Vintage Tek Restoration pictures by Martin

[Martin.M]

the high voltage card I have removed. Then spray the parts and behind with the windows cleaner. Dust water flows down in a pott
then brushing there, with old tooth brush, ear sticks and so on...
then spraying again, with destillated water to remove the rest ...
then drying with a hair dryer for tourists (600W only, warm , not hot)

cleaning the high voltage card manually with ear sticks and so on.
put it in the place,
see 



it becommes better.







covering of water sensitive parts, here electrolytics with a paper case isolation







at left down you see the long line of coils, the wholes there are all little C trimmers. The calibration of the delay line in Tek-Oldies is a job for insiders, very fine to have a friend who was long time in the Tek service.


something to do before a Tek Oldie is finally clean 

greetings
Martin

[coppice]

Shame that history is not on the net.

There's very little history of test equipment in general on the net. I've been getting nostalgic recently, and tried to find information about various things I used in my youth. I only find a few of them. There are models from HP and Tek which I used heavily, which I cannot find any mention of. Scopex was a British maker of budget scopes. I think they were started by people who left Tektronix/Telequipment. They made the world's first pocket scope with an LCD display, as they tried to move beyond making only entry level models. I can't find anything about that LCD scope on the web, although I found a couple of mentions of its existence. I find less record of pioneering products like that, than of more mundane improvements on older models.

[Martin.M]

very british is a little cossor scope,
I would love to own one.

See the page of Richard Sears, he is collecting them

greetings
Martin

[coppice]

very british is a little cossor scope,
I would love to own one.

Cossor was a very innovative company. They made the first dual beam oscilloscope in the 1930s. Its amazing how the real pioneers get forgotten. Nicolet pioneered digital oscilloscopes, but most engineers don't even know that name any more. It looks like you can still pick up some early Nicolet scopes cheaply.

There used to be a lot more makers of oscilloscopes than there are now. Scopes from a number of Japanese companies often appear on this forum, but numerous old western makers are hardly mentioned. People like Racal, Advance, and Solartron/Schlumberger made a lot of scopes at one time.

[Martin.M]

I have written a lot here about my hobby, the restoring and care of old Tek scopes 
Hope now you have enjoy to read that.

Off Topic here.
I have a pleasure to this community, special to the specialists of modern scopes.

Year ago i buyed a Le Croy 9450, one of the large beautiful DSO with the amber screen of high resolution, for 50 euros ..
this was own by a radio amateur, he have connected it to a tranceiver an destroy bot input converters what are the doorway from 1M input resistance to the 50 ohms of the system. This parts, named HHZ406, are obsolete. This are little cards, input modules, with something directly fired on the board, hybrids, not possible to repair that.
In the LeCroy owners group of yahoo I found a instruction to rebuild that parts with smd`s, a engineer have made that.
So I am searching for the help, to build for me 2 of this modules, so I can repair my beauty Le Croy. Of coarse I will pay that.

This is the scope. The calibration failure comes from the bad modules, in 50 ohms it is allready working.




the service manual is stored on my website, http://www.wellenkino.de/lecroy/service.pdf

and the rebuild instruction is also there, http://www.wellenkino.de/lecroy/hhz.zip

please help me  the required Teledyne Relais I have in stock.

greetings
Martin


/Offtopic[/i]

[TerraHertz]

Cleaning dusty interiors)

You must look at first what parts are water-sensitive, and cover them with a plastic foil.

At first use the air pressure, yes. The best place ist outside, so the dust will not go in the work room.

Definitely! This is why my air compressor is next to the workshop door, and has a long hose.

Then put it inside on the table.
   [... snip ...]
* a lot of time.

I thought so. The magic ingredient I lack is massive patience.

One other question about cleaning valve gear. I only tried that once, and was discouraged by the fact that most of the tube numbers unexpectedly came off with the dust. How do you keep track of which goes where? Obviously, writing the numbers on with a felt pen isn't going to help, since the pen ink will clean off nearly as easily.
Do you clean them one at a time, and re-write the part numbers (and socket location?) when finished each one?

[Martin.M]

I clean tubes also with the windows cleaner, except the area where is the typing.
The stamp will be cleaned carefully, dry.

Removing all tubes from the scope.
Get a styropor plate from junk and seperate fields, for each chassis part one, simply with a black pen.
Then put the tubes in the plate exactly in the following they are sitting in the scope. So each tube will go back in its own place.



greetings
Martin

[coppice]

Isn't it nice to have some active electronic components you can safely push into polystyrene? 

[Martin.M]

tubes cannot have problems by electrostatic loads, they are made from glas + metal only.

In Tek Oldies is important to put all tubes back in the own place, a swap will loose the calibration directly.
Also you have to different if the tubes are normal ones (part no beginns with 154-) or Tek selected (part no begins with 157-).
Something can be critical in swap, like a diffential input what needs urgend a best selected pair at the front.

greetings
Martin

[JacquesBBB]

Thanks a lot for showing the cleaning techniques.

Especially the cleaning of the inside boards and components.

Jacques

[VK5RC]

Thanks for the lovely pictures and also letting the forum know your techniques (and hard work)  I wonder if a sticky topic under 'Repair'  perhaps Restoration techniques for classic gear,  would be worthwhile,  I recall robrenz has also shared some really useful techniques.
Do moderators do this?

[tautech]

Thanks for the lovely pictures and also letting the forum know your techniques (and hard work)  I wonder if a sticky topic under 'Repair'  perhaps Restoration techniques for classic gear,  would be worthwhile,  I recall robrenz has also shared some really useful techniques.
Do moderators do this?

Good idea, but this is Martins thread and he might feel it's more appropriate in Test Equipment.
You are so right, there is some wonderfull restoration examples, now hidden deep in the main boards.
Yes a sticky would be a good idea and previous restoration threads could then be linked and the topic stated.

Might I suggest Martin edits his Thread title to "Vintage Tektronix ........" which might make it easier to find with the "search" function in the future.

But I would suggest a new thread in General Chat to gauge interest/need/etc.
VK5RC let this be you new calling    have a think how you can best sell it to the un-converted.

 I PM'ed a Moderator to get "Repair Doc's & Links" stuck in the repair board.

[joeqsmith]

Year ago i buyed a Le Croy 9450, one of the large beautiful DSO with the amber screen of high resolution, for 50 euros ..

please help me  the required Teledyne Relais I have in stock.

greetings
Martin

Did you join the forum in that README file?  Has no one made boards for this?   

[TerraHertz]

Oh of all the... why didn't I think of that? I actually do that with other things, including ICs (but with alfoil laid over the styrofoam.) For some reason, it never occurred to me for valves.

Incidentally, PM sent about something else.

[22swg]

Terra H Your not serious about Styrofoam and IC's        even with foil,, get some anti-static foam do the job properly .

[coppice]

Terra H Your not serious about Styrofoam and IC's        even with foil,, get some anti-static foam do the job properly .

Huge numbers of people use that aluminium foil over styofoam idea. I guess none of them ever look at the result, or think about the nature of the surface of aluminium in air, or they might notice a slight flaw. 

[T3sl4co1l]

Terra H Your not serious about Styrofoam and IC's        even with foil,, get some anti-static foam do the job properly .

Huge numbers of people use that aluminium foil over styofoam idea. I guess none of them ever look at the result, or think about the nature of the surface of aluminium in air, or they might notice a slight flaw. 

The surface of conventional foil is more than conductive.  The Al2O3 layer is only a few nm, very easily scratched, and probably thin enough for current to tunnel through even if not punctured.

That "nonstick" foil stuff I think is anodized, or some other sort of coating.  And obviously not as suitable.

I also had the experience with aluminum flashing from the hardware store... evidently, the common stuff is lacquered. D: So I had to sit there sanding down edges so I could foil-tape them together to build a ground plane, one day... (speaking of, aluminum foil tape is pretty good too; the adhesive itself isn't conductive, but it often gets poked through by crinkles, or you can curl edges under to present a metallic surface for probable contact).

However, it's still not fool-proof.  Although foil will absolutely drain away ESD, it will also support massive surge currents.  The failure condition is: you bring your hand down to the foil, and POW, there goes the zap.  All well and good, right?  No: the huge peak current (>10A) causes voltage drop across the sheet, which can still zap things (at a lower voltage due to the low impedance of essentially a ground plane, but still with as much current capacity!).  There's also the dV/dt of the event, which can couple into unlucky pins that aren't touching the foil at that moment.

The trick to conductive foam is, the high resistivity may still support a spark, but the current is attenuated very quickly.  Thus, foam can be more ESD resistant than solid metal.

Dissipative materials (foam, baggies, tubes, etc.) are even less conductive, and generally do not support a spark at all.  They are passably good insulators, which is the point: to insulate the contents from outside hazards, while still providing a leakage path (however slow) for the charge to dissipate (with a time constant of perhaps seconds or minutes, rather than micro to milli seconds).  Parts mounted in these types of materials are still ESD sensitive, but thanks to the insulation, can't usually be stressed by it.

Tim

[SeanB]

Lucky for me by the sea that is not a problem. Trying to get a Van de Graaf generator running required both waiting for winter and using a room with air conditioning before it would even build up a small charge. Only places that have a big AC running all the time can have static charge build up, and that is expensive.

[Martin.M]

old Tek scopes on tour 

the glowing Test place at a vintage radio forum meeting in germany, 2012...
 (with the strong order: when you start more then 3 of the large Tek at the same time they whill blow out the fuse ...  )


Classic Tek show in the radio museum bad laasphe, 2012


the glowing Test place at the vintage radio forum + wellenkino community meeting in germany, 2014...


there are always a very lot of friends of the 60`s who enjoy to see again this large old machines.
Of coarse they are full working and can be used there

greetings
Martin


p.s. it will be ok to move the tread to repairs or like that 

[TerraHertz]

Terra H Your not serious about Styrofoam and IC's        even with foil,, get some anti-static foam do the job properly .

Huge numbers of people use that aluminium foil over styofoam idea. I guess none of them ever look at the result, or think about the nature of the surface of aluminium in air, or they might notice a slight flaw. 

Huge numbers of people do, because it's fine. Plain kitchen foil does not oxidize enough to form any significant insulating layer, as a multimeter will prove. Also, people getting all hysterical about styrofoam's static properties are not actually thinking about how static charge builds up. It doesn't just appear out of nowhere, it takes friction between unlike surfaces to transfer charge. A sheet of styrofoam with a layer of alfoil against it, will quickly equalize charge in the styro via the alfoil. Then when you stick an IC into it, even if a pin makes no contact with the alfoil, where is any charge coming from? From the tiny volume of styrofoam under the foil, that the lead contacted? Rubbish. It was all already equalized.

As for zapping from your finger to the foil layer, what, are you THAT bad with anti-static procedure? Why don't you just wear shoes and clothes that don't generate static in the first place, or touch something grounded *before* touching your styro sheets of ICs?

And another reason a lot of people use styro slabs with foil for storing ICs, is that they are rigid, and you can write the part series numbers on the edge of the sheets in felt pen. Also the styrofoam is widely available for free. It's a very efficient and flexible system, and in my experience doesn't actually cause any static failures. I used to have most of my IC stock organized this way, but eventually migrated to a different system when the volume got too great for the 'stacks of styro sheets' method.

There's a thread in here somewhere about IC storage methods, and I think I put some pics up.

Edit to add: Those collector's meeting photos are wonderful. I wish there was something similar in Sydney. I don't know of any old test equipment museums or enthusiasts groups here. A few private old radios collectors, old steam machinery groups, but test equipment? Nothing? Anyone know of any?

[c4757p]

As for zapping from your finger to the foil layer, what, are you THAT bad with anti-static procedure? Why don't you just wear shoes and clothes that don't generate static in the first place, or touch something grounded *before* touching your styro sheets of ICs?

+1

or +100

If you're a hamfist who walks across the room in the winter, picks up enough static charge to stun a rhino, and then dives for a bunch of ICs, well then yeah, you really need top-quality antistatic materials. But if you do that, you're a bit of a dolt, really. Discharge yourself!

[Smith]

Just helped someone repair an old tek 422 that wasn't used for years. One of the nuvistor tubes was broken, so we used a fet to replace both. We really liked the build quality. We cleaned it up and it was looking brandnew. Too bad I didn't take any pictures.

[Martin.M]

simply replace the nuvistor, they are still to get.
And yes, 422 is a very useful scope.

greetings
Martin

[radiomog]

Beautiful work Martin!


>insert a "sex on a stick" quote here<

[Martin.M]

some people think the old scopes are slowly.

They use plugins, it`s the old laboratory class.
The most sensitive Inputs are 1A7A differential input plugins, they provide 10µV/cm with a fine s/n.
The fastest warm inputs are Inputs Type "N", sampling more then 1GHz
The fastest spectrum analyzer plugins are 1L40, the provide at maximum 40GHz on 500 Series tube scopes 
The 1L5 spextrum analyzer plugin provides full audio analysis from 50Hz up
The 1S2 Plugin works as UHF TDR
Tek549 accept all of them and provide storage by the CRT.

But something can be wrong.... so a triple nickel will accept this high tech plugins also, that works. But this scope is so much hot inside that the temperatur sensitive germanium transistors in the extremly fast plugins can be grilled by the scope, so we will not plug in them in a 555. Other scopes like the 556, all 53x and 54x will do that perfect.
Another thing is the sweep voltage, the oldies have mostly 150V, but some of them only 100V. So spectrum analyzer plugins have a switch at backside to selet the sweep voltage. Also, in the 547, 549 and 556 the sawtooth is connected in the slot and plugins can read it from there, all older scopes must feed the sawtooth by external wire in the front of the plugin to use it.

In the 56x scopes, they use smaller plugins , "3-" series, is the complete vertical amplifier a part of the plugin. This means, you calibrate this plugin personally to its scope ! In another scope plugged the calibration will be lost.
The larger 1- Series plugins have no problem to be swapped bec. the input sensitivity of the slot will be calibrated. Only the verticaL POS in Dual Beam Scopes maybe the plugin must be corrected by screw driver from the front when you swap an upper beam with a lower beam slot.

greetings
Martin