[time-nuts] huntron tracker advice & troubleshooting without schematic advise

[Magnus Danielson]

Jeroen Bastemeijer skrev:
> Hi Patrick,
> 
> I saw a lot of replies to your question. Here are my five cents:
> 
> The Huntron Tracker is very nice if you have two similar pieces of 
> equipment (or circuit boards). From which: one is faulty, the other one 
> still okay, or has a different fault. By probing around you can easily 
> find the faulty part or component, by looking for differences in the 
> Huntrons display. E.g. a faulty transitor will give a different curve, 
> even when other circuitry is connected to it.

You can do that, but you need to know what is expected. The easiest way 
to know that is to probe the same point on a working board. Otherwise 
you would need to think for yourself and here a factor of confusion 
comes in. Add the factor of unknown when you don't have a schematic.

With two boards and no schematic you have a chance. There are a class of 
errors the Huntron can't find, errors internal to a chip or module. They 
do not need to show up at all. Consider for instance a bit error in an 
EPROM. One or a few bit errors may be exactly what is needed for a total 
failure.

> However, I used to work at an small repair shop. Here we also got lots 
> of equipment for which the schematics were not available (usually it was 
> classified or obsolete). Although we had access to a Huntron Tracker, we 
> didn't use it much. Most of the time, a multimeter and some "common 
> sense" did the trick.

Indeed. But you do develop your strategies based on the tools you have. 
You could have chosen a tracker based strategy.

> One final remark, about the reply from Bruce; There are oscilloscopes 
> out there who have the component tester (that is what he reffered to) 
> built in. My first oscilloscope I bought, a Handykit, has the 
> component-tester built-in. For that reason that scope is still with me ;-)

If nothing else, it is a very good educational tool.

Cheers,
Magnus