Part 2 : The Beast

I have received the new toy and, oh my, what can I say…. It’s by far exceeding any kind of my expectations except the body of the unit has a bit of wear. Also, the unit is not a ‘true’ TekPower 3005 but is re-branded as ‘Selectron 3005’, which is a local place that refurbish all kinds of units and resells them (don’t freak out at the pictures).

Let’s start with the obvious: It’s BIG. While the small one I was considering was about the size of a hot air soldering station, this one is almost as big as my analog oscilloscope. I had to shuffle things around the bench to fit it in place (not a bad thing, forced me to do some cleaning at the same time).

Also, the clicking of the relays is probably one of the most satisfying thing I’ve ever played with. When switching from CC to CV or adjusting voltages and such, the unit has some mechanical relay triggering inside and, I have to say, this is music to my ears.

As I suspected tho, the adjustment is a bit rough. I initially planned to add a fine pot adjustment but, the more I think about it, the more I’d like to see a single ‘infinite’ pot instead (the ones that you can do multiple spins on these? not sure of the term).

I haven’t opened the guts of the unit yet, so I can’t say how easy the mods I am planning to do will be, but for sure, I’ll have a lot of fun using that new toy!

Thanks for reading!