What's the anode voltage on the 577 CRT? If it's more than about 12 kV (I doubt it), it could be that there's some or more lead (Pb) in the CRT faceplate glass for X-ray protection, causing more UV attenuation. Or, maybe the bistable storage phosphors are different enough to not work. If so, either way, it seems like you can't do much about it. So maybe direct frontal illumination with visible LEDs would be worth a try.
Ed
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--- In TekScopes@..., "Dennis Tillman" <dennis@...> wrote:
An update on the 577/D1 storage curve tracer: Nothing I have tried causes
the phosphor of the 577 to glow. I covered the spectrum from 385nM
(UV/purple), blue, aqua blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and IR. The only
interesting response I saw at all was the UV/purple LED, which caused most
of the other CRT phosphors to glow green, causes a purple reflection in the
577/D1 phosphor. It doesn't appear to be a phosphor glow but more of a
reflection. It must be activating the phosphor of this CRT differently than
all the others because none of the others had a purple reflection. But the
response of the 577/D1 phosphor is so short lived that it looks more like a
reflection than a glow. It goes away the instant the LED is off.
On the other hand I have had great success taking photos of the Wiltron 640
RF Analyzer's CRT by first exciting the phosphor with the UV/Purple LED. The
glow fades out slowly for 8-10 seconds. This gives me plenty of time to take
the shot with the graticule illuminated by the phosphor.
Dennis
From: Dennis Tillman, Tuesday, January 24, 2012 9:38 AM
<snip>
Unfortunately my 577 (the CRT looks more green) and SC502 (the CRT has a
pale green/white appearance) which are both storage CRTs barely glow at all
so this isn't going to help me to take pix of transistor characteristic
curves.
