Western Electric VOM

A brief glimpse into the start of my weekend: I pulled a Western Electric VOM out of my stash of “stuff to check out sometime”. This comes from stuff bought in HAM auctions found in boxes of random stuff amateurs tend to collect and pass on. I had hopes of getting this VOM serviceable as I don’t have one of those iconic Simpson 260s. I find the scaling very interesting … I immediately ran into a D cell that could’ve done a lot more damaged as it was a long dried up mess of corrosion. Then the 30 volt battery. Well I can’t see modifying this classic to fit some 9volts … So I’ll clean this up and it’ll find it’s way to a shelf for permanent display. That’s too bad; maybe I’ll run into a cheap 260 one of these days.

Also on my to-do list is building a small magnetometer to test and see if I have further interest in building a larger unit and then perhaps find a way to build of buy a monochrome to HDMI or VGA adapter for my XT.

I’ve abandoned my portable “weather” station. I found that I likely won’t carry it with me as I ditched a lot of novel items I had at basecamp over my last backpacking trip. I probably hauled 30 lbs to basecamp for a 5 day trip… Used maybe 20 lbs of it. So I’ll be retiring the sensors and repurposing the Bluetooth and MCU development boards.

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Western Electric Volt-Ohm Meter

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Internal view that includes the 30 volt battery and the start of the coil for a magnetometer on the left.

Author: Chas

I don't know why I blog, because? I have no agenda, just love electronics and want to share. I love to follow other experimenters/hardware hackers just to see what other people are working on. Shoot me a message if you blog.

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