# what tools are essential for repairing OS gear?



## Chuck (Jan 15, 2009)

Talking with Prime Mova and we both agreed that there should be a list of tools that are absolutely essential when repairing and hotrodding our Old School gear. Obviously you'll need a decent oscilloscope and VOM, but what else? For that matter, what O-scopes and VOMs are considered great deals?

I'd like to see pics of the labs some of you mad scientists have built, along with a description of what you put in them.


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## sqshoestring (Jun 19, 2007)

I do some repair when I have time, bought a Hitachi scope off ebay and it works. The newer scopes with the voltage on the screen are nicer but cost you. Any fluke meter is what you want to use, and need some solder gear of course. One of the hardest things to put together on a budget is power supplies to run 12v. The last one I got my hands on a guy was scraping out an old ambulance and found it in there. Anther nice thing to have is a magnifying light or at least a lighted magnifying glass so you can try to read those micro numbers on electronics lol, I have both. Some acetone to clean things, good set of probes for your scope and meters. If you get into smd you will need more stuff to play with that, or those RF amps with board mounted transistors.


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## Chuck (Jan 15, 2009)

I intend to stay away from the SMD amps for as long as I can. I intend to focus on old RF (pre HD designs, mostly the non-current limited early Punch series) and Proton amps, maybe fix my Concord and Denon head units. 

The Hitachi scope you mentioned, would that be one of the recent 650/660 series? I've seen a refurb shop in my area turning those out for sub-$80 prices.


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## SaturnSL1 (Jun 27, 2011)

I'm going to repair my old Lanzar Plus 200 either today or later and all I'm using is a $5 soldering iron and some solder.


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## Chuck (Jan 15, 2009)

Ok, I guess I should have said "What tools are essential for _diagnosing_ and repairing old school gear"


Man, this crowd is tough sometimes...


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## SaturnSL1 (Jun 27, 2011)

A multimeter is all I would say is essential to test with.


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## Chuck (Jan 15, 2009)

You wouldn't need an oscilloscope for anything?


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## SaturnSL1 (Jun 27, 2011)

Not me personally, I'm not that advanced yet


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## dragonbat13 (Oct 17, 2012)

Going from my guitar tube amp experience, 

With the scope your gonna need a signal generator, and a speaker load emulator.
The scope I have is a Tecktronix 2215 at 60 Mhz bandwidth.

For the soldering equipment, get an adjustable solder station. That way you can adjust the heat to the tip. Also a good desolder tool (solder sucker) is a must. 

Nut drivers for pulling amp boards out. Quality screwdrivers. Some nice LOONNG thin nose needle nose pliers at the least. The more different pliers the better if you ask me. I use the cheap ones from harbor freight. 

Find you a good electronics cleaner. Something that you can get a case of.

And storage. Storage is a must also. It doesnt have to be much, they have all kinds of cool stuff at harbor freight. The main thing about storage is that when you have more than one project going, and you will, then the parts wont get mixed up.


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