Triplett 3434a Sweep Signal Generator Restoration - Pt. 3

Only have a few more things to do on the Triplett 3434a before it's all done.

I put a modern 3-prong grounded AC cord on. The old 2 prong cord was a bit wonky - it would cut out when it was wiggled (!), and a piece of test gear like this really should have a proper mains ground anyway.

The AC line comes into a shielded can inside the chassis. There are 2 coils on the line as well as 2 safety capacitors to cut interference. The can unbolts from the chassis easily.

There are 3 screws - you can see one that I partially undid - that hold the can onto the base. You can't remove the top of the can without removing the whole thing from the chassis. There is enough slack in the wiring that you don't have to disconnect anything though.

Here are the innards I mentioned. There are terminal tabs that the AC cord is soldered to. Just unsolder them and the new cord can be soldered on.

Note also the rubber grommet on the can - everywhere wire passes through a hole in the chassis, there is a grommet to prevent a wire contacting the chassis and potentially causing a short. Very nice.

Here's the new cord in place.

The black, hot side, goes to the side of the circuit with the AC switch and fuse. The white, neutral, goes to the other side of the power transformer.

And the green, ground, comes out of the can to go to ground.

You can see I put a ring terminal on the ground lead.

The can back in place.

The green arrow points to where the new AC ground lead goes. It's connected to the main chassis ground - worked out perfectly.

There's a connector on the outside of the chassis to ground the whole generator. So the AC ground goes to that point.

The cabinet was a bit dingy - I cleaned it up with Simple Green.

There is some rust and corrosion on the handle bracket on the top, and the leather handle is looking a bit sad.

So I cleaned them up with a rust remover and leather cleaner and treatment. I used both of those Passier products on my SAAB 900 convertible's interior and I like them a lot. They're actually intended for horse bridles, but, hey, leather is leather, right?

The Lederbalsam is a cream that you work into the leather. It's nice because you can let it sit as long as you'd like while the leather soaks it up, unlike a liquid which might evaporate.

Got the rust off the brackets. Most of the plating is gone, but the brackets at least look shiny.

And it's hard to tell from this picture, but the leather looks much better, and it's now soft and pliable.

You can also see that even though I masked off the cabinet, I still managed to get some of the cleaning stuff on the metal. It came off easily.

I had a few spots of ground-in dirt on the cool embossed front panel. I hit the spots with some Simple Green on an old toothbrush, then got the remaining dirt out with toothpicks.

A little effort yields big results. Well, maybe medium-sized results.

The finished generator. The glass is so shiny now that it reflected me with my trusty Canon camera!