Patrick wrote: > Hi Everyone > > I have consistently had success repairing laboratory instruments(my > small business) when I have a schematic and I have consistently failed > without one, lots of opportunities are slipping threw my fingers. > > I want to invest in tools that will help me troubleshoot without a > schematic. I was thinking about getting a Huntron tracker. Has anyone > had any experience with one? Could you feedback? > > Are there other tools that have helped you fix circuit boards without a > schematic? The Huntron tracker does not solve your basic problem of not having the schematics, rather it helps you for some of the analysis when you do have a schematic. We do alot of analysis at work and the trackers sits there idling on a shelf, since we rarely have problems at which we have a short on a power-plane or a slightly broken semiconductor. Only a handfull of problem would apply. We have alot of other usefull tools instead.
For you to buy a Huntron tracker you should do it for the right reason, that it applies to your kind of problems and would aid in locating problems and measure basic semiconductor behaviour. Now, Huntron claims that it will aid on undocumented boards. It will to a certain extent, since it is agnostic to the design as such, it just measures electrical properties. However a Fluke multimeter is similarly agnostic and may do similar but not all of the tests the trackers do. Also, to some degree a tracker becomes somewhat difficult to use in some cases without a functional board alongside for reference. I don't want to say it is a bad tool, it isn't. I just want to kill your overly high expectations. Only then you can buy one and feel happy about it in the long run. What the tracker does as a basic measurement tool is to do I/V diagrams. You can make your own I/V setup by using an (preferably analog) oscilloscope in X/Y setup, a simple diffrential amp (4 resistors and an op-amp in a cook-book diffrential amp setup), a resistor for current-to-voltage conversion and an audio generator producing a sine. This is sufficient to get you started and try the principle out. If you learn to use it and find it usefull, getting a dedicated instrument might aid your work. If not you have not wasted as much money and you only cry over the lost time. Cheers, Magnus _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
