Vintage Tektronix Oscilloscope Restoration
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- In todays video I will be restoring this Tektronix Type 502 Oscilloscope. This on was built in 1958. One the first ones of this line to be produced.
It was very kindly donated to me. And it has quite an awesome story behind it.
I hope you enjoy the video! It is a long one but it will be well worth watching the whole of it.
Enjoy!
Music By : MyStonerMind
Songs Used : Dream In The Light and Awakening
It's great to see young people with interest in these wonderful instruments, which are engineering works of art. Bravo!
You're a great kid and I wish you the best. Be safe!
There's a difference between a DUAL TRACE scope and a DUAL BEAM scope. DUAL TRACE, which is very common, uses a single electron beam and is switched back and forth between the two channels. But this creates a problem. Anytime two different frequencies beat with each other, a third frequency is introduced, known at Hetrodyning. Watch two cars at a red light both with turn signals on. You will note that they drift in and out of sync slowly. The rate of the drift is the third frequency. Same phenomena in a dual trace scope.This can break up the displayed images and cause other distortions. Most all DUAL TRACE scopes have two switch modes. CHOP which is about 100khz. and ALTERNATE which is based on the sweep rate. Thus greatly helps reduce the aliasing. Now in some applications this minor aliasing is simply not acceptable, enter the DUAL BEAM scope. These are somewhat rare due to the expensive tube. Here each channel has a dedicated electron gun so there is no chopping or switching between the two channels. The display is 100% on for each channel. And some models have both DUAL TRACE and DUAL BEAM. So you can have four traces on the screen albeit the switching and chopping problems return but that's not always a deal breaker - in fact most of the time it's not an issue. Of course with either dual trace or dual beam, the horizontal scan rate must be the same. Today digital scopes make this all moot. They can digitize and store multiple channels and display them as raster (TV scanned) image as well as go back in time to analyze events.
Thank you very much for the insights. I really apreceiated it. I learned something new today! Thank you.
I now see the mistake I made. I am so sorry, I said that since it is a Dual Beam oscilloscope it has two channels. But it means it has a dual beam CRT tube. Thank you so much for that! I won't make that mistake again.
With dual beam dual trace scopes, you can have seperate timebases for each beam so they can have different sweep rates.
This is the most awesome amazing piece of equipment I have ever seen! 😍
Thank you! Sadly had to let her go. But she is in a good home though. So that gives me peace.
Good video lad
The brightly glowing little tube is a gas discharge voltage regulator tube. Basically a tube zener diode.
Sweet! I learnt something new today. I find it so amazing how we are able to use vacuum tubes to make such advanced equipment with pieces of glass and metal.
The "nasty" UHF type connectors were silver plated and like silver spoons, they tarnish. The more they are handled, the more they tarnish, because of the sulphur contained on human sweaty fingers. A little household silverware cleaning stuff will cure the tarnishing -- for a while. Later on, the connectors were plated with other, non-silver alloys. Another thing -- as I recall, the TEK front panels used color anodized texts, meaning they were buried under the anodizing layer, i.e. aluminum oxide, which is extremely hard and tolerant to just about any solvent or cleaning substance. That is not true for all the instruments of that age, but the best of them, like TEK sure used that cumbersome, but worthy process.
Thank you for the insight! I will definitely give that a try on those connectors. Thanks.
Good job Ewan. Restored to its former magnificence. There is no charge for the sawdust.
😁
I've got a 545 from Tektronics and it has 102 vacuum tubes in it. 3 of them need replacing and then it will work again just like new and it's over 50 years old.
Such amazing pieces of kit! Right?
@@ewansbuzz127 Absolutely! I'll never get rid of mine event hough you need your own electricity station to power it LOL.
Totally! I would never part with mine either. They are scopes for life!
Good on you sir, for looking after it. It's a beautiful scope
Your videos are very original and cool. I am from Brazil and I work with computers mostly, still, electronics is my hobbie, especially vacuum tube equipment as they are so fascinating. I love to see the the filaments glow in the dark, while listening to a vinyl recording. You got yourslef a subscriber, boy. Looking forward to see more of your videos.
Thank you! That is awesome to hear!
i used this series scope in high schoolin the early 60's and a gaion when I was in the army in Korea. I worked as a technician and engineer for most of my carreer and newer versions of t his style scape (530 and 540 series were in use through the mid 1080's and they were utterly relaible. As a calibration tech i repaired them and their reliability was legendary - extremely well engineered.
I had a 545A in my own workshop through the mid 80's, I still have it but have not turned it on for yerrs, I now use a 100Mhz 2230 storage scope on my bench. Even though yours works be warned the old elecrolytic caps can go at any time.
Wow that is very interesting. Yes electrolytic capacitors are ticking time bombs! I am trying to get a Tek Scope with a 100MHz bandwidth. But it is proving difficult. As I have a 464 but it has some issues with the controls so they are being awfully temperamental and problematic.
Enjoyed seeing a young person learning about technology. Be safe in your lab & hope you find a number of local mentors to help with your learning. My mentors when I was young helped with my education and love of technology.
Thank you! I hope so too. I will certainly be safe as safety is key.
this is a very great job even i watched a few videos from your channel and one live broadcast well i am disappointed that you are just smart and understand a lot of things keep it up
Thank you so much!
The intensity problem is most likely not the pot, I think it would be leakage of the coupling caps. Don't forget that you have to use silver solder when working with the components on the ceramic strips. You can also run it through a dish washer with out the tubes of course, as long as you bake it at about 60s for a few hours, you can also just put the filter in the dishwasher as well
Thanks so much! Will definitely look into it. And thanks for telling me about the tin solder. I think there is a large warning label in the scope saying you must only use tin solder for the ceramic strips.
@@ewansbuzz127 silver solder 3~5% if you are lucky the a roll of solder, that was supplied fron the factory may still be insde. My beat up 540 still had its after 60 years
If you use the included solder, you have to use your own flux, as the flux in the solder itself will be long expired (at least when I tried it dripped right off the iron). Also be careful when cutting faulty components from the strips, if they are held in tight, the force of trying to cut them loose can shatter the terminal and even nearby components. Best to desolder them out, learned the hard way.
@@trevorhaddox6884
Thank you. I will be careful. I will probably get this sorted when I am a bit more advanced. There is also a large warning in the scope that states what solder to use. But you are right I will probably need flux.
Mans watching RUclips while working
You are a great teacher for one so young and quite brilliant. All that sawdust reminds of people who tried fixing old valve radios that were left in a shed and rodents made a home of it inside. I actually own a Tektronix 310A. It has 30 tubes inside
and no sawdust! I hope to get it working one day. Thanks for showing the 502 and its repairs.
Thank you! That means a lot. I really do hope that you can get your Tek scope all up and running again!
Ewan ,well done ,just a concern applying power to those old Tek scopes i have in my collection and do find to be on the safe side to opt to use a isolation transformer in conjunction with a variac ,a dim bulb set up as those old caps can go BOOM and take some other circuitry with it .
Thank you very much for the advice. As I still need to get a hold of a variac and an isolation transformer. And I should definitely build a proper dim bulb tester.
Thank you very much for this video. In our physics lab we have the same Tektronix Type 502 Oscilloscope and it is in very good condition. We use it. It was a great pleasure for me to watch how Ewan restored his unit.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that. And I am so glad to hear that the one in the lab still works and is in good condition!
Did I miss it but why did you not pull the tubes and check them?
Sadly I don’t have a tube checker. And they seemed to be all good. And if a tube broke it would be very hard to find. So I mainly just wanted to be careful. But no tube checker is the big one.