I've had this resistance substitution box for a very long time. I can't even remember where I got it from, but it might have been Tandy/Radio shack. Basically speaking it's a rotary dial that lets you select a resistance from 36 standard values by rotating a dial. It's INCREDIBLY useful for prototyping.
In this video I was opening it up to see if I had managed to smoke any of the resistors, since it sometimes gets a rough ride.
In this video I was opening it up to see if I had managed to smoke any of the resistors, since it sometimes gets a rough ride.
If you could make your own replica to sell, I'd buy one… Looking on eBay, I can't find one that's a compact, single dial piece like that — all the ones I see are big, multi-dial or digital things. Or they're half the values and 4x the size! Or many many switches… Maybe I'll try making my own like that
Who'da thunk it? Watching your latest video and, once again, you whip out this ever-useful little doofah. So I do a quick search to see what values it does and if they're still for sale, and this video pops up in a super-timely fashion!
I'm sure there's something a bit Twighlight Zone-ish about this… did the video exist before I was looking, or does it only exists because I'm looking…? 🤔🤨
Conrad had them, article no. 425877. They still have it listed on their site, but it is sold out since some years ago.
Even searching for it's ean number (4016138425871) doesn't bring up any additional information besides it's 1/4 watt and 10% tolerance, but no manufacturer is named. I suspect Conrad to be the named manufacturer, even though they usually are only rebranding, because you find Conrad's article no. named in some other shops.
Bummer.
Oh, and back in the day Conrad sold them on Amazon and eBay as well.
Tandy! Golly a blast from the past!
What a wonderful little non digital product, guess too simple for today; no Bluetooth, no PC readout, just a working item with a long lifespan.
Nifty little thing, would come in very handy working on synth stuff.
I can't believe something as simple and useful as this isn't manufactured anymore today.
China could manufacture and sell these for a tenner or even a fiver and they would sell shitloads of them.
All you find nowadays are decade resistor boxes which are much more complicated to manufacture.
You can make an x-decade resistor pretty easy of course but the big advantage of this tool is that it already contains standard resistor values so you can switch between different standard values much quicker. You could make several ones with different resistor value series.
Such a shame there's no manufacturer seeing its potential.
Jaycar in Australia has them. Bloody expensive tho, about $40 or 50.
What about white lithium grease?
Would you suggest getting this meter compared to a Fluke?
I have the same thing, mine was an Altai product.
Cool little useful gadget, i was looking for something similar but the prices… i decided to make my own with some multi turn potentiometers,the only drawback will be the need of using meter to select resistance
Does anyone know where these can be bought from? They look very handy indeed.
I have one of those, and like you I cannot remember where I got it! I have used it for MANY years, an invaluable bit of kit. (I never opened it, so thanks for that).
Haha, "greeze"!
have you retired your fluke meter? it looks somewhat similar to a bryman and an major multimeter, be careful with the dial, i think martin lortons fell off (notice i didn't say knob, as it could be misconstrued!)
It does look like the type that Radio Shack used to sell.
For low power electronic sliding contacts I've use lithium grease with good results.