On Tue, 2 Oct 2018, Harvey White wrote:
On Tue, 02 Oct 2018 11:36:48 -0700, you wrote:
On Tue, Oct 2, 2018 at 09:11 AM, <jmtfungus@...> wrote:
Hi all, a local seller is offering a Tektronix 2467B for around $300 USD. The
catch is it has an error code TEST 4 FAIL 10 at power on and claims it just
requires re-calibration. Would any knowledgeable members be willing to
recommend for or against purchase? My current understanding is that
re-calibration is quite involved and that it could also be potentially be a
hardware issue, such as an NVRAM module not storing the calibration settings.
It is a nice machine so I am tempted. Thanks in advance. J
Seems like a reasonable deal. I know I want that scope really badly, after watching that darn vintageTek video. Tektronix 2467B "Bright Eye (tm)" Oscilloscope. They seem to command a pretty high price. Someday I'll find one I can afford.
That scope is also the same as (but this one has a higher bandwidth)
the 7103 and 7104. It's the microchannel scope tube that makes the
visible difference.
The microchannel tube itself has a limited lifetime, due mostly to the
durability of the microchannel plate (which does an electron multiply)
itself. Opinions vary as to "how much".
You might be able to use a logic analyzer with some moderatly
complicated pulse triggering (it exists) if your signals can be looked
at as digital signals. Opinions will vary how useful this is in your
situation.
You may also be able to use a digital scope with complicated
triggering, runt pulse detection or perhaps some sort of close pulse
determination.
It may not be the same as the scope you're looking at, but it may
cover some of the same situations.
The main ability of the microchannel plate scope is the ability to
make a single shot event brighter than it would normally be.
The microchannel plate (limited lifetime, note brightness and time
limits) allows an electron multiplication so that a single event
produces more effective brightness than a normal CRT. The electron
density and the like produces a maximum brightness on the crt for
repetitive traces. Note that they turned up the brightness to maximum
for the demos.
The 7103 and 7104 have a maximum bandwidth of 1 GHZ, and work well
with the 7A29, and 7B10 and 7B15 plugins.
Some use a microchannel scope as their main scope. Not sure how well
this will work with the microchannel's limited lifetime. Tektronix
had some safeguards on the readouts for the 710x scopes to limit
brightness and on time.
I have two 2467B scopes on of which I'm using almost daily and they both
are as good as new as far as CRT concerned. It has some tricks to protect
the CRT from burnout -- it turns the beam off after sitting idle for a while
and also has interesting feature that made me think they are defective at
first :) Unlike 2465B its readout jumps within readout area at random
intervals (maybe periodic -- didn't measure it) so it doesn't stay in the
same place all time and thus doesn't burn itself into MCP.
7104 is older and its MCP protection is simpler and quite annoying at times.
And one thing about that video -- do _NOT_ do what they did in it. Never
ever if you want it to last. Setting it to brightness THAT high will kill
your CRT in no time. There is absolutely no reason to crank brightness THAT
high on 2467B -- trace will be very thick and it won't do any good for faint
traces.
---
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Sergey Kubushyn