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Flea Market HP 410C


 

Hello,

?? Am I a glutton for punishment, or what?? Having completed my restoration of a 410B, I happened on a fairly rough 410C at the flea market for $15.? Seller said it worked.?? Actually, not quite.? No surprise there.?? But it just needed some TLC for the? switches and pots.

? Not getting good waveforms out of the optical chopper.? The manuals on the Net show one pot to adjust the chop
rate;? my instrument has two - one in series with the +270V, the other in series with the resistor to ground.? I'm
guessing that the upper 40K pot is the "main" adjustment, and the lower one - a 20 ohm wirewound - is the "fine tune" guy.

?? I stumbled on a youtube video by "curiousMark" where he repairs a 410C with a dead neon bulb in the chopper.? He went into very good detail on how it works, took it apart and replaced at least one bulb - probably two.??? Then he
tweaked the capacitor and the resistors to get it oscillating at the required 100Hz.? In experimenting, he noted that the
higher you ran the B+,? the harder it was to get it oscillating properly.

?? So - high B+.? When this instrument was new, the specified voltage was 115VAC.? Nowadays, the wall sockets
around here deliver 121VAC.? So all the B+ voltages are high.? The nominal +270V measures +301V.

? Looking from the outside world, the instrument works fine.? It zeros and calibrates.

Whups - I looked back in the manual at the conditions for the published waveforms.? Basically you set it to the lowest range, and then input a gross overload of DC.? Basically, input .5VDC on the .015V scale.

Once I did that, the waveforms were perfect.? Plugged the probe into my counter and easily adjusted the chop
rate to 100Hz.


 

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Amazing!

Youtube Mr. Carlson has a similar video with a bit more engineered solution than CuriousMark - no idea if it's "better" or not from a performance standpoint.? Complete replacement chopper boards are available from Ashley at KISS Electronics which are fully eliminating the neon chopper circuit at a reasonable price as well - that was my solution.

73/jeff/ac0c
alpha-charlie-zero-charlie
On 6/11/2024 5:19 AM, jerry-KF6VB wrote:

Hello,

?? Am I a glutton for punishment, or what?? Having completed my restoration of a 410B, I happened on a fairly rough 410C at the flea market for $15.? Seller said it worked.?? Actually, not quite.? No surprise there.?? But it just needed some TLC for the? switches and pots.

? Not getting good waveforms out of the optical chopper.? The manuals on the Net show one pot to adjust the chop
rate;? my instrument has two - one in series with the +270V, the other in series with the resistor to ground.? I'm
guessing that the upper 40K pot is the "main" adjustment, and the lower one - a 20 ohm wirewound - is the "fine tune" guy.

?? I stumbled on a youtube video by "curiousMark" where he repairs a 410C with a dead neon bulb in the chopper.? He went into very good detail on how it works, took it apart and replaced at least one bulb - probably two.??? Then he
tweaked the capacitor and the resistors to get it oscillating at the required 100Hz.? In experimenting, he noted that the
higher you ran the B+,? the harder it was to get it oscillating properly.

?? So - high B+.? When this instrument was new, the specified voltage was 115VAC.? Nowadays, the wall sockets
around here deliver 121VAC.? So all the B+ voltages are high.? The nominal +270V measures +301V.

? Looking from the outside world, the instrument works fine.? It zeros and calibrates.

Whups - I looked back in the manual at the conditions for the published waveforms.? Basically you set it to the lowest range, and then input a gross overload of DC.? Basically, input .5VDC on the .015V scale.

Once I did that, the waveforms were perfect.? Plugged the probe into my counter and easily adjusted the chop
rate to 100Hz.


 

¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

You can find here my experience with 410C.?

If you have something to add and you want to waste a little time, you¡¯re welcome!

Yours

Gianni


 

Great read, Gianni!