It's been a very long time since I made a new thread here. This isn't so much about analog recording gear, but about a piece of instrumentation you may need to use to service analog recording gear. I obtained a Tektronix R7603 oscilloscope recently. It has a NASA asset tag on it, so I am not sure if it was quietly retired, or thrown in a NASA dumpster at some point.
It seems to be a '77 or '78 model. It is very clean inside and out. No bulging or leaky capacitors were visible. So, I took a gamble, and after setting the power supply jumper correctly, powered it on.
Not surprisingly, some smoke came from near the CRT tube after about 30 seconds. I powered it off. After letting it cool and checking all voltages in the area were safe, I started to triage it.
So far, I have not found why it smoked, or where the smoke came from exactly. The only sign of charring is the Anode cable, which is apparently perfectly normal. This cable carries 12KV, so it's very typical that atmospheric soot gathers on it.
I decided to make my photos publicly available here: iCloud Photo Sharing
So far, I've disconnected everything from the power supply except the regulator board. I'm trying to do some research to understand the power supply, and what is normal, and not normal. Thankfully, I have a good PDF of the service manual for use here.
This also is not my first oscilloscope. A friend of mine has a BK scope that works fine, and we share it. Sometimes I use it, sometimes he uses it. But, it would be super great if I could get this one to work as my own. I'll update this thread as major progress develops.
It seems to be a '77 or '78 model. It is very clean inside and out. No bulging or leaky capacitors were visible. So, I took a gamble, and after setting the power supply jumper correctly, powered it on.
Not surprisingly, some smoke came from near the CRT tube after about 30 seconds. I powered it off. After letting it cool and checking all voltages in the area were safe, I started to triage it.
So far, I have not found why it smoked, or where the smoke came from exactly. The only sign of charring is the Anode cable, which is apparently perfectly normal. This cable carries 12KV, so it's very typical that atmospheric soot gathers on it.
I decided to make my photos publicly available here: iCloud Photo Sharing
So far, I've disconnected everything from the power supply except the regulator board. I'm trying to do some research to understand the power supply, and what is normal, and not normal. Thankfully, I have a good PDF of the service manual for use here.
This also is not my first oscilloscope. A friend of mine has a BK scope that works fine, and we share it. Sometimes I use it, sometimes he uses it. But, it would be super great if I could get this one to work as my own. I'll update this thread as major progress develops.