To learn electronics in a very different and effective way, and gain access to Mr Carlson's personal designs and inventions, visit the Mr Carlson's Lab Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/MrCarlsonsLab
Mr. Carlson, I want to thank you so much. I had studied and worked in electronics since my early childhood. Then 5 years ago I was diagnosed with a cancer that led to years of chemo and operations and ultimately forced retirement. Between the chemo and being 72 years old and out of the industry for a few years, your sessions have helped to bring my mind back to a functional state. Seems you've been doing some additional troubleshooting on me! I sit here and talk to the screen in anticipation of what you're going to say next. Thanks for the therapy! God bless you 🙏
It's a Tektronix day in Mr. Carlson's lab. Troubleshoot a Tek scope with another Tek scope and a Tek Capacitor tester plus check the sweep accuracy with still another piece of Tek equipment. I love it.
6 years ago, after nearly 5 decades on this earth, I decided I was tired of not understanding electronics and sat down to learn what I could. I discovered you early on in that journey, was fascinated, but understood maybe 5% of what was going on. Fast forward, and after many projects, video watching and reading I realized today I’m up to about 25%. This is, in no small part, thanks to your videos and the way you explain things. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I need to up my Patreon for you.
Electronics is just a cherry on top of the cake. In order to fully understand it one needs good understanding of math and physics, particularily electromagnetism and ciruit theory. in university we started with simple analog electronics at second year. fast forward 25 years and I am still learning it, can't say I know 25% of everything that is out there. Sometimes I open a schematic and I have no clue how it works exactly. "If you can't build it, you don't truly understand it - Feynman"
I marvel at the intelligence techs had back in the day to build such a beautiful piece of test equipment like that. You can just see the pride they had to do so.
Mr. Carlson is a North American Treasure. I want to believe there are folks out there keeping us safe that at least know as much about signal as this guy.
This is positively nostalgic! In the summer of 1977, I worked at the EE department of University of Maine, calibrating all sorts of test equipment. I remember those manuals. they were the best! I also remember humourous 'doodles' in the schematics; one of a 'sled' sliding down an angled line - fun times!
I worked for Tek as a summer intern while in school. It was the foundation of my 50yr electronics career. The finest company I have ever seen. I found the great thing about working on scopes is that everything that happens in the circuitry is manifested in the display. You can look at the display and almost diagnose the circuitry without any other diagnostic tools (once you are very familiar with the circuitry). I used to test and repair dozens of 465's a night.
Not my birthday but what a nice treat to see this amazing scope, Tektronics is the best a great bench test scope sure enjoyed, super Thanks Paul well done mike
Sadly there are no electronics swapmeets anywhere around me. Looked on the auction site and someone is asking $500 for one. Of course.... 🤣 I don't know HOW Paul manages to find gear so clean that it looks like an unboxing video! I am truly Jealous! My first scope was a Hewlett Packard 122A, from my Jr. High Electric Shop Teacher. It was the most magical and significant gift at the time I have EVER received. It opened up my world of electronics for the rest of my life. 👍
@@86FxBdyCpe Oh they are worth a ton on ebay. And keep them away from dubious people who scrap them for the tubes to sell on the audio market for rediculous prices. It's just you get luckier in person when you don't have the whole internet competing to buy something.
The first thing that struck me when you opened the case was just how beautiful that instrument was... second was the service manual... but the thing that absolutely astonished me was that tiny roll of solder for those connectors... now I did work as repair tech work on C64's back in the day, so I have a little experience... but that scope has to be over the top the best I've ever seen... WOW!!! 🤯
He must have had an air compressor like I did years ago and cleaned his equipment once and a while or may have used a cover. You are very lucky to find one this clean. Good luck, and thank you for the video, Mike in the USA
Compressed air is the best as long as you protect sensitive stuff like fans from overspeeding. In this case, it looks even too spotless for that. Thinking that cap went early on and it just doesn't have alot of miles on it.
Dear Paul, I always consider your videos akin to pushing out a rowing boat onto a still and tranquil lake on a warm summers evening, surrounded by a beautiful forest, sitting on the craft with a respectful, calm and caring friend whom I am blessed to listen to, telling me tales of this and that, which I find captivating in the extreme. That’s how I feel. You are extremely blessed, kind, respectful and you help me escape the mental white noise of the world, a lot of which is in this TH-cam realm. God bless you and Marie and your family. Thank you, you’re a kind and patient helper and you never swear; I remember your videos about starting a business and how to ascertain the mood and intent of people; you are a man of my own heart. Many joyous blessings!!❤ Matthew, England. ❤
I have a 503 that my uncle gave to me sometime in the late 80s. I remember plugging it in and using it to view serial data from a computer. Left the scope on while I ate lunch but when I came back 10 minutes later, there was an odd sort of sweet smell in the room and no trace on the screen. Turned the scope off hoping after a cool down it would work again but it never did. I saved that scope and it's always been stored covered indoors because I wanted to someday get it working again. If anyone knows where I should start looking for the problem, please let me know. I have many other scopes but this one is special to me because it was my uncles prized possession and he passed it down to me as a youngster interested in electronics. I'd love to get it going again. Thank you Mr. Carlson for the video, you just sparked my curiosity and brought back some wonderful memories from my childhood.
Sweet smell means that something has overheated, I think it may be a resistor. Were it be a capacitor there would be a loud ass bang, I think. That'll be a big troubleshoothing job, I think. Good luck! Bring that scope back to life, it deserves it!
Hi from a retired Broadcast Tech from Australia. Great trip down memory lane. The Tektronix scopes of the day were way above anything else on the market. Thanks for ‘triggering’ old memories.
Your excellent video took me back 60 years or so to when Tektronix scopes were the king of instruments in the laboratories where I worked. They weighed an absolute ton, but when you got a reading on one of them, then you knew it was right! You showed us how to diagnose the open-circuit reservoir capacitor in the power supply from the excessive ripple using another scope, which of course was responsible for the low output dc voltage to the trigger circuits. Those of us without the luxury of a second oscilloscope would probably have guessed where the problem lay and confirmed it as you did by paralleling a good capacitor across the suspect one. Mr. Carlson, I am always impressed by the sheer professionalism of your videos with their amazing quality!
Tek built scopes like you would, if you had all the time and money in the world, plus access to the best design engineers. And their manuals will never be equaled. Each was a treasure trove.
After watching you repair this 503 it gives me hope on my 310A that I got free from work. Of course it has double the tube count so it is quite the space heater. Just imagine the 503 case with 33 tubes inside. It is more likely that a tube may be bad that an electrolytic cap but giving it the once over will be in not so distant future. The 310A came out one year earlier than the 503. That was a great video on a vintage Tek scope Paul.
Hi, Paul. I've been seeing reports of wildfires in Canada, and wondering if you and yours are all ok? Everyone in Canada who might be in the line of those terrible fires, please know that we in The UK are thinking of you and sending our love with best wishes. God bless you all.
I have this scope and I have one capacitor fail. Tied in another one leaving the failed one out of circuit and everything came back. Set it to the side for six seven months and foolishly just plugged it straight into the wall and now I think another capacitor actually failed. That was so happy when you posted this video. Thanks for everything Paul!
Another fine example of electronics knowledge, diagnostics and quality repair work, thanks Mr C. Very nice scope and extra clean as well, even the CRT looked dust free. Great video and quality of not only camera work but content as well. 73
When I got my Tektronix 576 curve tracer delivered by a semi-truck with a lift gate so I could get the scope cart with it, I plugged the unit in and ramped it up, after about 2 minutes wisps of smoke started coming out of the side. A resistor that was part of a voltage divider had popped it's solder joint. After I fixed that it has been great. The cart had about $1200 worth of test jigs in the drawer making the extra $550 to ship the scope cart, pay for itself and then some. After reading the old Tektronix manuals many of the recommend a visual inspection of the internal circuitry if the unit has been sitting idle for more than 6 months. That solder inside the Tektronix stuff is silver bearing lead free solder. Lead solder delaminates the metal from the white porcelain terminal blocks.
In other words, lead free solder that is reliable was a long solved problem. Would have been nice if that was common knowledge back when RoHS was starting to appear...
Hats off to Tektronix folks who designed and built this Type 503 scope. What a beautiful piece of history. You can just tell they took immense pride in building this equipment. And the fact that all these years later the scope still performs is just amazing. Thanks for repairing this scope! I also love that you stuck with the theme of using other analog equipment to get the repair done!
Oh thank you so much for another scope restoration from your hands, Paul. I love these so much. It is interesting how this Tektronix Type 503 is similar to a czechoslovakian Tesla BM510 (I own one and it is waiting for me to find time and restore it), or probably how similar the Tesla is to the Tektronix.
I believe on most of these tektronix 500-series scopes, you can remove the bezel and flip the graticule around 180 degrees and get either a white or red graticule, some amazing engineering went into making these machines. I have a 535A myself, that unfortunately is in a dysfunctional state. I hope to get it up and running and your videos are a great inspiration and aid! Greetings from Sweden!
Very cool! I have a Type 547 and 549 that I inherited and haven't gotten around to testing yet. This video definitely inspires me to do.. It's incredible how well they were built and the hand wired p2p wiring is always eye candy to look at. Cheers! 🍻
vacuum tube SMPS is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I'm an amateur power supply designer and I've long wanted to incorporate some tubes in either my pass section or feedback. this only encourages me
You should look up some old schematics of known P/S models, such as hewlett-packard 710, 711, and heathkits. Early 60's RCA receiving tube manual has a power supply with 7027 pass element.
Over the years, Surplus Sales of Nebraska used to sell a lot of scopes from Los Alamos, (govt. surplus) nowadays nada. Wondered if people bought them for the tubes, transformers, etc.? I'm glad some people keep them from being butchered. Thank you Mr. Carlson.
That is one clean piece of test equipment! It must have led a sheltered life. Years ago I visited the Tek factory in Beaverton OR as part of my job developing automotive test instrumentation and was very impressed with the quality of work being performed. This was in the mid 80s and they were making computer equipment as well as test gear. All the people I met were very enthusiastic about the company and clearly were very proud of what they were doing.
Havent seen you for ages. Your sense of humour is stil lovely. I always remember you acknowledging the excellence of Tektronix scopes manufacture quality. For me it was a privilege to work on them. I served only 5 years on the bench and Tek was a constant companion for me as a repair and calibration enginer from 1977 to 82. My favourties were the Tektronix 453, not the early Nuvistor ones, the FET ones, only a few anyway. Come Sept, we were inundated with Tek 453's because of the perspex EHT box causing condensation when engineers didn't take them indoors at night from their cars. At one time the whole out rack was full of them for weeks :) Now come on (nag nag) when are we going to see you adjust a 547 (say) delay line ? Thee 555 will of course, two of them :) Go on !
In the 80s my dad worked for tektronix as a service technician and I grew up playing with work he brought home. I have a couple of Telequipment D67 oscilloscopes here that he picked up back then for free and rebuilt after someone dropped them in a lake. I think he said that one has D66 parts on the inside. Unfortunately he passed away last year so I can't get more information on them. I have no idea what these would have originally cost but he always thought they were something he was saving for retirement, a bit of a nest egg. Until he looked up what they were selling for a few years ago.
Oh yeah the 503. Used one of those many times in 1972 electronics class. Later on I got a Tek 525 was setup for TV repair work. Still have the scope and use it now and then. Never had any problems with caps. Nice video and thanks for all the way cool stuff you do.
Paul, I have watched you for a few years now. I am interested in you getting back to the communication receivers that you started to work on a while back. I restore these big boat anchors myself. I have been in the business of repairing electronics for over 50 years now. I am 73 years young and still working on radios. Please try to work these kind of radios back into your schedule. Thank you Larry, from Centralia, Wa.
What a nice piece of equipment, this one in particular is so clean that I could think it was never used. The quality of tektronix equipment is so impressive and beautyful, I have worked with different models of Tektronix video waveform monitors for over 30 years in broadcast television and I don't remember seeing any one failed.
Thank you so much for all you do. The way you explain in a clear, logical manner is very enjoyable and helpful. I built my guitar amp from scratch but have never done anything major. Your videos take the fear out of taking bigger steps. Maybe not all fear, but enough to motivate me to stretch my limits.
Thank you! I'm so happy you're finally doing a Tek restoration! I'm working on a couple 561As, and I'm super glad I have your perspective now. And yes, the modules were ruthlessly pilfered of 6DJ8s by those darn audiophiles. I had to order a bunch of equivalent tubes from the Ukraine.
I really enjoyed this video. I first used a Tektronix scope in 1970 while serving in the U.S. Navy. It was a big unit on a roll around cart. I don't remember the model. I was hooked. They're the gold standard of oscilloscopes, in my opinion.
Thank you! now i want to buy every tube scope ever made! seriously great info here. I love these troubleshoot repair videos with the commentary on incidental stuff (like the roll of solder). I learn something each time.
One trick for quickly spotting issues like the one you found here with the bad capacitor: put a DMM into AC voltage, and if you read anything substantial on a power rail you know you need to investigate further. Just need to be mindful of your DMM's bandwidth in that mode. Great video! Informative as always.
This old Tek 500 series scopes are a thing of beauty inside and out - all the way down to the click of the switches. Used them myself at the Beeb back in the day.
Wow you don't look 72 I'd said alot younger. This diagnostic video is why I love watching your videos. I'm not much trained in electronics myself and I've maybe got 1% of your knowledge. I did manage to fix my own tek scope 2213 and some others. I'd like no more of the relationship between the faulty - 100 line and why that caused the triggering circuit issue despite it a paired to working at each point? Many thanks and keep up the good work.
Some years ago I had a tek 565 dual beam scope. It was in pretty bad shape and finally I declared it beyond economical repair. I kept the parts, and the beautyful CRT is on display here. Anyhow, the comment is that the 100V rail which is the master for the supply, after so many years of beating, was spot on! I couldn't believe. It had 2A61 plugins for vertical input that I kept.
Those are amazing little oscilloscopes. I remember they were what we used in our labs in school a number of years ago. I think that may be a bit of an indicator of my age. Thanks for the memories.
When those Oscilloscopes were made most of the people using them fixed electronics which is why the scopes have features like the easy access to the inside, the engineers at Tektronix knew that and therefore knowing that those users would be inside those scopes made them easy to fix.
Possibly one of your BEST videos!!! So well explained and still enough detail without having to show actual "soldering" ;-) Also LOVE how you are testing the vintage gear with vintage gear! PLEASE keep making GREAT vids like this!!!
Hi Paul, Awesome video and i like your channel the most and i recently got a 549 here in the Netherlands and this scope was build at Heerenveen and came to me very dirty and dusty and it took me weeks of cleaning every inch of this scope (removing and cleaning every knob and every tube ) and it has a property sticker Estec-Esa (Noordwijk) and two plug-ins Type 1A4 and Type O and looks brand new now and tested it on a function generator and till now everything works fine and i am very happy to have this awesome and beautiful scope.
Very informative. In learning electronics, unfortunately, the o'scope where I was taught, was not employed much. I know now, that this was a problem. I still don't know as much as I would like to know about them, so tutorials like this, help a lot.
Great video on the TEK 503 repair. Love those TEK scopes, they were built so well and included wonderful documentation. Thank you again for sharing that with the greater communities.
seeing the Tektronix manual brought back memories from the PDP-8 computer I used to service 30 years ago, back then electronic equipment came with good service manuals. on the side note, my company has since replaced those PDP-8 with IBM PCs and I have no idea where the old stuff ended up, hoping the bean counters would have donated them to the museums.
Thanks very much for this video. I've got an old Navy surplus HP 108C scope that I can't figure out the issue. The trace just stopped, but sometimes when I turn it on and off a dot will zing past on the screen. If I pull out the vertical and horizontal plug-ins I should have a spot general in the center, but don't. I need to build it little oscillator to do the blanking test. Lacking a HV probe is also an issue, and PS checks were the first thing I looked at. I've got two Tek 442s one with a shorted transistor in the PS. So long as I that one working scope i know I can fix the other two. I primarily enjoy working on vintage audio equipment including R2R's and have more than 20 in collection. Two or three are all vacuum tube types. I'm going to recheck the PS again. I really enjoy doing the work and get the feeling you do too. And yes my bench looks cluttered. I built it inside a closet. I think we're mostly all that way. I'm sure every tech wishes they had the collection you have, just count the O-scopes.
I have restored many scopes. That’s a very clean one and it’s very nice. Back when you could repair your own stuff.. that solder is solver solder. The power transformers are so quality.
That was such a journey. I enjoyed that video so much. I even guessed the problems before you explained them. Thou shall check voltages ! And pesky capacitors. Brilliant Paul well done
Today, I met a guy which has Tektronix stuff. PCBs and manuals. If you're interested, I could get them for you. I bought 90s computer hardware from him. It wasn't expensive. Service- and user manuals and Tubes are there.
Ahh, the perils of TH-cam. I've watched Mr. Carlson for years, and I know how every single one of his videos begins. But, I just finished watching a video where the audio was considerably lower amplitude than it probably should have been. Was _not_ prepared for _"HI EVERYONE...!!!"_ 💥💀😅 Edit: 15:55 -- Nope. Last computer manual I saw told me not to eat the clock battery, in fact. 😁 Edit 2: Loved the appearance of the Tek 556. 👍
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To learn electronics in a very different and effective way, and gain access to Mr Carlson's personal designs and inventions, visit the Mr Carlson's Lab Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/MrCarlsonsLab
Mr. Carlson, I want to thank you so much. I had studied and worked in electronics since my early childhood. Then 5 years ago I was diagnosed with a cancer that led to years of chemo and operations and ultimately forced retirement. Between the chemo and being 72 years old and out of the industry for a few years, your sessions have helped to bring my mind back to a functional state. Seems you've been doing some additional troubleshooting on me! I sit here and talk to the screen in anticipation of what you're going to say next. Thanks for the therapy! God bless you 🙏
I wish you to get better and especially to keep hope, on the part of a Frenchman
Who loves old electronics like you!
Best wishes to you! Keep at it.
What a kind note. Sometimes you help people and have no idea, until someone tells you. God bless you as well, sir.
Glad to be of assistance Jerry!
There you Go! Mr Carlson gets you going!
It's a Tektronix day in Mr. Carlson's lab. Troubleshoot a Tek scope with another Tek scope and a Tek Capacitor tester plus check the sweep accuracy with still another piece of Tek equipment. I love it.
6 years ago, after nearly 5 decades on this earth, I decided I was tired of not understanding electronics and sat down to learn what I could. I discovered you early on in that journey, was fascinated, but understood maybe 5% of what was going on. Fast forward, and after many projects, video watching and reading I realized today I’m up to about 25%. This is, in no small part, thanks to your videos and the way you explain things.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I need to up my Patreon for you.
This man is so incredibly smart. I think he just breathes electronics.
Most value for your dollar of any patreon I know of.
Electronics is just a cherry on top of the cake. In order to fully understand it one needs good understanding of math and physics, particularily electromagnetism and ciruit theory. in university we started with simple analog electronics at second year. fast forward 25 years and I am still learning it, can't say I know 25% of everything that is out there. Sometimes I open a schematic and I have no clue how it works exactly. "If you can't build it, you don't truly understand it - Feynman"
I marvel at the intelligence techs had back in the day to build such a beautiful piece of test equipment like that. You can just see the pride they had to do so.
Mr. Carlson is a North American Treasure.
I want to believe there are folks out there keeping us safe that at least know as much about signal as this guy.
I love the lights dimming when the scope is powered , that is proper Sci-Fi
This is positively nostalgic! In the summer of 1977, I worked at the EE department of University of Maine, calibrating all sorts of test equipment. I remember those manuals. they were the best! I also remember humourous 'doodles' in the schematics; one of a 'sled' sliding down an angled line - fun times!
Loved the doodles on many of the schematics - like the mop woman cleaning the top of the CRT... haha !!
Mr. Carlson exponentially improved my saturday just now.
I worked for Tek as a summer intern while in school. It was the foundation of my 50yr electronics career. The finest company I have ever seen. I found the great thing about working on scopes is that everything that happens in the circuitry is manifested in the display. You can look at the display and almost diagnose the circuitry without any other diagnostic tools (once you are very familiar with the circuitry). I used to test and repair dozens of 465's a night.
Not my birthday but what a nice treat to see this amazing scope, Tektronics is the best a great bench test scope sure enjoyed, super Thanks Paul well done mike
Sadly there are no electronics swapmeets anywhere around me. Looked on the auction site and someone is asking $500 for one. Of course.... 🤣
I don't know HOW Paul manages to find gear so clean that it looks like an unboxing video! I am truly Jealous!
My first scope was a Hewlett Packard 122A, from my Jr. High Electric Shop Teacher. It was the most magical and significant gift at the time I have EVER received. It opened up my world of electronics for the rest of my life. 👍
I just bought a Tek 555 with the cart and all manuals at a garage sale for $20, thing weighs a ton!
Tek scopes are definitely well built.
A two-man scope!
Welcome to the big scope club!
I was just gonna ask what one of these (with the cart) was worth, I guess not much.
@@86FxBdyCpe Oh they are worth a ton on ebay. And keep them away from dubious people who scrap them for the tubes to sell on the audio market for rediculous prices. It's just you get luckier in person when you don't have the whole internet competing to buy something.
The first thing that struck me when you opened the case was just how beautiful that instrument was... second was the service manual... but the thing that absolutely astonished me was that tiny roll of solder for those connectors... now I did work as repair tech work on C64's back in the day, so I have a little experience... but that scope has to be over the top the best I've ever seen... WOW!!! 🤯
He must have had an air compressor like I did years ago and cleaned his equipment once and a while or may have used a cover. You are very lucky to find one this clean. Good luck, and thank you for the video, Mike in the USA
Compressed air is the best as long as you protect sensitive stuff like fans from overspeeding. In this case, it looks even too spotless for that. Thinking that cap went early on and it just doesn't have alot of miles on it.
Dear Paul,
I always consider your videos akin to pushing out a rowing boat onto a still and tranquil lake on a warm summers evening, surrounded by a beautiful forest, sitting on the craft with a respectful, calm and caring friend whom I am blessed to listen to, telling me tales of this and that, which I find captivating in the extreme.
That’s how I feel. You are extremely blessed, kind, respectful and you help me escape the mental white noise of the world, a lot of which is in this TH-cam realm.
God bless you and Marie and your family. Thank you, you’re a kind and patient helper and you never swear; I remember your videos about starting a business and how to ascertain the mood and intent of people; you are a man of my own heart.
Many joyous blessings!!❤
Matthew, England. ❤
Thank You for your very kind message Matthew!
@@MrCarlsonsLab Anytime
The inside of this oscilloscope is like an art piece; it's beautiful.
I have a 503 that my uncle gave to me sometime in the late 80s. I remember plugging it in and using it to view serial data from a computer. Left the scope on while I ate lunch but when I came back 10 minutes later, there was an odd sort of sweet smell in the room and no trace on the screen. Turned the scope off hoping after a cool down it would work again but it never did.
I saved that scope and it's always been stored covered indoors because I wanted to someday get it working again.
If anyone knows where I should start looking for the problem, please let me know. I have many other scopes but this one is special to me because it was my uncles prized possession and he passed it down to me as a youngster interested in electronics. I'd love to get it going again.
Thank you Mr. Carlson for the video, you just sparked my curiosity and brought back some wonderful memories from my childhood.
Sweet smell means that something has overheated, I think it may be a resistor. Were it be a capacitor there would be a loud ass bang, I think. That'll be a big troubleshoothing job, I think.
Good luck! Bring that scope back to life, it deserves it!
Hi from a retired Broadcast Tech from Australia. Great trip down memory lane. The Tektronix scopes of the day were way above anything else on the market. Thanks for ‘triggering’ old memories.
Thanks again. Great explanation.
First time I see a SMPS using a tube.
Your excellent video took me back 60 years or so to when Tektronix scopes were the king of instruments in the laboratories where I worked. They weighed an absolute ton, but when you got a reading on one of them, then you knew it was right! You showed us how to diagnose the open-circuit reservoir capacitor in the power supply from the excessive ripple using another scope, which of course was responsible for the low output dc voltage to the trigger circuits. Those of us
without the luxury of a second oscilloscope would probably have guessed where the problem lay and confirmed it as you did by paralleling a good capacitor across the suspect one.
Mr. Carlson, I am always impressed by the sheer professionalism of your videos with their amazing quality!
Amazing, Tek Type 503 can do 2[Mc/s], and the calibration on that thing! WoW!😵💫
Tek built scopes like you would, if you had all the time and money in the world, plus access to the best design engineers. And their manuals will never be equaled. Each was a treasure trove.
Mr. Carlson just did his magic again. Even found a mistake in the schematic! Thanks and keep 'em coming.
I don't think anyone else does discreet components like that. So amazingly clean and easy to work on. There's a reason they cost what they did new.
Thank You Mr. Carlson. You are a welcome part of my Earthwalk.
After watching you repair this 503 it gives me hope on my 310A that I got free from work. Of course it has double the tube count so it is quite the space heater. Just imagine the 503 case with 33 tubes inside. It is more likely that a tube may be
bad that an electrolytic cap but giving it the once over will be in not so distant future. The 310A came out one year earlier
than the 503. That was a great video on a vintage Tek scope Paul.
Hi, Paul. I've been seeing reports of wildfires in Canada, and wondering if you and yours are all ok? Everyone in Canada who might be in the line of those terrible fires, please know that we in The UK are thinking of you and sending our love with best wishes. God bless you all.
I would also like to thank you for explaining how and showing the triggering in action. There's not a ton of videos showing this to this detail.
I have this scope and I have one capacitor fail. Tied in another one leaving the failed one out of circuit and everything came back. Set it to the side for six seven months and foolishly just plugged it straight into the wall and now I think another capacitor actually failed. That was so happy when you posted this video. Thanks for everything Paul!
Another fine example of electronics knowledge, diagnostics and quality repair work, thanks Mr C. Very nice scope and extra clean as well, even the CRT looked dust free. Great video and quality of not only camera work but content as well. 73
There is just something about the razor thin trace on a TEK scope that screams quality and accuracy. Love em.
It's amazing how something so old can look so new.
Clearly looked after well.
When I got my Tektronix 576 curve tracer delivered by a semi-truck with a lift gate so I could get the scope cart with it, I plugged the unit in and ramped it up, after about 2 minutes wisps of smoke started coming out of the side. A resistor that was part of a voltage divider had popped it's solder joint. After I fixed that it has been great. The cart had about $1200 worth of test jigs in the drawer making the extra $550 to ship the scope cart, pay for itself and then some. After reading the old Tektronix manuals many of the recommend a visual inspection of the internal circuitry if the unit has been sitting idle for more than 6 months. That solder inside the Tektronix stuff is silver bearing lead free solder. Lead solder delaminates the metal from the white porcelain terminal blocks.
In other words, lead free solder that is reliable was a long solved problem. Would have been nice if that was common knowledge back when RoHS was starting to appear...
might have been expensive to make for the average consumer back then?@@NiHaoMike64
Thanks from Italy Mr. Carlson's.
Your repair for this oscilloscope helped me a lot to repair mine which is an RM 503. Thanks again.
Hi Stefano.
Really enjoyed this one, Paul. "Did you see the lights dim?"😅😅😅
Hats off to Tektronix folks who designed and built this Type 503 scope. What a beautiful piece of history. You can just tell they took immense pride in building this equipment. And the fact that all these years later the scope still performs is just amazing. Thanks for repairing this scope! I also love that you stuck with the theme of using other analog equipment to get the repair done!
Oh thank you so much for another scope restoration from your hands, Paul. I love these so much. It is interesting how this Tektronix Type 503 is similar to a czechoslovakian Tesla BM510 (I own one and it is waiting for me to find time and restore it), or probably how similar the Tesla is to the Tektronix.
It is amazing how efficiently you can zoom in on the problem, and what a great learning experience. What a beautiful, clean, old school scope. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
That takes me back many decades to my first job of repairing and calibrating test equipment.
I believe on most of these tektronix 500-series scopes, you can remove the bezel and flip the graticule around 180 degrees and get either a white or red graticule, some amazing engineering went into making these machines. I have a 535A myself, that unfortunately is in a dysfunctional state. I hope to get it up and running and your videos are a great inspiration and aid!
Greetings from Sweden!
The first scope I used in Junior College was a Tek 503. Learned a lot using that scope, over 50 years ago......... Thanks Paul.
Mr Carlson, you are immaculate. A true inspiration.
Thanks for your kind comment!
Very cool! I have a Type 547 and 549 that I inherited and haven't gotten around to testing yet. This video definitely inspires me to do.. It's incredible how well they were built and the hand wired p2p wiring is always eye candy to look at. Cheers! 🍻
vacuum tube SMPS is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I'm an amateur power supply designer and I've long wanted to incorporate some tubes in either my pass section or feedback. this only encourages me
Old tube TV sets would have had a sort of switching power supply in the horizontal deflection circuit. So if you find one of those …
You should look up some old schematics of known P/S models, such as hewlett-packard 710, 711, and heathkits. Early 60's RCA receiving tube manual has a power supply with 7027 pass element.
@@alanpecherer5705 Thanks!
Over the years, Surplus Sales of Nebraska used to sell a lot of scopes from Los Alamos, (govt. surplus) nowadays nada. Wondered if people bought them for the tubes, transformers, etc.? I'm glad some people keep them from being butchered.
Thank you Mr. Carlson.
We know it's going to be a fantastic video when the light gets dimm after flicking on testequipment on wheels, and it shows voltages on nixietubes! :P
That is one clean piece of test equipment! It must have led a sheltered life. Years ago I visited the Tek factory in Beaverton OR as part of my job developing automotive test instrumentation and was very impressed with the quality of work being performed. This was in the mid 80s and they were making computer equipment as well as test gear. All the people I met were very enthusiastic about the company and clearly were very proud of what they were doing.
I happily own a tectonic's 475-A . And it's been my Workhorse ever since I owned it
Havent seen you for ages. Your sense of humour is stil lovely. I always remember you acknowledging the excellence of Tektronix scopes manufacture quality. For me it was a privilege to work on them. I served only 5 years on the bench and Tek was a constant companion for me as a repair and calibration enginer from 1977 to 82. My favourties were the Tektronix 453, not the early Nuvistor ones, the FET ones, only a few anyway. Come Sept, we were inundated with Tek 453's because of the perspex EHT box causing condensation when engineers didn't take them indoors at night from their cars. At one time the whole out rack was full of them for weeks :) Now come on (nag nag) when are we going to see you adjust a 547 (say) delay line ? Thee 555 will of course, two of them :) Go on !
Hi Paul it’s great to see you doing TE troubleshooting and repair, was missing those kind of videos!
The interiors of classic Tek scopes are as much works of art as they are functional products.
In the 80s my dad worked for tektronix as a service technician and I grew up playing with work he brought home. I have a couple of Telequipment D67 oscilloscopes here that he picked up back then for free and rebuilt after someone dropped them in a lake. I think he said that one has D66 parts on the inside. Unfortunately he passed away last year so I can't get more information on them. I have no idea what these would have originally cost but he always thought they were something he was saving for retirement, a bit of a nest egg. Until he looked up what they were selling for a few years ago.
Tek took over Telequipment in the 70's, they made cheap service scopes.
They were dumped as Tek released the el cjeapo 5000 series, which was horrible
Dang,, now I really want to hear about the mysterious and interesting places that some of the units came from !!
Those old Tektronix scopes are built like a tank and a joy to work on. Built when things were made to last. Great video.
I love how you use that beautiful old scope and nixietube voltmeter to repair it!
I spent a lot of time using the old school tektronix stuff. If I had room I'd collect the old space heaters for thier impeccable engineering.
Mr Carlsons lab your tektronix tech mold 503 coscilloscope is awesome
Oh yeah the 503. Used one of those many times in 1972 electronics class. Later on I got a Tek 525 was setup for TV repair work. Still have the scope and use it now and then.
Never had any problems with caps. Nice video and thanks for all the way cool stuff you do.
Paul, I have watched you for a few years now. I am interested in you getting back to the communication receivers that you started to work on a while back. I restore these big boat anchors myself. I have been in the business of repairing electronics for over 50 years now. I am 73 years young and still working on radios. Please try to work these kind of radios back into your schedule. Thank you Larry, from Centralia, Wa.
"Why do you have multiples of every tool?" Because sometimes you need a lathe to fix a lathe, a drill to fix a drill, or a scope to fix a scope. . .
Paul, you have more scopes than I have components in my drawers 😜
What a nice piece of equipment, this one in particular is so clean that I could think it was never used. The quality of tektronix equipment is so impressive and beautyful, I have worked with different models of Tektronix video waveform monitors for over 30 years in broadcast television and I don't remember seeing any one failed.
Thank you so much for all you do. The way you explain in a clear, logical manner is very enjoyable and helpful. I built my guitar amp from scratch but have never done anything major. Your videos take the fear out of taking bigger steps. Maybe not all fear, but enough to motivate me to stretch my limits.
You're very welcome!
I remember my old Tek 561 scope had a roll of solder inside. I paid £5 for it about 35 gears ago and eventually sold it for £60. Wish I still had it!
its always nice seeing tek equipment on the inside, so well organized circuitry and it just looks beautiful on the inside.
Thank you! I'm so happy you're finally doing a Tek restoration! I'm working on a couple 561As, and I'm super glad I have your perspective now. And yes, the modules were ruthlessly pilfered of 6DJ8s by those darn audiophiles. I had to order a bunch of equivalent tubes from the Ukraine.
Working on those is like working on a piece of fine art. These really are the Rolls Royce of electronic testing gear.
I really enjoyed this video. I first used a Tektronix scope in 1970 while serving in the U.S. Navy. It was a big unit on a roll around cart. I don't remember the model. I was hooked. They're the gold standard of oscilloscopes, in my opinion.
I have the exact same scope, with the exact same ‘no trigger’ problem. Thanks for giving me a huge head start on troubleshooting!
Glad to help!
Thank you! now i want to buy every tube scope ever made! seriously great info here. I love these troubleshoot repair videos with the commentary on incidental stuff (like the roll of solder). I learn something each time.
Tube SMPS .... 😲now that is something I've never thought I'll see, very unique experience, thank you! 👍
One trick for quickly spotting issues like the one you found here with the bad capacitor: put a DMM into AC voltage, and if you read anything substantial on a power rail you know you need to investigate further. Just need to be mindful of your DMM's bandwidth in that mode.
Great video! Informative as always.
This old Tek 500 series scopes are a thing of beauty inside and out - all the way down to the click of the switches. Used them myself at the Beeb back in the day.
That’s BBC isn’t it? BR, Per (DK)
@@nakfan Yes
Wow you don't look 72 I'd said alot younger. This diagnostic video is why I love watching your videos. I'm not much trained in electronics myself and I've maybe got 1% of your knowledge. I did manage to fix my own tek scope 2213 and some others. I'd like no more of the relationship between the faulty - 100 line and why that caused the triggering circuit issue despite it a paired to working at each point? Many thanks and keep up the good work.
Some years ago I had a tek 565 dual beam scope. It was in pretty bad shape and finally I declared it beyond economical repair. I kept the parts, and the beautyful CRT is on display here. Anyhow, the comment is that the 100V rail which is the master for the supply, after so many years of beating, was spot on! I couldn't believe. It had 2A61 plugins for vertical input that I kept.
Those are amazing little oscilloscopes. I remember they were what we used in our labs in school a number of years ago. I think that may be a bit of an indicator of my age. Thanks for the memories.
Beautiful gear, interesting repair. I always liked Tek stuff, only had one scope that failed, filament on CRT went bye bye.
I am always amazed by how nice Tek scopes look inside. Beautiful! Thanks.
When those Oscilloscopes were made most of the people using them fixed electronics which is why the scopes have features like the easy access to the inside, the engineers at Tektronix knew that and therefore knowing that those users would be inside those scopes made them easy to fix.
It's hard to believe that you don't have more than three million followers!
Awesome as Always...Really cool vid.. A bit more controllable than a extractor Fan :D
Possibly one of your BEST videos!!! So well explained and still enough detail without having to show actual "soldering" ;-) Also LOVE how you are testing the vintage gear with vintage gear! PLEASE keep making GREAT vids like this!!!
Hi Paul,
Awesome video and i like your channel the most and i recently got a 549 here in the Netherlands and this scope was build at Heerenveen and came to me very dirty and dusty and it took me weeks of cleaning every inch of this scope (removing and cleaning every knob and every tube ) and it has a property sticker Estec-Esa (Noordwijk) and two plug-ins Type 1A4 and Type O and looks brand new now and tested it on a function generator and till now everything works fine and i am very happy to have this awesome and beautiful scope.
Very informative. In learning electronics, unfortunately, the o'scope where I was taught, was not employed much. I know now, that this was a problem. I still don't know as much as I would like to know about them, so tutorials like this, help a lot.
Great video on the TEK 503 repair. Love those TEK scopes, they were built so well and included wonderful documentation. Thank you again for sharing that with the greater communities.
Man Mr C. ! This was awesome for relaxation. I kid you not, I like when you said it's a happy Scope ..."more life"
Thanks a lot, I needed that !
seeing the Tektronix manual brought back memories from the PDP-8 computer I used to service 30 years ago, back then electronic equipment came with good service manuals. on the side note, my company has since replaced those PDP-8 with IBM PCs and I have no idea where the old stuff ended up, hoping the bean counters would have donated them to the museums.
Hi Mister Paul! :) I am always happy to see another of your videos, sir! :) I hope you are safe and well and stay awesome! :)
Can't get over how cleaver you are. Incredible knowledge and skills. Really enjoy your programs.
Thanks very much for this video. I've got an old Navy surplus HP 108C scope that I can't figure out the issue. The trace just stopped, but sometimes when I turn it on and off a dot will zing past on the screen. If I pull out the vertical and horizontal plug-ins I should have a spot general in the center, but don't. I need to build it little oscillator to do the blanking test. Lacking a HV probe is also an issue, and PS checks were the first thing I looked at. I've got two Tek 442s one with a shorted transistor in the PS. So long as I that one working scope i know I can fix the other two. I primarily enjoy working on vintage audio equipment including R2R's and have more than 20 in collection. Two or three are all vacuum tube types. I'm going to recheck the PS again. I really enjoy doing the work and get the feeling you do too. And yes my bench looks cluttered. I built it inside a closet. I think we're mostly all that way. I'm sure every tech wishes they had the collection you have, just count the O-scopes.
Yay! A Tektronix restoration! Thanks, Paul! This will help me troubleshoot some of the scopes in my collection. Tek scopes are great.
I have restored many scopes. That’s a very clean one and it’s very nice. Back when you could repair your own stuff.. that solder is solver solder. The power transformers are so quality.
That was such a journey. I enjoyed that video so much. I even guessed the problems before you explained them.
Thou shall check voltages ! And pesky capacitors.
Brilliant Paul well done
Glad you enjoyed it!
Bringing me back to my days in electronics! Thanks 👏👏👏
Super oscilloscope! super repair and service!! congratulations Mr. Carlsons 👏👏👏👍
Well, this one really was a demonstration of troubleshooting with style. Wonderful stuff.
Thanks for another great look at a classic. You are the Tek king!
Today, I met a guy which has Tektronix stuff. PCBs and manuals. If you're interested, I could get them for you. I bought 90s computer hardware from him. It wasn't expensive. Service- and user manuals and Tubes are there.
Ahh, the perils of TH-cam. I've watched Mr. Carlson for years, and I know how every single one of his videos begins. But, I just finished watching a video where the audio was considerably lower amplitude than it probably should have been. Was _not_ prepared for _"HI EVERYONE...!!!"_ 💥💀😅
Edit: 15:55 -- Nope. Last computer manual I saw told me not to eat the clock battery, in fact. 😁
Edit 2: Loved the appearance of the Tek 556. 👍