EEVblog #628 - Tektronix 213 Vintage Portable Oscilloscope Teardown

[digital]

Thankyou  for that teardown Dave it was a brilliant teardown engineers that designed that scope must have spent a very long time on the design, it was a pleasure to watch the video.

[Hydrawerk]

Meanwhile in Soviet Russia. Not a compact scope.

[PA4TIM]

I have a 512 kHz Tek 212. That is the 2 channel version. Mine has the Original nicads. http://www.pa4tim.nl/?p=638 Here you see the fixed probes too. I bought it for 40 euro incl transport.
Mine has a problem in the CRT. It works but the trace sometimes compresses. A few soft taps on the crt solves this (most times).


I also have the TTI 10 MHz scope shown by others somewhere in this thread. That has a very tiny CRT and the trace is ultra sharp.
http://www.pa4tim.nl/?p=3180


And besides those 2 I have a Hameg baby scope with a round CRT. Not as small as the Tek but a lot older, from a time most scopes where huges  heat generating monsters, the Hameg is  "tube-powered".
Pictures here: http://www.pa4tim.nl/?p=3208

[miguelvp]

My dad swears that he had a scope with a screen no bigger than 1 inch when he was serving for the Air Force (Telco officer). Probably early 60's to late 60's might be a bit earlier.

[SNGLinks]

In the 60s, whilst still at school, I played around with a 1inch CRT 1CP1 http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aar0006.htm
I was trying to get a TV picture on it.

Ashley

[marmad]

Just a quick Q....

How does this vintage "mini" Tek compare to the modern Chinese "pocket" o'scopes?

It's odd that there isn't a single comment in this thread mentioning the best thing about these miniature Tek scopes (although, to be fair, Dave's has been seriously 'downgraded' by the removal of the batteries and integrated cable): they are double-insulated, thus allowing floating measurements up to 600V above ground. I don't think many of the modern Chinese battery-powered DSOs fulfill that requirement - which, one could argue, might be one of the main requirements for wanting a battery-powered scope.

As practical scopes they are totally obsolete museum pieces.

Aurora

That's ridiculous. As mentioned above, I use mine regularly for doing floating measurements. There are certainly circumstances where that ability is more important than BW.

I have a 512 kHz Tek 212. That is the 2 channel version. Mine has the Original nicads.

I'm not sure I'd leave those in if I were you. I've replaced my NiCad batteries twice in the last 30 years (the first time after leakage - requiring extensive cleanup). I've also swapped the caps, as outlined in Tek's manual, to change from 120V to 220V operation.

[FrankBuss]

Another really old vintage oscilloscope:



He does a surprising "tear down"

[tzok]

Meanwhile in Soviet Russia. Not a compact scope.

You have mentioned the Soviet C1-112A... actually it is a quite compact oscilloscope with a DMM (but only DCV and Ohms) from late '80s (it was still produced till mid '90s, after the USSR collapse, in Latvia). What may be interesting, the DMM is taking 2 "cards" (a separate and removable module) and is made completely from TTL 7400 equivalent ICs!

Sorry, but I have only German and Russian version, so I guess you prefer German
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