On Thursday, October 30, 2025 at 3:38:32 PM UTC-4 Mac Doktor wrote:
Probably - but a good statistician can tie everything together ;-)
But to get back on topic - does anyone know the original designer or source for the Chinese scope clock kit control boards? Like most low cost China electronic modules, I'm guessing it's a copy of a controller designed elsewhere. They seem to have gone through a few iterations, but the current ones look like this (
Alibaba example). They are marked Xiao ni / oscilloscope_driver 4.6 and are a single board power/controller/driver powered by 12VDC with onboard CCFL type xfrmr and a DIP style microcontroller daughterboard. I know someone who has one but haven't had the opportunity to inspect it closely or identify what mcu its using. There are a few jumper pads to select various voltages - one set is marked -550V / -850V / -1100V and the other is marked +200 / +300. No doubt to select cathode and anode/deflection voltages for driving different tubes. I haven't been able to find any information about them on the web and I don't recall seeing similar boards elsewhere that must be the original designer. They seem to be running the Dutchtronix firmware and the menu has options for things like GPS and Serial terminal, but there are no connectors for those features on the board and I didn't notice any unpopulated pins on the board for them. Perhaps they just omitted the hardware but left the firmware in true cheap clone style?
If they're going to steal the firmware, I doubt they're going to invest in designing original hardware lol. This is probably what happens when someone contracts a Chinese pcb factory to make their boards - and the factory sees an opportunity to make a few extra bucks. Of course, once one Chinese company starts making them the other companies down the street start making them too. It's like the wild west of intellectual property over there...
But the kit seems to work - I've seen the 8S31J crt version and it looks decent. The crt seems like a 3RP1A copy with a thicker neck and is another component that Google cannot find - no datasheets anywhere.
On Thursday, October 30, 2025 at 3:32:11 PM UTC-4 Nicholas Stock wrote:
I always thought the 'A' designation meant their specs were better....
I always understood the 'A' to indicate the flat face version as opposed to the standard radiused face of the 3RP1.
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