Thanks for the warm welcome people. One the one hand I feel sad because Tautech was right and I indeed suffer from a disease, but on the other hand I now know there are other people with the same problem, so and we can comfort each other. So... all in all I think I am glad I came here
That's one high traffic thread BTW ! Poste only 24 hours ago an dmy message is already lost far behind... will need to disable e-mail notification for this thread : I will just leave a tab open permanently, and just refresh it in the evening when I get back from work, to retrieve the posts of the day...assuming there WILL be some, many, for sure...
@MED : look like a 535 with blue CRT ?! Blue is not common... mostly saw it on 555 and 556, but that's about it... OK, my special purpose 502A has a blue CRT but no color filter, so it's only once I had managed to get it going, that I saw the trace was blue.... kinda like it I must say.
Your 503 is cute too, same feature set as my 502A, just lesser performing, but quite cute ! I almost managed to get hold of one a year ago, but when I asked the seller to take pictures of the inside, to see the state of it inside, and if all the tubes were still there... the only response I got was " Sorry I dumped the thing, you were right the tubes were missing". To which I replied uh... I would still have bought it without the tubes you moron !! Get back to the dump yard and take it back before it's too late ! Will buy it from you.. though much cheaper of course... but he never replied.
Anyway, here is a Tektronix 5112/D12 with a 5CT1N curve tracer, 5A22N diff. amplifier and 5B12N time base for you.
For those who never came across this product line from Tek: The Tektronix 5000 low-bandwidth series (2 MHz max.) was very popular among scientist back in the 70s and 80s. Many of the units I have collected over the years had an inventory sticker from a university or science lab on it.
Yeah I love my little 5000 scope. Well I don't like them (cosmetically) in their vertical/portable form factor, which is unfortunately 99,9999% of them... but 4 years ago when I came across one in rack mount version, it was love at first sight, bought it ! Was reasonably priced at 80 Euros fully working with 2 x4 channel amps, so 8 channels total ! It's a 5111A with the storage tube, to boost. So I though it was a fair price, so bought it. Was right in retrospect, as 4 years later, I have seen only one other ad for a rack mount 5000, and thz guy wanted 250 Euros for it ! And it came with no particularly interesting plug-ins either ! Ripoff ...
While doing some TLC to mine (all the ceramic trimmer in the CRT and storage board, were disintegrating...), I noticed the mechanical design... split in two independente sections. The vertical form factor therefore I guess, is basically teh same unit as the rack mount... with just the two halves stacked on top of each other rather than laying side by side. So that's good : that means that I can now just buy vertical ones, which are cheap and available, to get parts for my super rare rack mount version
Your curve tracer plug-in, I am jealous of ! I can't afford an old Tek curve tracer. The 5000 series, especially mine with its storage tube, would be ideal for that, as it uses (?) the same nice extra large CRT than the curve tracers. Low B/W but who cares for an XY application.
But.... unfortunately the curve tracer plugin is super mega rare it seems, and super expensive : found only one 4 years ago. Guy wanted 750 Euros for it ! 3 years later still not sold, so he finally lowered the priii , no, he actually INCREASED the price, to a wooing 1,000 Euros ! A GRAND !!! Even a pristine fully restored 576 curve tracer doesn't cost as much, I think ! Using a plug-in would make sense only if I could find for 100 Euros tops, preferably in working order, as if anything is wrong with the fancy rotary switches, it's most likely not repairable, not economically so at least ?!
Anyway. my poor 5111A is in dire need of attention ! Was working fine when I got it,, but I had to put it in storage for a year in a non-climate controlled box, and move it twice in my car, while my new house was being built. When I finally put my lab together 6 month ago, in the house, I tried all my scopes to see how they were doing. The more modern Teks from the 8à's and '90s are just fine, but the 5111A from the '70s has now developed all sorts of problems, it's very very sick indeed. For sure I need to spend many hours and pull a few hair, to get it going again. Definitely a good candidate for a thread in the repair section...
And, of course, there is TekWiki, which is just a great resource. https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/Introduction_to_the_5000-Series_Oscilloscopes
Yeah, been lurking on that site for a few years now, it's my Tek bible... the companion of the "Tekscopes" mailing list where all the knowledgeable grey beards often helped me out with my old Tek scopes...