Good budget Variac for bench work – just add meters
As a repair tech, I bought this 0.5 kVA single-phase Variac for soft-starting old tube gear and reforming caps. It feels solid, the dial is smooth, the carbon brush is quiet, and output tracked cleanly across the range on my scope. No built-in meters, so I keep a DMM connected.
Just respect the limits: keep inductive loads under ~400VA and don’t run it at max for long. For the price, it’s a handy bench tool. Would buy again.