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Electronics Repair (sci.electronics.repair) Discussion of repairing electronic equipment. Topics include requests for assistance, where to obtain servicing information and parts, techniques for diagnosis and repair, and annecdotes about success, failures and problems. |
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Building your own curve tracer
I now use my TEK465 oscilloscope's calibration output to generate
ringing pulses to test flybacks,yokes,transformers and video heads.I also now use it to test ESR on electroyltic capacitors but would like to build a simple and effective way to test transistors,diodes and resistors like maybe a curve tracer or use my oscilloscope to test them. Anyone have a simple effective design for a curve tracer either a stand alone device or using my TEK465 oscilloscope?.Thanks in advance. Sidney Dartmouth,Nova Scotia Canada |
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"Sidney" wrote in message om... | I now use my TEK465 oscilloscope's calibration output to generate | ringing pulses to test flybacks,yokes,transformers and video heads.I | also now use it to test ESR on electroyltic capacitors but would like | to build a simple and effective way to test transistors,diodes and | resistors like maybe a curve tracer or use my oscilloscope to test | them. | Anyone have a simple effective design for a curve tracer either a | stand alone device or using my TEK465 oscilloscope?.Thanks in advance. See if your local library has a collection of electronics magazines. You'll have to go back about 20 years or more, but there were some designs published. US "Radio Electronics" or UK "Wireless World" or Elektor would be good places to look. Some tech colleges have libraries also. N |
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"NSM" writes:
"Sidney" wrote in message om... | I now use my TEK465 oscilloscope's calibration output to generate | ringing pulses to test flybacks,yokes,transformers and video heads.I | also now use it to test ESR on electroyltic capacitors but would like | to build a simple and effective way to test transistors,diodes and | resistors like maybe a curve tracer or use my oscilloscope to test | them. | Anyone have a simple effective design for a curve tracer either a | stand alone device or using my TEK465 oscilloscope?.Thanks in advance. See if your local library has a collection of electronics magazines. You'll have to go back about 20 years or more, but there were some designs published. US "Radio Electronics" or UK "Wireless World" or Elektor would be good places to look. Some tech colleges have libraries also. Building a curve tracer to demonstrate the principle of a curve tracer is easy and quick. Building one that is actually a useful test instrument is a lot more difficult and time consuming. Let's have a show of hands.... How many really find a curve tracer to be a piece of test equipment you use regularly and would dearly miss if you didn't have one. --- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/ Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/REPAIR/ +Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/sam/lasersam.htm | Mirror Sites: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/REPAIR/F_mirror.html Note: These links are hopefully temporary until we can sort out the excessive traffic on Repairfaq.org. Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header is ignored. To contact me, please use the feedback form on the S.E.R FAQ Web sites. |
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Sam Goldwasser wrote:
Let's have a show of hands.... How many really find a curve tracer to be a piece of test equipment you use regularly and would dearly miss if you didn't have one. I use my TEK 576 a lot. Good for quick charging batteries. Good for finding shorted caps. All you have to do is remove the remaining leads and dig the cap body out of the ceiling. Good for burning shorts out of circuit boards. If that fails, use it in 4-terminal mode to find the short. You can look at a board node and see the resistances and the junctions on one display. Makes a nice 1500v breakdown/leakage test supply Oh yeah, can also be used to look at transistor curves. I frequently find power transistors that have been stressed and have funny looking curves. For those in a variable environment, like TEK TM500 mainframes, it's best to replace 'em before they blow up your favorite plugin. Zeners with soft breakdown curves. Figuring out what you have in that bag of parts marked 2-456. Selecting transistors for avalanche breakdown pulsers. Matching transistors. Testing phototransistors. Testing tunnel diodes. Sure, you can get by without one. But when you need it for that elusive problem, it's very useful. I'd use it a lot more if it weren't so BIG. It's down under the bench and I have to sit on the floor to use it. mike -- Return address is VALID. Wanted, 12.1" LCD for Gateway Solo 5300. Samsung LT121SU-121 Bunch of stuff For Sale and Wanted at the link below. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Monitor/4710/ |
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"NSM" wrote in message news:Ityad.2989$z96.1355@clgrps12...
"Sidney" wrote in message om... | I now use my TEK465 oscilloscope's calibration output to generate | ringing pulses to test flybacks,yokes,transformers and video heads.I | also now use it to test ESR on electroyltic capacitors but would like | to build a simple and effective way to test transistors,diodes and | resistors like maybe a curve tracer or use my oscilloscope to test | them. | Anyone have a simple effective design for a curve tracer either a | stand alone device or using my TEK465 oscilloscope?.Thanks in advance. See if your local library has a collection of electronics magazines. You'll have to go back about 20 years or more, but there were some designs published. US "Radio Electronics" or UK "Wireless World" or Elektor would be good places to look. Some tech colleges have libraries also. N A simple curve tracer at http://www.intio.or.jp/jf10zl/trct.htm -- Dave M MasonDG44 at comcast dot net (Just subsitute the appropriate characters in the address) Never take a laxative and a sleeping pill at the same time!! |
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On 11 Oct 2004 12:53:15 -0400, Sam Goldwasser
wrote: ... Building a curve tracer to demonstrate the principle of a curve tracer is easy and quick. Building one that is actually a useful test instrument is a lot more difficult and time consuming. Let's have a show of hands.... How many really find a curve tracer to be a piece of test equipment you use regularly and would dearly miss if you didn't have one. I remember the first time I used a curve tracer at work. Took me a long time to realize that little line running out past 12 volts was the whole show. Later on, I got cheap kicks watching the temps scratching their heads after hours of sitting in front of the Tek with the ludicrous operation manual open next to them. |
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On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 08:35:25 -0400, Chuck Harris
wrote: wrote: Let's have a show of hands.... How many really find a curve tracer to be a piece of test equipment you use regularly and would dearly miss if you didn't have one. I remember the first time I used a curve tracer at work. Took me a long time to realize that little line running out past 12 volts was the whole show. Later on, I got cheap kicks watching the temps scratching their heads after hours of sitting in front of the Tek with the ludicrous operation manual open next to them. The books for the Tek 577/177 are sure a piece of .... work. They don't even have one example of how to trace a transistor, and have it survive... I guess you are just supposed to know. Did anyone ever write a decent book explaining how to get the most out of the Tek curve tracers? -Chuck Harris OBTW, I have used my 577/177 more for tracing tubes than for tracing transistors. Yeah, now that I think about it, transistors did have a penchant for dying Hot suckers too if you grabbed them too fast. As I recall, keeping some transistors alive meant you might need to use heatsinks and fans on the test device. Never saw a good publication on the 577/177 myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was one somewhere. I recall getting it to work was mostly a process of elimination with the controls. You set the obvious ones, and experimented with the mysterious ones. There were a few bread crumbs scattered in the lousy manual. Just a few Tek manuals for other models must have been better I once saw a nice Tek GPIB curve tracer at a trade show. Bit expensive though. I found out later when I got into purchasing test equipment that Tek had a very helpful salesman assigned to our company who was only too happy to run over any time. I could have called him up and had him test the parts for me Something they don't teach you in business school. |
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Sam Goldwasser wrote in message ...
"NSM" writes: "Sidney" wrote in message om... | I now use my TEK465 oscilloscope's calibration output to generate | ringing pulses to test flybacks,yokes,transformers and video heads.I | also now use it to test ESR on electroyltic capacitors but would like | to build a simple and effective way to test transistors,diodes and | resistors like maybe a curve tracer or use my oscilloscope to test | them. | Anyone have a simple effective design for a curve tracer either a | stand alone device or using my TEK465 oscilloscope?.Thanks in advance. See if your local library has a collection of electronics magazines. You'll have to go back about 20 years or more, but there were some designs published. US "Radio Electronics" or UK "Wireless World" or Elektor would be good places to look. Some tech colleges have libraries also. Building a curve tracer to demonstrate the principle of a curve tracer is easy and quick. Building one that is actually a useful test instrument is a lot more difficult and time consuming. Let's have a show of hands.... How many really find a curve tracer to be a piece of test equipment you use regularly and would dearly miss if you didn't have one. --- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Mirror: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/ Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/REPAIR/ +Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/sam/lasersam.htm | Mirror Sites: http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/REPAIR/F_mirror.html Note: These links are hopefully temporary until we can sort out the excessive traffic on Repairfaq.org. Important: Anything sent to the email address in the message header is ignored. To contact me, please use the feedback form on the S.E.R FAQ Web sites. --------------------- SAM, *MY* hand is up. I use my Gootee Curve Tracer regularly, and just could not LIVE without it! Many others who own this model swear by it, too. Some people who also have top-of-the-line Huntron models in their labs have said that they'd put the Gootee Curve Tracer up against the Huntrons, any day. And the Gootee unit's cost is WAY, way less than the Huntron's. (And, actually, it does way MORE than a Huntron.) Okay, hehe. I'm Gootee. But it's all true! I designed the Gootee Curve Tracer for MYSELF, originally. So it has a lot of great features that I wanted, but couldn't possibly justify buying elsewhere. Anyway, I find that I often use my curve tracer just like I'd use a "Huntron Tracker" type of unit (i.e. without using the transistor base/gate staircase output). When I'm troubleshooting a piece of gear, I can use it to test components in-circuit. And if I have a working unit that's identical to the one I'm repairing, then it's almost a no-brainer, since I can just trace through the circuits, comparing the displayed signatures for the same circuit points in the two units until I see a difference, to locate a bad part. I don't test standalone transistors and components as much as I thought I would, back when I used to cannibalize a lot of consumer gear for parts, for what was then my "repair" hobby. But it IS great for that. And the ability to just use switches to select which of the three transistor voltages and currents to display is very handy, as is being able to flip their displayed polarities. Mine also has adjustable + and - tracking power supply outputs, and a fixed +5v output, on the rear panel. So it's very handy to also use it as a power source for IC breadboards, etc. I also occasionally use it as a signal source, since it provides ramp, triangle, and integrated sine outputs, with a synchronized pulse output (and a synchronized staircase output). And the main ramp/triangle/sine output can push at least 1.5 amps and has six selectable frequencies and a twelve selectable current-limiting resistances, as well as six selectable peak-to-peak voltages. If anyone cares to check it out, the Homepage of the Gootee Curve Tracer is at: http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg/gooteect.htm We sell it in several versions, including "fully assembled and tested", and in DIY "Kit" form, and also just the "Plans". I don't want to blow my own horn TOO much more loudly, here (well, actually, yes I do, hehe), but, I also recently finished two major re-design projects, for the Curve Tracer. One re-design was just to improve the power amplifier board, to use a feedback control loop to control the amp's gain (and thus the output amplitude), which also eliminated a large number (144!) of switched resistors and a LOT of wiring, which made it perform even better and made it MUCH easier to assemble, as well as making each output level individually adjustable/calibratable (based on a 0.4% precision voltage reference). The second re-design was for "manufacturability". I moved the whole main board from the bottom of the case to a new board that's just behind (and parallel to) the front panel, allowing all of the rotary switches, pots, toggle switches, and BNC and banana connectors to be connected *directly* into the circuit board, eliminating LOTS of discrete wiring and cutting the assembly time and effort dramatically. I also made sure that the few remaining board-to-board wires have at least one end that is connected using a terminal block rather than solder, so that the individual boards can easily be removed and re-installed, to improve maintainability and upgradability. [Although, I should probably mention that there hasn't been a single report of a failure, or any repair needed, in the five years that I've been selling them (at least not after a kit was finally completed and working correctly).] Sorry to have blathered-on, for so long, about that. I realize it's like a commercial advertisement. But I FEEL more like a happy customer who just wants everyone else to know how great this thing is. ------------ OT: BY THE WAY: If anyone has any ideas about OTHER types of instruments they'd like to have available, I'm always in the market for those. CASE IN POINT: Are there any analog circuit designers out there who might be interested in a "Bode-Plotter", that would display the gain and phase plots together, on a scope? It seems like it sure would be nice to have, when (for example) tweaking the open-loop transfer function for a new opamp circuit. Sure, you could buy a "network analyzer", for a five-figure price. But would there be any interest in one with, say, a limited frequency range, that was available as a kit or assembled, with *MUCH*-lower pricing? I know **I** WANT one. Does anybody else? (And, if so, are there any particular features or specs that you would want it to have?) ------------ Regards, Tom Tom Gootee http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg |
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"Thomas P. Gootee" wrote in message
m... Sidney, I have complete plans for a VERY nice little curve tracer, at: http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg/gooteect.htm I also have them on ebay.com, fairly often, where they sometimes sell for slightly less. Tom Tom Gootee http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg It looks fairly nice. UNFORTUNATELY, NOBODY PLAYS **** MUSIC ON MY COMPUTER WITHOUT MY CONSENT SO I'M BLACKLISTING YOUR @#$% SITE. |
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"Norm Dresner" wrote in message
... "Thomas P. Gootee" wrote in message m... Sidney, I have complete plans for a VERY nice little curve tracer, at: http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg/gooteect.htm I also have them on ebay.com, fairly often, where they sometimes sell for slightly less. Tom Tom Gootee http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg It looks fairly nice. UNFORTUNATELY, NOBODY PLAYS **** MUSIC ON MY COMPUTER WITHOUT MY CONSENT SO I'M BLACKLISTING YOUR @#$% SITE. Lighten up, dude.. you gonna blow a gasket there... If a little tune sets you off like that, I'd hate to be around you if somebody spilled wine on your white jacket!! Woohoooooooooo -- Dave M Never take a laxative and a sleeping pill at the same time!! |
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"Tweetldee" wrote in message
news:iIZbd.477504$8_6.10170@attbi_s04... "Norm Dresner" wrote in message ... "Thomas P. Gootee" wrote in message m... Sidney, I have complete plans for a VERY nice little curve tracer, at: http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg/gooteect.htm I also have them on ebay.com, fairly often, where they sometimes sell for slightly less. Tom Tom Gootee http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg It looks fairly nice. UNFORTUNATELY, NOBODY PLAYS **** MUSIC ON MY COMPUTER WITHOUT MY CONSENT SO I'M BLACKLISTING YOUR @#$% SITE. Lighten up, dude.. you gonna blow a gasket there... If a little tune sets you off like that, I'd hate to be around you if somebody spilled wine on your white jacket!! Woohoooooooooo -- I do make a distinction between true accidents and intentional acts that are not necessary. Playing music when I visit a site is not an accident. It's intentional! And it's damned annoying to me. It doesn't matter why. It's my office, my desk, my computer and my ears. And it's damned annoying. To me. If the site had a prominent button to turn the music off, I'd never have complained. But it doesn't. Norm |
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Norm Dresner wrote:
you off like that, I'd hate to be around you if somebody spilled wine on your white jacket!! Woohoooooooooo -- I do make a distinction between true accidents and intentional acts that are not necessary. Playing music when I visit a site is not an accident. It's intentional! And it's damned annoying to me. It doesn't matter why. It's my office, my desk, my computer and my ears. And it's damned annoying. To me. If the site had a prominent button to turn the music off, I'd never have complained. But it doesn't. Norm It doesn't need to, you have that power within your browser. If you don't like sites that play music, remove the plugin that plays music. -Chuck |
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On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 12:11:12 -0400, Chuck Harris
wrote: Norm Dresner wrote: you off like that, I'd hate to be around you if somebody spilled wine on your white jacket!! Woohoooooooooo -- I do make a distinction between true accidents and intentional acts that are not necessary. Playing music when I visit a site is not an accident. It's intentional! And it's damned annoying to me. It doesn't matter why. It's my office, my desk, my computer and my ears. And it's damned annoying. To me. If the site had a prominent button to turn the music off, I'd never have complained. But it doesn't. Norm It doesn't need to, you have that power within your browser. If you don't like sites that play music, remove the plugin that plays music. -Chuck for IE5 tools internet options advanced uncheck the multimedia play sounds box |
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http://www.techlib.com/electronics/curvetrace.html
Sam is the man: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/semitest.htm Scroll down for info on curve tracers. Don't forget Dallas http://www.maxim-ic.com/appnotes.cfm/appnote_number/253 Printer port curve tracer. On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 05:03:49 -0700, Sidney wrote: I now use my TEK465 oscilloscope's calibration output to generate ringing pulses to test flybacks,yokes,transformers and video heads.I also now use it to test ESR on electroyltic capacitors but would like to build a simple and effective way to test transistors,diodes and resistors like maybe a curve tracer or use my oscilloscope to test them. Anyone have a simple effective design for a curve tracer either a stand alone device or using my TEK465 oscilloscope?.Thanks in advance. Sidney Dartmouth,Nova Scotia Canada |
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"Norm Dresner" wrote in message ... | "Tweetldee" wrote in message | news:iIZbd.477504$8_6.10170@attbi_s04... | Lighten up, dude.. you gonna blow a gasket there... If a little tune | sets | you off like that, I'd hate to be around you if somebody spilled wine on | your white jacket!! Woohoooooooooo | | -- | | I do make a distinction between true accidents and intentional acts that are | not necessary. Playing music when I visit a site is not an accident. It's | intentional! And it's damned annoying to me. It doesn't matter why. It's | my office, my desk, my computer and my ears. And it's damned annoying. To | me. | | If the site had a prominent button to turn the music off, I'd never have | complained. But it doesn't. I have a button on my keyboard that does that. Yes, it's stupid to play music on web sites. But there's no shortage of stupid people in the universe. N |
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