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Pro tip: I think the push for all digital test equipment is leaving good analog tools behind
At my last hangar job, we had a fancy new digital multimeter for everything. But when we were chasing down a weird voltage drop in a King Air's nav system, the old Simpson 260 analog meter showed the needle drift in a way the digital readout just blinked past. The digital one gave a clean number, but the analog showed the actual problem, a slow bleed from a bad diode, over about 30 seconds. Everyone says digital is always better, but for seeing trends or small changes in real time, that old meter found the fault twice as fast. Has anyone else kept an analog meter in their kit for specific jobs like this?
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nora_murphy6mo ago
Ever see a digital meter catch a slow flicker?
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hunt.hayden6mo ago
That slow needle drift on the Simpson is exactly it... you're watching the circuit think. I keep an old Triplett for the same reason, especially on older aircraft with intermittent issues. The digital meter just locks on a number, but the analog shows you that little wiggle or creep that points right at a failing capacitor or a bad connection.
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mason5316mo ago
Exactly, that needle movement tells a whole story. Digital gives you an answer, but analog shows you the process, like watching a gauge instead of just reading a number. It's the difference between knowing the voltage and actually understanding the circuit.
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