"I no longer jump when something smokes or pops." That's the best type of faultfinding, much faster and less tedious than tracking down subtle faults. Locating

"I no longer jump when something smokes or pops." That's the best type of faultfinding, much faster and less tedious than tracking down subtle faults. Locating the source of burning smells and touching resistors to detect excessive heat work well too. Never had much problem with silver micas, paper and electrolytics are usually much more troublesome. Re the Collins, I'm very glad I started with high voltage stuff, if it had been the other way around and I'd started with semiconductors I'd likely have electrocuted myself, getting used to low voltage first wouldn't have been a good idea. As it was I was bitten several times, once so badly that I was essentially paralyzed for quite some minutes. That was 850V.