There’s a lot of resistors on the range switch of this device, and that’s really the reason I was putting off the rebuild. It looked quite daunting, but so far (once I figured out how they were referencing terminal names) it’s been going fairly quickly.
For this part, I installed the remaining resistors on the bottom deck, save the parts that are flying off the switch - those will come later. Since most of these are odd values, I had to make a few, including the 9MΩ, and 900kΩ. These were made from paralleling two 18MΩ for the first, and series of a 750kΩ and 150kΩ for the second. The other parts, I was able to get as is.
I’m going to try and finish the upper deck in one go and then start on the main body of the unit. Stay tuned!
This unit is an example of a very common meter - the RCA (VIZ) Senior VoltOhmyst. These are everywhere, and I’ve had two others come across the bench in the last year, both of which were not recoverable. I suspect this one, while it probably works, has similar issues.
This is a generic multimeter that features two tubes, a 6AL5 rectifier, and a 12AU7 as the input amp to provide that high-impedance isolation. (This tube was missing when I got it, because people love 12AU7.) This unit is kind of unusual in that it is RCA branded, most of them I’ve seen were VIZ branded.
It’s in relatively good shape.
The back is a little beat up, and I had to cut that old grommet out to get the rest of the damaged power cord removed from the unit.
Inside, we find an OEM RCA battery. That’s cool.
This battery, of course, is for the ohms circuit.
It has a lovely (joke!) selenium rectifier at the top, next to the old-school RCA meatball.
The board was laid out by hand of course,
And the rest is all wire.
So, does it work?
Yes. Mostly. It’s way off in reading, and that’s because of something that’s typically wrong with these. It also has a sticky meter, which kind of negates any usefulness.
So what’s the “typically” on these?
Carbon film resistors. That’s what’s wrong. These were 1% when new, but have all drifted. Even if they have not, the minute you touch a neighbor to remove it, the values of the ones touching it will change. A lot.
So…I’m not sure I am going to do anything with this other than set it on a shelf for a display. I hate to do that, but it’s of limited use and has some fatal flaws. I probably should have kept the other ones I had, but … whatever.
Stay tuned, this one may show up when some backlog has been cleared. Who knows?
Some long time ago, I picked up a kit called a MAKERbuino. As you can probably tell, this is from the time period when anyone who did stuff at home as a hobby was suddenly a “maker” and not a hobbyist. Since it’s been kicking around the shop for a while, I decided to get it out and assemble it (along with some other kits that have been similarly hanging around.)
Here’s the kit itself:
The kit consists of a:
Circuit board
Display
Buttons
Parts
Case w/battery
There’s also a radio kit in the background, that one will show up soon.
The board comes with the battery connector already soldered, so I started going down the assembly instructions:
The way this one works is you proceed to a certain step (#12) and bring it up. It should come up to an adjustment screen, at which point you’re safe to proceed with the rest of the assembly. (I did add the control for the backlight, just in case…)
Mine did not do this.
The display, while lit, was blank. I could see what looked like the grid lit, but nothing else. However, after a little while, the screen started flickering to life, so I hit it with a little heat and it came alive. Touching it would send it into convulsions, so I’ve come to the conclusion that the screen is probably bad.
This is just a Nokia display. I had some similar units in stock, but they’re just different enough that they didn’t work. So, I’m stuck at this point. I reached out to the kit vendor, and they said that parts were no longer available for this unit as it was quite old. No surprise there.
I’ll see if I can find this particular style of Nokia display in surplus. Until then, stay tuned!
Pygg.xyz is where this blog started after being moved from blogger.com. It wasn’t a good look, unfortunately…anything xyz is pretty much automatically sus (non-scrofa, of course) and didn’t pass the smell test. That’s why you’re here on wereboar.com.
If you still have any pygg.xyz bookmarks, you can safely remove them. The registrar now owns the domain, and they’ll probably load it with ads like registrars do when it’s a parking page.
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you find something of interest here.
I’ve put this one off long enough. It’s time to get this one done, and let’s call this one part 4a. Hopefully I can get this portion of the rebuild done in 3 parts…
This unit is going to require a complete overhaul, including every resistor on the range switch (and then some!) So let’s start with the range switch.
Since almost all of these resistors were custom values, I’ve ended up having to make some of them. There’s an easy way to do that, you can use standard values and a special calculator site:
This site searches standard values and tries to come up with a solution using two resistors. I was able to make all of my hard-to-find resistors (I’ll publish that chart in the wrapup,) except for one. That one was 82MΩ, which is an odd value. There’s limited selection on that one at best, so I made one out of four resistors.
I don’t have all of the resistors I need yet, but I had enough to get started on the switch. This is what I came up with:
I’m going to try and do maybe 5-6 resistors at a time so there’s no screw-ups. This part only has one that needed multiple components, the pair hanging off the bottom is a 325kΩ unit.
This is just going to be a slow process - there’s no way around it. Stay tuned!
I’ve got a kit on the bench called a MAKERbuino, and it’s been kicking around the shop for a while. I started building it a few days ago (videos on that will come later) and discovered something. The kit has a bad display.
Initially, it didn’t do anything, but then it started to flicker and come to life. Hitting it with a little heat will make it work for a while, but it’s very unreliable.
I’ve reached out to the manufacturer to see if they can provide a new part. If not, this is a Nokia display on a slightly different form factor, so something has to be out there.
Odysee is a YouTube-like that allows for videos and shorts, but offers content creators a bit more control over things. It will generally follow the YouTube feed, but there may be a short delay as things sync up.
I’ve added this for anyone who want to stay away from Google services. It’s located in the sidebar, or bookmark the link below.
A note on this: Odysee appears to be in some financial trouble. The founder left literally the day before this was posted, and he talked about having some monetary hurdles to overcome. It’s not really the platform - I like it, but as some commenters pointed out - it’s just a dumping ground for things already posted on YouTube, you’re not getting any creator interaction with videos.
I did notice that, and a lack of any participation. Watched a few videos on the platform last night. Years old, no views.
I’ll let that channel run as long as possible, but if it gets really janky or unusable because of bandwidth issues I’ll stop. If there’s one thing I don’t want to give you, it’s a video that has to buffer like it’s dialup.
I recently did an unboxing for a Radioddity GS-10B Pro. The included battery charger didn’t work, and a friend offered to help me open it up to see if we could figure out what was going on.
I picked up this clean example of a Heathkit IP-2718 triple power supply at Breezeshooters 2026. This popular supply is still quite common, and you can usually find one or two at a show. Some go for giant buxx in terrible shape - another example I saw at Breezeshooters was in this category - and some, like this one, are in pretty good shape for a reasonable price. This one was $30, and included the original manual.
The only thing that this one appears to need is a replacement ground binding post. This one has a white cap that’s shorter than the shaft, and is being held together with some washers. That should be easy enough to fix, it just requires finding one that fits the hole without drilling more.
This one is interesting in that it says Heathkit, whereas my other unit says Heath-Zenith.
Inside, it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a 1970s power supply.
In the foreground is the 5V section with it’s singular large filter, and in the back is the dual 0-20 supply. The hefty transformer sits in the middle of it all.
So, does it work?
Sure does. There’s not much in here to go bad.
This is going to go on the shelf waiting for use, and it will probably show up at some point for the jack replacement. Stay tuned!
I picked this interesting example of a radio up at the Findlay Hamfest last year (2025.) It’s a Zenith 6D029, and was made around 1946 - so just after the war. It’s visually appealing:
It’s in decent enough shape for the age. The cabinet is all there, but the finish is eh. That’s about all I expected for the age.
The back panel is all there, although just a little damaged. That’s really unusual for a radio of this age.
The cord, of course, is in mint condition. I could plug this thing in right away, I’m sure. (Or not. Probably not.)
Removing the back panel reveals the antenna.
The OEM label is still inside.
Oh boy, loctals. Those are always fun.
The chassis is nothing unusual for a radio of this vintage. It’s a 6-tube unit, and has a tuned RF front end. It should be a solid performer when it’s peaked up. There’s only one OEM marked tube in this, so it’s seen a lot of use.
This is listed in Riders 15, Pages Zenith 26 and 27. I have that manual, and when I can get the book clasp to release, I’ll photocopy them and post them in the library.
Right now, one of the knobs is refusing to come off, so I’m deciding on ways to release that. When I’m able to get that off, I’ll pull the chassis and we can inspect the underside to see if anything has been done to this radio over the years.
Stay tuned, quite literally!
Next part of this series: Coming soon.
Wrapup and final thoughts: Coming soon.
