Mr carlson's curved tracer.

Hi Phil-Radford, if you go to video No: 29 on Patreon site (under the comments below the video) I wrote some answers to your questions there and hopefully should guide you to the right direction.

Is there a complete parts list for the Curve Tracer & Power Supply? (With updated part numbers) I just received an RCA WO33A yesterday and bought it primarily to build & install the Curve Tracer. I have quite a bit of work to do on the old scope, but I still would like to gather parts 

@wvdronr62 As far as I remember there is no “Official” Parts list as such but watching all the required videos and examining the supplied schematic diagrams should suffice. After all the project isn’t overly complicated. Power supply details Video 29, Curve tracer board details Video 26, Install, setup, and Calibration Video 30, Usage with examples Video 57. All on Patreon. PS: however if you want to build the screen saver “bit” there is an official B.O.M. supplied for it: Video 58. Good luck with your build.

@ovi4 Thank you so very much for your help! I’ll keep watching the videos and start taking notes. I have A LOT to learn about electronics and I struggle in many areas, but still enjoy the process.

@ovi4 I also have a RCA WO33A that I wanted to make into a curve tracer and did get lost watching the videos.

I have had the RCA WO33A since 2017 if I remember right and making the PCB was my hangup and it is on the shelf waiting for me to do something.
The RCA WO33A will need to have some work done on it, like new caps.

@larry_n7luf It is definetly worth building the curve tracer progect. To have a curve tracer is a wonderful tool. I use mine quite a lot with fantastic results every time. It is a real joy to watch the CRT doing all sorts of shapes and it goes without saying what a nice piece of gear MCL has shared with us. The project. So what’s the progress on your Cap leakage tester? Or…still waiting for some parts?

@ovi4 I have been working on sharpening my skills by working on the Carlson Ultra Probe Demodulator Amplifier.

I have all the resistors put on and been waiting for all the caps to come in.
The caps I have on hand, is 10 volts and he calls for 25 volts. 
Over the weekend I made the PCB for the probe and for the capacitor checker.

The doctor put me on some new meds that has some side effect that I need to get over with that has been slowing me down.

I grabbed an old WO 33A on eBay, waiting for it to arrive. Seller says it isn’t working so my plan is to resurrect it then if that goes OK maybe make it into a curve tracer. Hopefully the WO 33A is simple enough that I can fix it.

I have had some struggles with a Tek 2465 which I ultimately fixed by moving boards between 2 scopes until I had one that worked properly, I wasn’t able to fix the board itself … maybe one day after I watch another 100 or so of Paul’s vids 🙂

@acockburn I got a old WO 33A from Ebay, and hit to tell you how much I paid, and I am not sure if I even tried to power it up.
Paul started moving things around and I got a little lost on what he did as I watched to video. As at that time I had a lot of surgeries going on at the same time.
It is on my list of things to do with many other projects.
I should be in my lab working on something, but in recovery of a surgery and see the doctor tomorrow to see how my healing.

With all the stuff going on in the world right now, I have lost some my drive.

Please keep us updated on the old WO 33A.

@larry_n7luf – thanks for checking in!

I got the WO33A, and sure enough it wasn’t working … except when it was 😉 I spent a couple of days probing around, sometimes it would work sometimes not. Voltages all seemed in the right ballpark even with the old Caps, and the tubes all tested good. The breakthrough came when I tightened a couple of the tube sockets and reseated the CRT harness (I think that was it). Since then, it’s been working like a champ, and has cleaned up decently.

I am currently waiting for new caps so I can re-cap it in the same way that Paul did his, to make space for the curve tracer and power supply. Paul had 4 caps to get the 0.5uf at 1000v, I assume because it’s what he had to hand, I just ordered a 0.47uf at 1000v from Mouser.

I also reviewed the power supply he put together for the curve tracer but unfortunately it looks like the regulator is unobtainium (I think the vid is 5 years old at least so not too surprising). I’ll probably design a new PSU and have the board for it made up (but not the curve tracer board, I’ll make that myself of course!).

Hope the trip to the doc went well and you get your motivation back soon!

Andrew

@acockburn Thank you Andrew, I did order some parts back at that time, but do not remember what I got.

It seems to be a problem finding parts and coming up with something new to replace the obsolete parts.

It would be nice to have a list of replacements and where they can be found here within the forum.
Here again that would be an almost full time job and finding a place to store the file.

Again it will be fun to see your progress.

Larry

@larry_n7luf – here is today’s Progress – I swapped out the old caps and removed the cans, now I have room for a curve tracer board when I make it, and even better, the scope still works!

Here’s what it looks like inside now:

And proof that it still works!

For me I think this will be the hardest part, I was concerned about adding terminal strips and moving wires and components, but I took it step by step and it wasn’t too bad at all. I used Paul’s vid for inspiration but I didn’t slavishly follow what he did – it made more sense to me to figure it out for myself as I went along with Paul’s work as an example, and an idea of where I wanted to end up.

@acockburn That is kinda stalled watching his video and figured I would circle back someday.

Thank you for sharing and I would get going again, but the bench is full right now and have not had to get back into the lab since my surgery on my back.

Looking like a real clean job and nice looking unit also.

I asked Paul for the files for this project and he requested the video number for the files, but he does not have them all in one video, so I will need to look at some videos to find the numbers.

I believe I ordered some or all the parts as I ran onto a box with parts I had ordered back in 2017.
Not sure if they were for this project or parts he said to have on hand.
I am not very organize for parts go, but I am working on it.

It was so funny finding part I got from Olson electronic and Radio Shack way back in the day.

A lot of parts tossed from us moving over the years.

Thank you Andrew

@larry_n7luf For the troubleshooting/refurbishing and transforming your RCA Scope before the actual project can fit in, You’ll most likely need the following videos: Video 27 (that explains in great detail the ins and outs of the schematic), Video 29 (that is about the “actual conversion” itself), Video 30 (preparation, cleaning, and alignment), Video 57 (component testing Examples). As for the Screen saver (should you want to include it as well, there are Videos 58 and 59