EXTCH 380222 found after 16 years, tear apart

[Seekonk]

I had to replace a pipe and snake a drain behind my furnace the other day.  I found my EXTCH 380222 meter that was lost probably in 1999 when I replaced the furnace.  From date code this was probably purchased in 1995.  This was one of the first meters with a supercap, Philips 1F 5.5V, instead of a battery.  I got tired of getting on site and having a dead battery. A couple of minutes of charge and it was good for 20 minutes.  It will charge from up to 230VAC or 9-20V AC or DC.  Inside there is a 230/9V blue transformer. Main chip is a Maxim MAX138CPL with HEF4070 and TLC27L2CP.  It still has the display protective plastic. It took a while for the 1F capacitor to reform after all that time but it seems to work fine now.  I always wondered what happened to it.

[cdev]

Still, now, bet you are glad it had a super-cap and not alkaline batteries in it!

 If it had had alkalines and they had leaked it would be an ugly ugly mess in there.