Author Topic: WTB buttons and/or case parts for 80s brown-era Keithley  (Read 553 times)

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Online HydronTopic starter

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WTB buttons and/or case parts for 80s brown-era Keithley
« on: May 23, 2024, 12:08:16 am »
I just picked up a Keithley 181 from ebay and got it running (culprit was a dodgy IC socket someone added probably ~30 years ago), however it's cosmetically in pretty bad shape and I need some mechanical parts for it.

Most urgent are some buttons for it (see attachment showing how few it came with), but the top and bottom halves of the case are in bad shape too, so I'd be keen to get my hands on any of these parts, or even an entire donor unit from this series of units (e.g. a 705 scanner is not nearly as valuable as a 181 for most, but has enough buttons for this use, and the case should be the same).

Getting the exact matching set of buttons might be a stretch but even some which don't quite match the surround would be much better than only having 2 working buttons, so I'm willing to entertain any useful offers.

I haven't specified a region as something like the buttons can probably be easily mailed from abroad - if someone has case parts or a donor unit then UK is best, though I can probably find shipping options with family/friends in a few other countries so please let me know if you have something anyway.
 

Online coromonadalix

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Re: WTB buttons and/or case parts for 80s brown-era Keithley
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2024, 01:42:42 am »
the Keithley 195A    has the same buttons  if i recall
 

Offline guenthert

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Re: WTB buttons and/or case parts for 80s brown-era Keithley
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2024, 07:14:13 am »
Many Keithley products share the same enclosure and buttons.  A (still) quite affordable one on the secondary market is the 705 scanner.
 

Online HydronTopic starter

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Re: WTB buttons and/or case parts for 80s brown-era Keithley
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2024, 08:00:25 am »
Thanks and yeah, grabbing a cheap scanner or other unit off eBay was already my backup plan, just posting here first incase another forum member can help (being in the UK rather than the US makes it a lot harder to find a donor too).

The 705 annoyingly also doesn't have enough yellow buttons, though I may need to just live with that.

Forgot to add to the original post - of course it didn't come with the matching cable, so I would also be interested if anyone has some of the connectors etc (otherwise a pricey mouser order is in my future).
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: WTB buttons and/or case parts for 80s brown-era Keithley
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2024, 09:09:21 am »
I would 3D print these parts. It's unlikely you will find NOS parts, old equipment like this is already written off and on the landfill.
You don't even need a 3D printer, there are online shops that will print this for you for like 5 bucks, SLA even.
 

Offline HighVoltage

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Re: WTB buttons and/or case parts for 80s brown-era Keithley
« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2024, 09:20:17 am »
To stay original, I would just buy a cheap 705 scanner and use the knobs and housing.
Your front panel looks like it can be cleaned in such a way that it will look like almost perfect.

The connectors can easily be obtained at low cost.
It is an Amphenol part.
Part Numbers:
97-3106A-16-11P
97-3057-1008-1

The original Keithley cable is near impossible to find and if they show up, they are very expensive.




There are 3 kinds of people in this world, those who can count and those who can not.
 

Online coromonadalix

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Re: WTB buttons and/or case parts for 80s brown-era Keithley
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2024, 10:01:53 am »
same tought 

i came across  low priced brown units ... on fleabay, surely you may be able to grab one ??
 

Online HydronTopic starter

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Re: WTB buttons and/or case parts for 80s brown-era Keithley
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2024, 03:42:53 pm »
Would have already grabbed a cheap 705 scanner or other unit if any had been available locally - sadly the market here is pretty awful (was very lucky to get the 181 even in it's current state), and just the shipping for a donor unit from the States will be significantly more than the 181 originally cost me.

I'll still go down the eBay donor route if needed, but I'd like to try here first, especially as a 705 scanner won't have the two yellow buttons that I'd ideally want. If I can get some buttons then I'll probably just fix my existing case and avoid the cost of shipping large parts across the world.
 


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