Saturday, July 6, 2013

Review of Peak DCA55 Semiconductor Analyzer

Matching transistor has been least attractive part of amp work. Using a jig to do the job was fall short of joy.
I purchased DCA55 from Alltronics in California ( one of Peak authorized ebay dealer).  Item arrived in couple days from purchase and price was right for a hobbyist ($85).

I have been working on Audio Research D-100b amp for few days.It has one channel with blown a pre-driver (2sb555) and  a ARC 300026 ( NPN TO3).  Because ARC 300026 and 300027 is Audio Research  internal pat number of Motorola TO3 transistors, I decide change both channel ARC  parts rather than just replace one blown ARC part. I need to find out hfe value for output transistors to replace with modern MJ15024, MJ15025 combinations.  DCA 55 was quick and fast and its measurement were repeatable. But I can not say its hfe measurements are accurate because I do not have any other measuring device to compare the measurement accuracies.

DCA55 was some what cursory on Mosfet measurements. It only showed pin names and type of fets. It does not offer other measurement.

For 80 dollars, DCA55 does its job for simplifying transistor matching.