Hi, Gang

I've owned a Triplett 3413-A emission type tube tester
for more than 30 years, and I always made a practice
of pulling just enough a.c. cord from the panel
of the unit to reach the outlet, leaving the remainder
of the a.c. cord hidden away within the cabinet.

I can't believe how lucky I was that nothing shorted out.
I had occasion to open up the unit to correct the a.c. "line"
meter reading, and I noticed that the "stopper"
attached to the cord which keeps the a.c. cord
from being pulled too far out of the cabinet
is actually made of metal. By leaving unneeded a.c. cord
within the tube tester cabinet, the metal "stopper"
could have shorted anything out, damaging either
a tube under test or the tube tester itself.

73,
Ed Knobloch

A short there would have probably blown the breaker/fuse or if it's too
big, zapped the cord half-in-two like Okies like to say.

--

73
Hank WD5JFR
"Edward Knobloch" wrote in message
...
Hi, Gang

I've owned a Triplett 3413-A emission type tube tester
for more than 30 years, and I always made a practice
of pulling just enough a.c. cord from the panel
of the unit to reach the outlet, leaving the remainder
of the a.c. cord hidden away within the cabinet.

I can't believe how lucky I was that nothing shorted out.
I had occasion to open up the unit to correct the a.c. "line"
meter reading, and I noticed that the "stopper"
attached to the cord which keeps the a.c. cord
from being pulled too far out of the cabinet
is actually made of metal. By leaving unneeded a.c. cord
within the tube tester cabinet, the metal "stopper"
could have shorted anything out, damaging either
a tube under test or the tube tester itself.

73,
Ed Knobloch

Henry Kolesnik wrote:
A short there would have probably blown the breaker/fuse or if it's too
big, zapped the cord half-in-two like Okies like to say.

Hi, Hank

I meant that the a.c. cord with the metal band around it is adrift
within the cabinet, if the a.c. cord isn't deployed to its full length.
The metal band could have bridged any adjacent tube socket terminals,
or contacts on the selector switches, for instance.

Another shortcoming is that the Triplett 3413-A is unfused,
so the Triplett transformer would probably have smoked
before the line breaker tripped.

73,
Ed Knobloch