Does anyone still use an Avo Meter?

Sparkingchip:

Which is why Megger imitate the needle scale some of their meters with a bar scale and tell you to watch that whilst you are testing rather than the numbers.


Andy Betteridge 

It's just not the same.


The lazy swing of the needle as inertia and spring tension is overcome is so satisfying  or the mad dash to the right so you definitely know you have just broken it. No comparison with the digital clones. 

Rhino60:

I have AVO 8 in pretty good condition also.

Alan, yours might well have been used by me (RAF 70-80s)!!

If you were at RAF Henlow, then maybe!

I've just googled, it was a Technical Training Centre, so presumably would have a lot of these there.

I have a couple more in the loft, free to anyone who wants them if they pick them up.

kfh:

I have a model 8 Mk5 which I still use occasionally. I acquired it a few years ago with a case of resistors for reading various high amperages. It was a Nato model. I use it occasionally as it sits on the office shelf where it is too large to get lost in the clutter, I have yet to make a battery to fit though. I find that a nice analog reading can be very informative and the digital fake analog readings are just not the same. I have a variety of modern electronic stuff for site work that in many ways are far superior but am not convinced that digital displays are always the best. 

I have an Avo model 40 (similar to the model 8 but with different ranges) which I bought new around 1968. It still works perfectly well though I am not sure about the correctness of the calibration. These Avos used to use a peculiar block-shaped battery which nowadays you will only see in a museum. I obtained a battery holder from Maplin and fitted this and it now works from a size C cell (alias MN1400, LR14, U11 - why so many different size designations, none of which makes any logical sense?) Yes I find a analogue scale much more user-friendly, particularly if you want to follow variations in quantity of current or PD measured. Digital display figures dance around in a meaningless manner. They are very accurate and easy to read when the measured quantity is rock-steady, but difficult to follow a varying quantity.

I spent middle-career in education including a brief (thankfully) period in schools in the mid-1980s. Practically all metering instruments for class training were digital, probably chosen for cheapness as much as anything. I found it very difficult to impart the concept of size of current and potential difference using these instruments. One problem was scale readings shooting off to infinity when there was any disconnection, accidental or otherwise, of the terminals.  I would not like to be a physics teacher nowadays and don't envy those that are.

Denis McMahon:

I spent middle-career in education including a brief (thankfully) period in schools in the mid-1980s. Practically all metering instruments for class training were digital, probably chosen for cheapness as much as anything. I found it very difficult to impart the concept of size of current and potential difference using these instruments. One problem was scale readings shooting off to infinity when there was any disconnection, accidental or otherwise, of the terminals.  I would not like to be a physics teacher nowadays and don't envy those that are.

Dare I say it? We had AVOs at school (first half of the 1970s).


They didn't just teach us to measure amps, volts, and ohms. We learned about parallax and how to eliminate it; sensitivity of meters; shunts; and more. We also learned to treat instruments with respect!