Show your strangest / crappiest piece of TE

[capt bullshot]

This is a digital oscilloscope, Gould 450

Pretty much beaten up, exploded line filter was removed by somebody else, I did remove the leaking RAM buffer battery. It has a built-in plotter with dried out pens and no more paper.
Due to the removed battery it does a lengthy self cal at power up, but it shows plausible signals. It has some post storage signal (digital) filtering functions that can be applied to the stored traces, cursor readout and some measurement functions.
So, I guess it was quite a sophisticated scope when it was new, but no more useful today. Any cheap DSO is supposed to do a better job.

BTW
The writing on the top cover says "Defective, Do not turn on" (with a missing "t" at "Defekt"). Anyway, that didn't hinder me, see the pics.

So what is your strangest, most beaten up, crappiest, whatever piece of Test Equipment? Post some pictures!

[Bicurico]

Sorry, but that device does not qualify for crappy by a long run!

 

Sell it on eBay and you will get at least 100 Euro...

Crap is something:

- dirty
- dusty
- needs to have oil
- corroded PCB
- nothing works
- unpleasant odor

The worst I had so far was a professional MPEG2 encoder that was kindly given to me. When I turned it on, flames came out after 5 seconds! Real flames like a jet engine. I was so confused it took me a while to figure out what was happening and to finally pull the plug!

But there was a happy end: the flames were caused by an excess of oil/grease/dead insects near the power supply, which had a fan. So the oil caught fire by some spark, the insects burned and the fan expelled the flames. After cleaning the device, it miraculously worked fine without any damage!

Cheers,
Vitor

[GregDunn]

Probably this.

I think I got it at the same hamfest where I picked up my mint Heath IG5218.  I asked the seller what the H it was, and found out it was a purpose-built 0-10VDC 5A supply with a nice 10-turn pot for setting voltage.  Note the input fuse and output breaker.  I've actually peeked inside and it's competently built.  Well regulated, quiet, and useful as an occasional auxiliary voltage source for projects.  I've been tempted to put labels on it - but why spoil the mystery for someone else?   

I used to have what must have been a really expensive pressure monitoring device, which I picked up for $5 thinking to use either the meter or the case for something; but it got sold elsewhere.  Useless without the sensors, of course, but it was an intriguing looking piece of gear...

[chris_leyson]

Bloody hell Vitor I'm not surprised it took you a few seconds to pull the plug. Been there once or twice and you sit there almost in shock thinking that shouldn't have happened and because you're not testing an off line supply for example you're brain isn't geared up for plug pulling.

Anyway, crap test gear, my first "oscillograph" https://www.thevalvepage.com/testeq/cossor/339a/339a.htm
It had some good features though, an 09D crt with a splitter plate that made it dual channel. A pair of 807's for the "dual channel" Y amp, 3 valve "Puckle" timebase and a pair of rectifiers. The scope was probably less than 25 years old when I bought it for £25 and my old man said I was mad for paying that much. In hindsight he was right, it was a crap scope. It was a pile of crap in 1970 but useful, it was probably less of a pile of crap in 1945 but more useful. Not too bad for 5 valves, OK 7 valves but rectifiers don't count.

[chris_leyson]

@GreggDunn You scored a bargain there mate. Nice old school toggle switch none of this cheap modern plastic crap, nice turns counter nice output terminals and a breaker ! It's little features like that, and you sort of know it's got to be well built. Everything lines up on the front panel and it's a neat layout, it's attention to detail. The designer probably paid just as much attention to the electronics design as well.

[alsetalokin4017]

 

[chris_leyson]

@capt bullshot, So why did you buy a Gould 450, more money than sense probably, all the gear but no idea.

[med6753]

I guess it would be this but it really isn't too bad.

[TERRA Operative]

Here's my entry.

A National VP-5261A 2MHz (Yep, TWO MHz!) scope.
It works well enough apart from the usual scratchy pots, but it'll probably tear it down for parts. At that low a frequency range, it's practically useless!
I don't think I paid more than $10 for it.

[T3sl4co1l]

Easy... this obscure bit of kit:
http://www.radiowrench.com/sonic/so02146.html

The sampler is not actually that bad for a discrete circuit, it's capable of the timing and bandwidth claimed; but the control is painful (a Z80-CPU running at 2MHz!), the acquisition is limited (256 points I think?), with a terrible acquisition rate (it's half-duplex, in that it's sampling into memory, or copying the waveform buffer(s) to the scope for viewing, one at a time), and a seizure-inducing draw rate (~10Hz).

Perhaps TERRA would like one to speed up those slow scopes!

Tim

[capt bullshot]

@capt bullshot, So why did you buy a Gould 450, more money than sense probably, all the gear but no idea.

I didn't buy it, just got it for free. Took it just for curiosity, I didn't intend to use it, stuck it somewhere after a short inspection. Yesterday I was searching for some storage space, so it saw daylight again.

[capt bullshot]

What's that thing supposed to do? Save a wave, blow the ocean?

[Mr Nutts]

This is a digital oscilloscope, Gould 450

Pretty much beaten up, exploded line filter was removed by somebody else, I did remove the leaking RAM buffer battery. It has a built-in plotter with dried out pens and no more paper.
Due to the removed battery it does a lengthy self cal at power up, but it shows plausible signals. It has some post storage signal (digital) filtering functions that can be applied to the stored traces, cursor readout and some measurement functions.
So, I guess it was quite a sophisticated scope when it was new, but no more useful today. Any cheap DSO is supposed to do a better job

That Gould scope still looks cool 

What are its specs?

[capt bullshot]

This is a digital oscilloscope, Gould 450

Pretty much beaten up, exploded line filter was removed by somebody else, I did remove the leaking RAM buffer battery. It has a built-in plotter with dried out pens and no more paper.
Due to the removed battery it does a lengthy self cal at power up, but it shows plausible signals. It has some post storage signal (digital) filtering functions that can be applied to the stored traces, cursor readout and some measurement functions.
So, I guess it was quite a sophisticated scope when it was new, but no more useful today. Any cheap DSO is supposed to do a better job

That Gould scope still looks cool 

What are its specs?

I found a manual: http://www.powerelectronics.itu.edu.tr/files/dso400.pdf
It states 50MHz BW, 8 Bit, 501 Samples memory, 100MS/s, ETS ns/Sample for repetive Signals.
Update rate isn't specified, but rather slowish.

[chris_leyson]

@capt bullshot. sorry mate glad you didn't buy it  I've seen worse.

[MadTux]

Similar to the 7603/Tek 7D20 that I bought about 12years ago for 300€, my first scope 
Specs arent exactly great on that one too (8bit, 40MS/s CCD ADC with something around 500samples/channel), but the love for 7000 mainframes remained
The lack of memory and low sample speed was common in 1980s DSOs, so that Gould isn't that bad

[TheBay]

This is a digital oscilloscope, Gould 450

Pretty much beaten up, exploded line filter was removed by somebody else, I did remove the leaking RAM buffer battery. It has a built-in plotter with dried out pens and no more paper.
Due to the removed battery it does a lengthy self cal at power up, but it shows plausible signals. It has some post storage signal (digital) filtering functions that can be applied to the stored traces, cursor readout and some measurement functions.
So, I guess it was quite a sophisticated scope when it was new, but no more useful today. Any cheap DSO is supposed to do a better job.

BTW
The writing on the top cover says "Defective, Do not turn on" (with a missing "t" at "Defekt"). Anyway, that didn't hinder me, see the pics.

So what is your strangest, most beaten up, crappiest, whatever piece of Test Equipment? Post some pictures!

A friend has a similar Gould scope, but doesn't have the plotter. I found it very frustrating to use as it doesn't have any knobs and his has the same plastic CRT lens.

Funny enough he gave me a vintage HP 1741A a couple of years ago that I repaired, I acquired a different scope recently and asked if had any use for the old 1741A, he was very happy to have it back and pulled the Gould off his bench. He couldn't get on with the ergonomics of it.