Re: Merc-o-Tronic 172 Peak Kilovolt meter – History?

[legendre]

Last pop..

So apparently no one knows anything about this piece. It’s not real surprising, as a google search turns up nothing.. must be I have the only one in the world, or something. I did learn that Merc-o-Tronic turned out a few different instruments, like tachometers, dwell meters, coil testers, standard items like that. But this one is an orphan, for now.

One other thing I noticed.. there aren’t many parts on the board, and nothing looks like it’s built for dealing with 60kV! There are a couple very high-value resistors (22M, 10M) and the lone active device – an LM308 op-amp – has a very high input impedance, on the order of 40M or better.

So it might be possible that it can handle those levels, though I’m still doubting it. It’s like something else (important) is missing from it.. I’ll have to come up with a serious HV supply to test it, though.