Pyle Pyle-Pro PCT40 Cable Tester Review

Howdy!

I got a box full of stuff to try out a while back inside was a Pyle Pyle-Pro PCT40 cable tester. This was a stroke of luck, as I gave my Nady cable tester to a friend in need, and I had a box of cables that were suspect, as they had previously given me trouble on various gigs.

You may remember Pyle as the company that made those mediocre yet big, thumpy, and cheap car speakers back in the 1980s. Well, it turns out that nowadays they crank out mediocre yet amazingly low priced pro audio equipment that is generally good enough to get the job done. This tester is definitely of this ilk.

There is nothing like having a channel go dead while you are running a show. At least a few times a year I have mic channel go out in the middle of the action. I always have spare on hand, so I swap out the XLR cable and microphone (praying it is not the snake), so I swap out both components post haste to keep the show going.

Later on I test the mic and usually find out it is fine (especially the Shures, they never go bad), so I throw the cable into the bad box and figure I will get to it later. I used to scoff at cable testers because I have a pretty strong electronics background and have a really nice digital multimeter so I can test things out myself without needing to have another piece of equipment. In theory this is nice, but I hadn’t gotten around to checking these cables, had I?

Besides testing failed equipment, it is also nice to have something like this so I can go through all of my cables before I pack up for a gig, so I know I am not taking any bum equipment. Of course I carry spares, but why deal with the hassles of tracking down dead leads during the stress of a set-up.

The Pyle PCT40 gets the job done for me. It is a sturdy metal component, painted gaudy yellow with cheap-looking graphics on the front. It is a bit bigger than an effects pedal, measuring 8 x 3 by 5 inches, and it weighs 1 pound, 10 oiunces. There are outputs and inputs on the top and sides that allow you to test cables with the following ends: USB, RJ45, banana plugs, ¼-inch TRS, DIN (3, 5, & 8-pin), phono (RCA), Speakon and XLR (3 & 5-pin). This covers just about everything, and the addition of USB jacks is awesome!

This unit is fairly easy to use. A 9-volt battery (not included) powers it up, and there is no ON/OFF switch -- the unit powers ON as soon as a cable is plugged in. When you plug a cable into both sides of the PCT40, it passes a small amount of current through the cable, and if it comes out the other side ok, it will illuminate one of the LEDs. By turning the 8-position knob, a pair of LEDs will light up for however each conductor that is inside the cable. If an LED does not come ON, there is an open circuit. The ninth position is for testing the battery.

If you have a cable or circuit that you want to check that is not included on this unit, you can plug electrical test leads into the banana plug jacks and use this as a continuity checker.

I have been using this tester on the box of bad cables and they all tested bad, so there were no surprises and it seems to work. Learning how to use it was a breeze, and it seems to be holding up well. If any of the connectors on the box go bad, they look like they should be easy enough to service. The only hang-up I have is that the battery leads seem REALLY thin, so I think that will be the first thing to break.

The Pyle Pyle-Pro PCT40 cable tester gets the job done for me, and if you are interested in picking one up it will not break the bank. These have a list price of $91.99 and a street price of $32.99 through Amazon. That is pretty cheap, if you ask me!

Mahalo!

Memory Lane: Heathkit TC-2 Tube Checker

Hello!

The Rose Bowl Antique Flea Market strikes again. While wandering around there this past weekend I ran into a guy that had a booth full of cool old electronics and musical equipment. One thing that caught my eye was a nice little tube checker, a Heathkit TC-2.

In case you are not quite as old as me, Hath was a company that sold electronics kits from 1947 to 1992. This company’s products allowed everyday people to get access to electronic equipment that they would not otherwise be able to afford. The kits provided everything needed to put the equipment together, except for the tools. Most of the products from this time were put together by hand anyway, so by supplying their own labor there were significant advantages to this approach. The kits were well planned out and the instructions were the best around, so if the hobbyist was careful, everything would go as planned. They had kits for most everything, from ham radios to oscilloscopes, and even computers in Heath’s final years.

So, this TC-2 was originally kit that put together by somebody, somewhere. It makes me wonder about its back-story, and I wish I knew a bit more about where it came from.

As far as application, this would be a fine piece of equipment if you just want to check tubes at home, but for serious audiophiles or high-end amplifier repair you are going to want more. You see, this is a simple emission tester, not an mutual conductance checker. That means it can test for shorts and cathode (or filament) emission only. The meter reading gives a good-bad reading for the tube by testing for cathode emission by subjecting it to test as a diode (or rectifier). So, this type of checker will indicate if a tube is usable and how strong is the cathode emission is. Both types will do a good job testing for shorts and leakage. A mutual conductance checker applies voltage to each element of the tube, supplies bias and a signal to the control grid, and subjects the tube to a more authentic test (like it would be in an actual circuit). It can measure plate current and allows the tech to create matched pairs. The TC-2 will not do this…

This tool is pretty easy to use. There is a roller on the control panel that shows common tubes, and includes information about which connections to make, what load to set, and the filament voltage (there is also a supplemental chart tacked to the lid of the box with information for less common tubes). The user sets filament voltage by selecting a secondary tap of the correct voltage, and the vacuum tube is set up as a diode with all grids connected to the plate. Then at a specified voltage and load, the tube should draw a specific current based on cathode emission. This measurement is shown on the meter. Shorts and opens can be tested by disconnecting the grids or by shorting them to ground, respectively.

The TC-2 is better than most of its contemporary counterparts, in that it utilizes all tube elements in the test (most only used two). It can test nearly most consumer tubes from the 1920s to 1960s including big pin, octal, loctal, 7-pin, and 9-pin miniature. Newer model tubes that cam out after the 1960s can only be tested with an adaptor.

This Heathkit TC-2 is complete, and in very good condition. The original Tolex-covered case still has most of its latches, and the selector drum is still in great shape. It does not even smell funky. I imagine the capacitor might be a bit funky after this much time, and I would check and/or replace it if I was going to put it into use.

I ended up buying the tube checker for a few bucks and gave it to a co-worker who loves old stereo equipment, as we had talked before about how cool it would be to have one, but the old ones were just too big to keep around the sop. I wonder if it works…

Mahalo!