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Introduction

 

Greetings everyone.
In a world with 6 billion people, there's bound to be a few thousand of us who share an interest, however seemingly esoteric it is, so I'm glad to have found you all here!

After 20+ years, I'm rekindling my teenage hobby of electronics, and collecting & repairing vacuum tube test equipment. I purchased my first scope, a tektronix 545A w/ CA plugin sometime around age 12. I got it because it was a working scope that I could afford, but I was immediately mesmerized by it's engineering and meticulous construction. It was to me, the embodiment of a perfect machine. I was hooked.

I've been adding to my collection over the past 2 years, focusing mainly on the 5xx and 7k series. There will always be a special place in my heart for the old tube scopes, and I enjoy shepherding them into their place in history. The 7k stuff is interesting to be because it was the gear I drooled over in catalogs some 25 years ago, and now I can afford it!

Living in New York City, the bigger issue is space. Fortunately I've got family just up the river with some space, and can rotate out pieces as the collection grows. Insert joke about nerd in Mom's basement here ;)

Collection highlights:

454A - Just fired 'er up after 20 years and I was unsurprised to see a clean accurate trace.
556 - It'll make it back onto the bench for a slow power-up and checkout one of these days.
551 - newer acquisition. Shows a trace but needs some love.
453 - my first 'apartment scope' works well other then B triggering.

7834 - troubleshooting the readout board right now (U3433 is looking like the culprit)
7603 - newer acquisition, perfect host for my;
7D01 - recently rebuilt back info behaving
7D20 - works great, save a bad 4116 RAM (U410). It's on the list..


I'm sure I'll be bugging you all shorty with the 7834 issue after I get a little further on my own. I've also started to chronicle my repair efforts at

thanks for reading, and I look forward to repairing and learning along side all of you!
cheers,
Paul
 

Hi Paul,
It may take several days before this gets through to the Yahoo TekScopes
Group because my ISP was blacklisted due to one user whose computer was
taken over by a spamming virus. I'm told that getting off a blacklist can
take some time even after the virus has been removed.

I took a look at your web page and just wanted to let you know that I had
encountered similar experiences with the 3 7D01 and DF1/DF2 plug-ins I own.
Pressing down the ICs seemed to solve most of my problems. In the mid-1970s
the only way to trigger on, and capture data at 100MHz was with power hungry
ECL logic so the 7D01 runs hot. It also has a lot of DIPs in it since the
heat generated by ECL meant there are only a few gates in each DIP package.

I wouldn't mind getting a copy of the Arduino program you used to generate
test patterns. I could put that to good use. If you can share it please
contact me off list (dennis@...).

Thanks, Dennis Tillman W7PF

-----Original Message-----
From: TekScopes@... [mailto:TekScopes@...]
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2014 2:51 PM
To: TekScopes@...
Subject: [TekScopes] Introduction

Greetings everyone.
In a world with 6 billion people, there's bound to be a few thousand of us
who share an interest, however seemingly esoteric it is, so I'm glad to have
found you all here!

After 20+ years, I'm rekindling my teenage hobby of electronics, and
collecting & repairing vacuum tube test equipment. I purchased my first
scope, a tektronix 545A w/ CA plugin sometime around age 12. I got it
because it was a working scope that I could afford, but I was immediately
mesmerized by it's engineering and meticulous construction. It was to me,
the embodiment of a perfect machine. I was hooked.

I've been adding to my collection over the past 2 years, focusing mainly on
the 5xx and 7k series. There will always be a special place in my heart for
the old tube scopes, and I enjoy shepherding them into their place in
history. The 7k stuff is interesting to be because it was the gear I
drooled over in catalogs some 25 years ago, and now I can afford it!

Living in New York City, the bigger issue is space. Fortunately I've got
family just up the river with some space, and can rotate out pieces as the
collection grows. Insert joke about nerd in Mom's basement here ;)

Collection highlights:

454A - Just fired 'er up after 20 years and I was unsurprised to see a clean
accurate trace.
556 - It'll make it back onto the bench for a slow power-up and checkout one
of these days.
551 - newer acquisition. Shows a trace but needs some love.
453 - my first 'apartment scope' works well other then B triggering.

7834 - troubleshooting the readout board right now (U3433 is looking like
the culprit)
7603 - newer acquisition, perfect host for my;
7D01 - recently rebuilt back info behaving
7D20 - works great, save a bad 4116 RAM (U410). It's on the list..


I'm sure I'll be bugging you all shorty with the 7834 issue after I get a
little further on my own. I've also started to chronicle my repair efforts
at

thanks for reading, and I look forward to repairing and learning along side
all of you!
cheers,
Paul

------------------------------------
Posted by: devpool0@...
------------------------------------
 

On 14 Sep 2014 14:51:06 -0700, you wrote:

I've been adding to my collection over the past 2 years, focusing mainly on the 5xx and 7k series. There will always be a special place in my heart for the old tube scopes, and I enjoy shepherding them into their place in history. The 7k stuff is interesting to be because it was the gear I drooled over in catalogs some 25 years ago, and now I can afford it!
I feel the same way about the 2232. With apologies to Lester Burnham, it is the
oscilloscope I've always wanted and now I have it. I rule! I mostly use a 2230
though.

Collection highlights:

454A - Just fired 'er up after 20 years and I was unsurprised to see a clean accurate trace.
556 - It'll make it back onto the bench for a slow power-up and checkout one of these days.
551 - newer acquisition. Shows a trace but needs some love.
453 - my first 'apartment scope' works well other then B triggering.
My first real oscilloscope is a Lavoie LA-265A which is a clone of the Tektronix
545A. It has the Lavoie clone of the Tektronix CA amplifier.

I picked up a Tektronix 547 with a working 1A1 and a broken CA not long ago. It
just needs some general switch and potentiometer cleaning. The trace is much
better than my Lavoie but I have not used it enough to compare it to a later
Tektronix oscilloscope.

7834 - troubleshooting the readout board right now (U3433 is looking like the culprit)
7603 - newer acquisition, perfect host for my;
7D01 - recently rebuilt back info behaving
7D20 - works great, save a bad 4116 RAM (U410). It's on the list..
I have a pair of 7D01s with one DF1 and one DF2. I have not decided if they are
worth rebuilding for general use.

My 7603 was my first 7000 series oscilloscope and works better every time I use
it.

I have one 7834 with a damaged CRT that has geometry problems (I think UPS
dropped it.) and another 7834 with a burnt but completely usable CRT. I decided
that the 7834 was the cheapest way to get a high bandwidth variable persistence
storage oscilloscope.

I picked up a 7CT1N that came packaged in a 7904 and have grown to really like
the mainframe for its bright and clear CRT. This one got mistreated by UPS also
damaging the calibrator control which sticks out but I fixed it.

At some point I plan on rebuilding all of my 4 bay 7000 series power supplies by
replacing capacitors and zener diodes. A couple of them occasionally tick at
startup or sometimes when operating.
 

Hey Dennis - your reply came right through, and yes that 7D01 was a fascinating machine for it's time. I'll send you the Arduino patch offline.
cheers,
Paul
 

Sorry Dennis - spoke too soon, your email address doesn't show up fully (or I don't understand the subtle intricacies of Yahoo groups). I didn't write the patch, but can find it here:
Stick a Straw in Its Brain and Suck: How to Read a ROM ? NYC Resistor



Stick a Straw in Its Brain and Suck: How to Read a ROM ... Last week I posted a screed about that peculiarly modern variant of grave-robbing, ROM-dumping. That was the Why; this post is the How.



View on www.nycresistor.com
Preview by Yahoo


it was intended for reading ROMs using a mega, but if you just want the pattern (which was intended to step through addresses) you could get by on a regular 'duino with minor edits.
 

On 9/15/2014 9:13 AM, devpool0@... [TekScopes] wrote:

Hey Dennis - your reply came right through, and yes that 7D01 was a
fascinating machine for it's time. I'll send you the Arduino patch
offline.
cheers,
Paul
Could you send me this also?
Thanks,
Bert

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