Telequipment serviscope minor - 1960's educational oscilloscope teardown & tweak - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Chipset
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2012, 09:04:35 pm
content: The information I've been able to dig up on this thing dates it at 1960's but apparently manufactured into the 1970's. It's a model made for schools and educational institutions to be used with pre-configured examples, hence the lack of any usable markings on the knobs and the lack of controls in general. It has a total of 6 tubes (plus CRT) which I don't recall the part numbers of but I could definitely look up if someone's interested. It's designed and manufactured entirely in England, as far as I can tell so are all the components and parts.But enough blabber, have some retro porn.Toob glow is purple since the camera picks up IR lightTrace rotation and x-position is offX-position and trace length adjusted to fit and align to the scale, trace rotation wasn't adjustable so I just rotated the crt.(Didn't notice it was on dc coupling when taking the pic, oops.)Not much of a teardown I know but I wanna keep it in working order and you can see inside perfectly just by taking off the panels.This now has a place on my shelf, though I'll probably not use it I'd rather have it take up my abundant shelf space than my limited drawer space.If anyone's interested in it more or would like to take it off my hands for a reasonable sum plus shipping, let me know.I'd also be interested in a general appraisal. I don't expect it to be worth much of anything but as I got this for free (dad rescued it from a school he worked in at the time, they where throwing it out cause it was "broken", turned out to be a blown fuse) I have no idea really how much (if anything) it's worth and it'd be nice to have some idea.

author: david77
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2012, 09:11:13 pm
content: Lovely, the glow of valves in the dark.I've got a Hameg HM107 that's from the same era but yours is much more modern as it's even got a PCB. The Hameg is wired point to point on tag strips and tube sockets.Btw. have you noticed there's a sticker on one of the green caps saying MAR 1972. So not that old.

author: muvideo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2012, 09:51:28 pm
content: I dont have working equipment with valves, but it's nice to see theglow, it gives the equipment a sort of "life".Fabio.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2012, 10:00:58 pm
content: wow .. this predates the triggering circuit and the calibrated timebase....my favorite way to see teardowns of this kind of equipment involves sledgehammers , c4 or steamrollers...In other words : A good widlarization ...I must say it looks pretty clean inside without obvious burn marks... must not have been used very often.

author: david77
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2012, 10:11:31 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on June 21, 2012, 10:00:58 pmOh, how unkindThe thing doesn't deserve that, even though it has no use whatsoever.You could turn it into a funky clock, then at least it does something usefull. Search for scope clock.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2012, 01:28:29 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on June 21, 2012, 10:00:58 pmThe standard "Serviscope" was a bit limited,but every bit as good as the "El Cheapo" Chinese analogs you can buy these days,& lightyears in front of the silly little "pretend DSOs" that are around.I learnt a lot about multivibrators on midnight shift,with some spare 12AT7s,an old dead mantel radio & a Serviscope!Well,midnight shiftwasboring as bat faeces,& Iwasa geek!One of Telequipment's competitors--It may have been Advance, made a very similar 'scope.with the unique feature that the "on" light was provided by mounting one of the valves(tubes) horizontally,so the pip at the top protruded from the front panel.When the filament was on,you had your 'on" indication.Some modern day manufacturers like to save money,but that is hard to beat!

author: Chipset
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 22, 2012, 08:11:23 am
content: Quote from: david77 on June 21, 2012, 09:11:13 pmYes as I said, the design is from the 60's but it was manufactured into the 70's.Quote from: free_electron on June 21, 2012, 10:00:58 pmHeh, yeah it is a bit useless which is why I'm using it as decoration and looking to sell it to someone who could either appreciate it more or saccrifice it and use the parts (tubes, range switches, that sort of stuff) to restore some other piece of equipment that's far more worthy of being preserved.Quote from: david77 on June 21, 2012, 10:11:31 pmI looked it up but I highly doubt this thing is good enough to run any of the existing kits and hacking together something myself it far outside my range of skill and knowledge.