Tektronix DMM916
Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2025 8:14 pm
I've been after one of these for a while, after getting a 912, and being seriously impressed with it.
They are fairly uncommon in the UK, and are usually overpriced when they do show up, so I was quite pleased to see one pop up on the bay of evil for only £99 BIN, and though I did my best bd139 impression with lowball offers and counter-offers, I eventually had to pay £89.
There was visible damage to the jacks; the black insulating sleeve is missing from the common jack and the red sleeves are faded, but these are minor, cosmetic issues.
It was a little bit grubby, but otherwise in decent order. A few small scratches on the screen, which are difficult to photograph, the finest ones polished out. There's some debris in the back of the holster too. It cleaned up easily enough with some IPA and elbow grease. Time to have a look inside: Nice, except for that thing on the right...
With a fresh, safe battery, it's time to make some sanity checks: Seems reasonable.
First time I tried current, I got a "Probe", and "Fuse 2" message. Hmmm... What the actual fucking fuck?!? Some cunt has bodged an M205 fuseholder on top of the 10x38 one! It's even a 2A POS, rather than the 1A it should be.
The 2A tests good, but I put a 1A back in anyway, until I have time to unbodge the thing. Must have been a bad contact, as it now gives plausible current readings: It has Tektronix cal stickers on it, but the stupid thing here, is that you have to open the case to change the battery... at least the screws have rubber washers and mate into brass inserts.
There's more screws holding the keypad rubber in, so you don't lose it when you open the thing up: The jack posts have sleeves on them, except the common, which probably got lost, or melted by a soldering iron when the bodge was done. Fucking gorillas. I'll have to try and find some black plastic sleeve the right size, I don't really want to butcher my 912 for it.
There's one final surprise to be had, when I looked close enough: The backlight uses a grain-of-wheat filament lamp! Yes, it's dim, and yes, I might, at some theoretical future point in time, modify that to an LED...
They are fairly uncommon in the UK, and are usually overpriced when they do show up, so I was quite pleased to see one pop up on the bay of evil for only £99 BIN, and though I did my best bd139 impression with lowball offers and counter-offers, I eventually had to pay £89.
There was visible damage to the jacks; the black insulating sleeve is missing from the common jack and the red sleeves are faded, but these are minor, cosmetic issues.
It was a little bit grubby, but otherwise in decent order. A few small scratches on the screen, which are difficult to photograph, the finest ones polished out. There's some debris in the back of the holster too. It cleaned up easily enough with some IPA and elbow grease. Time to have a look inside: Nice, except for that thing on the right...
With a fresh, safe battery, it's time to make some sanity checks: Seems reasonable.
First time I tried current, I got a "Probe", and "Fuse 2" message. Hmmm... What the actual fucking fuck?!? Some cunt has bodged an M205 fuseholder on top of the 10x38 one! It's even a 2A POS, rather than the 1A it should be.
The 2A tests good, but I put a 1A back in anyway, until I have time to unbodge the thing. Must have been a bad contact, as it now gives plausible current readings: It has Tektronix cal stickers on it, but the stupid thing here, is that you have to open the case to change the battery... at least the screws have rubber washers and mate into brass inserts.
There's more screws holding the keypad rubber in, so you don't lose it when you open the thing up: The jack posts have sleeves on them, except the common, which probably got lost, or melted by a soldering iron when the bodge was done. Fucking gorillas. I'll have to try and find some black plastic sleeve the right size, I don't really want to butcher my 912 for it.
There's one final surprise to be had, when I looked close enough: The backlight uses a grain-of-wheat filament lamp! Yes, it's dim, and yes, I might, at some theoretical future point in time, modify that to an LED...