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Does anyone still use an Avo Meter?

alanblaby
Yesterday, I bought, for the bargain price of £15, an Avo Meter 12, ex-RAF, still in its leather box, albeit without leads.

By the side of it was a mint condition Model 9, complete with leads and all accessories in its leather tool roll for £42. I was sorely tempted.

It's hard to believe I was using one of these in the early 90's, they look to be a tool of the 40's and 50's.
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    Chris Pearson:

    . . .

    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!




    Yes, we had at school Crompton meters, with shunts to make them act as ammeters, and series resistors to make them act as voltmeters. We had to learn how to calculate shunt and resistor values to make them work at a given range.


    We learned a lot from them. Not so easy to get these ideas across with a clever little box with range switches. (Which, I suppose, is what an Avo is, but at least you have the analogue scale and can even open it up to see how it works.)


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    Used AVOs a lot in cathodicl protection, disconnect the anode or switch off the transformer and watch the needle fall to the "natural" potential, probably got some fancy app to do it now
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    You can`t beat the anologue needle swing in some things.

    I was never rich enough to have a fancy HiFi but folk that did were very proud of there "little needles" swinging around. LEDs don`t cut it even with a bargraph type movement.
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    I have an old model 7, original leads hopelessly perished but very handy when you want to measure volts with a bit of load (well a few k).  I used to have the separate Power Factor and Wattage unit but lent it out ages ago so that is lost.


    This model has a spring overload cutout to protect the meter, bullet proof.
  • 0
    I have an old model 7, original leads hopelessly perished but very handy when you want to measure volts with a bit of load (well a few k).  I used to have the separate Power Factor and Wattage unit but lent it out ages ago so that is lost.


    This model has a spring overload cutout to protect the meter, bullet proof.




    Oh yes - trying to measure volts on the amps range!
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    Yes I will own up to that.  IIRC the movement is 2mA FSD on this model so its not particularly sensitive in ohms/volt terms so pretty useless for electronics measurements but considering its age it has held its accuracy well and the needle is well damped .  Its a bit bulky even by 40 year old standards and it has been a long time since you could buy the correct batteries for the resistance functions but I wouldn't part with it.
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    John Peckham‍ 

    Is the offer for the avo's still valid

    Thanks
  • 0
    Yes.
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    Great John thanks, depends on where you are, I can collect if okay with you
  • 0
    Kes


    Email me at     info (the symbal for at)astutetechnicalservices.co.uk

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