

I'm surprised that the tooling for such large case components was £100k or less. The last one I was involved with was the frame for the grill fabric on a loudspeaker product. That was made by spark eroding, and took two months from order to completion. That was around £50k in 1990. But we were in the tens of thousands per year volume, and the tooling lifetime meant that the up-front investment made sense.

Craig

[Brased]

Do we know who was buying this product in those last years? The main mass market had moved onto digital meters for the sort of day to day use for which the Avos were previously bought but presumably there was a residual demand for such a meter for specialist functions.

Edward

[Sinewave]

A few posts here have touched on the issue, the price of the Avo 8 and the demand, which I had guessed would contribute to it's end of production in an age where smaller digitals could be had for half the price or less, with higher accuracy - which I don't like to admit as I'd have loved to have seen the Avo continue.

[David Simpson]

To folk, who might not be familiar with AVO analogue multimeters, reading these thread posts, and who might wonder what all the fuss is about - perhaps a brief explanation is needed :-
They were & still are very robust & reliable
For much of radio/electronics(particularly vintage), fault finding & servicing they are pretty accurate. (remember, resistance-wise, many resistors were B/T/Spot or B,B,R - - banded with nominal % of 5 to 20).
The Cut-Out mechanism is a great boon, safety-wise.
Observing slight variations of current or voltage(which might be an indication of a pending component breakdown) is easier with a big analogue meter's needle than a DMM's random-seeming sub-decimal point LCD indications.
At one time, and you can still get them, there was a great range of ancillary equipment. Such as Shunts, Multipliers, HV Probes, insulated crock clips & probes, etc.
And, to top it all - a lovely h/duty leather case.

Regards, David

[kalee20]

Originally Posted by Brased

Do we know who was buying this product in those last years? The main mass market had moved onto digital meters for the sort of day to day use for which the Avos were previously bought but presumably there was a residual demand for such a meter for specialist functions.

A lot of equipment (civil aircraft, marine, defence etc) had its test specifications written around the use of the Avo 8 as it was ubiquitous at the time. So to repair and calibrate in accordance with manufacturer's instruction, it is simpler to use the Avo 8 than to obtain a manufacturer's permit to use something else - particularly as some manufacturers may have disappeared. Some of this equipment has been around a long time!

[Refugee]

It must have been a tough call.
The problem is that the case material is just not compatible with modern production methods.
The cost of the machine tool and the material was the end of it.

[David Simpson]

Right enough, as Kalee20 says, & I had forgotten - The AVO8 was quoted in many RAF servicing/calibration documents. Every unit used them, whether they be front line, or in workshops. Training units used AVO7's & 8's extensively. The AVO7 was used in basic & medium depth fault finding lessons, where they suffered greatly at the hands of inexperienced boy entrants & apprentices. Hence most of them were RAF Henlow(3rd line MU) rejects. For final stage advanced training & test projects, trainees were eventually allowed to briefly use AVO8's.

Regards, David

[AndyGilham]

Yes, as you state, many military specification references the Avometers, but that trend was depleting by the time I started working for the company. Certainly is was the dominant sales during the 1980's, but by mid 90's most MOD contracts had stopped. I think a large majority of 8/7 went to India. I can probably get an idea of sales regions....I'll have a look Monday! (He says relaxing at home....because megger employees get Friday afternoons off!!)

Andy

[The Philpott]

To add to David's post #31 (I'm going to be British and call it post No.31) an additional advantage is prevalent in the Avo's i have used (manufactured 1934 to 1968) viz: they have a tendency to let even a semi-experienced user know when they are faulty.

I have had a few marginal experiences with faulty DMM's where they blithely generate stable readings which are badly wrong, with no clue given. We tend to believe them because they're 'modern...accurate....digital'.

These days the Argentinians can manufacture a convincing early Bugatti from scratch (interestingly, they refurb. old analogue dash instruments though!) so i don't find the 'can't make these any more' theory totally convincing. Perhaps rising costs for specialist components and uncertain demand for the end product in the future made the analogue Avo disappear at the behest of the finance dept.

Dave

[AC/HL]

Most likely the graphs of rising costs and falling demand just crossed. There's no point making something that doesn't sell, few things are immune to time. The residual demand from enthusiasts like us is amply met by the thousands in circulation and it's been quite a while since any new equipment needed 20k/v instruments. The only new one I ever saw was given to a qualifying apprentice, I believe it was a common award.

[David Simpson]

I still reckon that a definitive AVO8 History/Servicing/Operation Book/Manual would be welcomed by many. With Andy's access to bygone AVO documentation/diagrams , plus experiences/hints/advice already contained in wealth of Forum posts, progress could be made. There are several current Forum guys who have serviced/repaired AVO's for other folk to a high degree. Then there was a chap from Lancashire called "AVO Bill", who was held in high esteem by many vintage folk. My efforts pale into insignificance nowadays, as its nigh-on 50 years since AVO's were bread & butter daily jobs for myself & other RAF MU T/Eq. guys.
It never ceases to amaze me, regarding computer graphics & technical writing, plus Photoshop, MS Word, and so on - carried out by folk who submit excellent articles to the BVWS Bulletin & the VMARS Signal Journals. I reckon its not too big a leap to producing something in book format. I for one would cough up a few quid for something along those lines.
If in the future, a similar definitive book was produced on AVO's range of VCM's & V.Testers, just think of the vast amount of repetitive queries & subsequent "Banging-on" it would save on this Forum. At a rough guess, with say ten thread posts per screen page, I reckon a book of approx. 200 pages & umpteen photos & diagrams could be produced from what is already in VRR&R files, unedited !

Regards, David