Trev,
I hope the "hard to believe" part of your message is tongue-in-cheek. After all, you are saying you have a generator on the bench to test with, which, I presume, means that you also have a motor of some sort that can turn the generator at enough RPM to perform the test. Further, originally, you had a variable rectified supply. As for myself, I wouldn't mind trying to get the CVC running again, but I have already blown my way through about $100 in batteries and would prefer to avoid flushing more money away on them. Additionally, the mounting bolts are broken from my CVC, so its replacement seemed inevitable anyway. The $95 (including shipping from the UK to the USA) for the DVR2 seemed a reasonable investment, to avoid more fried batteries, in case I was not as successful as you in tuning the CVC.
Richard