I had a 575 - two, actually; it's quite a chunk of gear, weighing in at 70 pounds, with 39 vacuum tubes plus the CRT. I picked them up at an auction, fiddled with them a bit, and decided I had other better uses for the space.
But a transistor curve tracer would still be a handy thing, and on eBay I stumbled across the Heathkit IT-1121, which has most of the functionality of the Tektronix unit without the oscilloscope (and a *lot* smaller). To use it, you connect it to your own oscilloscope, which really needs to be an analog 'scope in X-Y mode; digital 'scopes won't work very well. It does the multiple simultaneous curves and everything, just like the Tektronix. It takes a little time to calibrate the oscilloscope each time, so I have an old HP unit that I just leave set up for the curve tracer. There's currently one on eBay listed for parts only, which would probably actually be OK once the knobs were tightened back up. The circuitry inside is really quite simple, and there's not much that can go wrong with it. Heathkit also had a model IT-3121 that I think is basically the same unit. I also see listed a Leader LTC-905 which looks to be a very similar type of instrument. If you want to trace vacuum tube curves, head over to https://www.dos4ever.com/uTracer3/uTracer3_pag2.html The very nice gentleman there makes an entirely solid-state vacuum tube curve tracer as a kit, controlled by a pre-programmed PIC. Rather than doing all the steps and curves simultaneously, it steps through the process, so it just needs a little switching supply rather than a big complex system. It's very flexible, and the associated PC software (required, but free to download) really makes it easy. No affiliation, just a satisfied customer. ~~ Mark Moulding On Friday, April 24, 2020 at 3:07:57 PM UTC-7, gregebert wrote: > > When I was in high school, I got to use a Tek 575 curve tracer. Perfect > instrument to nail-down any differences between these devices. > Every now and then, I take a look on Ebay and ask myself if I should buy > one. Yikes...I just took a peek and there are several available. > Fortunately I just bought 2 more tubes from Dalibor so I've zapped my > budget for now. > > Anyways, if someone has a curve tracer it would be really interesting to > compare these. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/99668740-4c23-403d-b0c8-48c59c98f933%40googlegroups.com.
