I know my memory isn't the best but I remember seeing a mini tear-down of the old sinclair oscilloscope; it has a really small screen....was it in a postbag episode?
There was a tiny Sinclair TV that had a crt. Maybe that is what you are thinking of, not a scope? Or the scope mentioned in the previous post.
I remember the adverts in the electronics magazines back in the day for the Sinclair scope and thinking, Sinclair making a scope it will probably be a pile of crap like all of the other Sinclair products. I had a Sinclair calculator, it was crap, quickly replaced by the Commodore SR-1800, I robbed the only useful thing out of it, the LED display. The two transistor radio kit never worked and a friend of mine bought a "Black Watch" which lasted a few days before it fell apart. Sinclair audio amplifiers, bought a few scrap ones, more crap that never worked. Amstrad had a bad name for some reason but at least their stuff worked. Sorry about the rant, but Sinclair products, that was scraping the bottom of the barrel.
I owned the Sinclair-Thandar SC110A oscilloscope. I sold it many years ago.
It used the same CRT as the micro TV. I did not find it that useful as the display was just too small and it wasn't the best of performers either. The screen was tiny but the unit was in the standard Thandar test equipment case used for their frequency counter, function generator and simple multimeter.
I do not regret sending it to a new home. I still have a couple of the superior Thandar SM630 series LCD oscilloscopes though. This was a successor to the SC110A and it even includes a multimeter and serial data terminal for reading RS232 signal trains !
Fraser
I also had one of those - at the time I think it was the cheapest new scope you could buy.
Yes, from memory it was the most affordable new scope available. I suspect the fact that it used the same CRT as the TV had something to do with that.
There was another affordable British made full size oscilloscope that came onto the market soon after. I forget it's name but it bean with an 'A'. That was a more usable unit but had an an Achilles heel..... The mains transformer generated the full tube EHT and that would find its way to the heater winding, causing an EHT short to chassis. The bush engineering solution was to fit a separate 6.3V heater transformer, disconnect the original 6.3V winding and carry on using the scope ! The oscilloscope also used a 75V Zener Diode as a voltage regulator and that used to burn up regularly due to being run on its limits. It was normal to hold a stock of these Zener Diodes for fitting when the fitted dispose failed again. Those were the days
Budget oscilloscopes were not common in the 1980's and those that were available were certainly not without their issues. My SC110A never failed me though.
In the late 1980's I saved up and bought my first 'real' oscilloscope, the 20MHz Hameg HM204-1. I still have it and still love it's design. It even includes a component tester
Fraser
Hi,
I had one of those small scopes. I did not keep it very long. Mine had been modified for use as a TDR, which I was able to undo relatively easily. It was probably around 25 years ago.
I also bought a DMM in that package. I bought the DMM at one of the stores on Edgware Rd. This would have been around 1980. I returned the DMM, to the store, after owning for a few days. I opened it up. The workmanship was terrible. There were open carbon trim pots. I think it was a DM450.
At the time I was working for Gould, used to be Gould Advance, and I had been trained in quality. This was not quality.
There is little information here:
http://rk.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/other/multimeters.htmRegards,
Jay_Diddy_B
I had a pair of old Sinclair DM-1 multimeters. They worked OK. No idea what happened to them. Probably went in the bin when I went to Oz.
The Sinclair-Thandar kit was certainly built down to a price.
Fraser
Thanks guys. I was chatting with the guy who helped design this yesterday and mentioned I had seen it in a video!
Sinclair Scope by Simon Lyne, on Flickr