Simpson 260

This was the standard of the industry in the pre-digital era:

Bought it at the hamfest a couple of weeks ago. $20 – dirt cheap!

Durable, accurate, electrically rugged, utterly dependable; what’s not to love?

Analog volt-ohm-milliammeters are still useful for all sorts of tasks, some of which (like finding intermittents in wire and cables) are not easily done with a DMM.

I really should have taken a picture of the battery compartment when I opened it up, but, oh well …

It actually cleaned up easily and really well!

The batteries I found inside, also cleaned up. You can get some idea of how long they had been in there from this: they are carbon-zinc cells, made in the U.S.A ! Yes, the green D-cell is military surplus, BA3030/U, possibly a 1985 date code? Made by RayOVac in Fennimore, WI. The Eveready 9-volt is Union Carbide, Cleveland OH. Real blast-from-the-past! Can’t remember the last time I saw a carbon-zinc cell, do they even make them any more?

I need to put batteries in to test the ohmmeter function, but the meter reads voltages okay. A set of test leads will also be needed (see below), then this can go into the downstairs tool cabinet for general household use.

Additional notes:

Test leads might be … difficult. This is a Model 7, which seems to have a very early version of “safety” test leads, the kind with the shrouded connectors; but these are the reverse of the more-or-less standard ones we have today, a shrouded banana plug. This meter has a banana plug recessed in the panel which requires a jack end on the test lead. More about this later, maybe.

Ohmmeter works fine, too.

Amazon seems to have carbon-zinc batteries still; made in China, of course. They carefully avoid any mention of the chemistry, typically just the words “heavy duty”.

Holy cow, a brand new Model 8 costs around $500 !

Thanks for reading this, and thanks for visiting driftlessqrp!

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