Build a Tektronix TM500 Mainframe Tester
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- Your First Order Free at PCBWay: www.pcbway.com...
In this video, I show you how to build a Tektronix TM500 mainframe tester.
Used for testing and verifying the TM500 and TM5000 mainframes.
Part number 067-1201-99.
Link to project files:
drive.google.c...
I’ve purchased a couple of modules separately and some with power supplies and plan to get a few more. I want to have the Mr Carlson look. LOL. This is for something to do in retirement to keep from getting bored. Thanks for the information
Thanks for posting your designs, I just built one with no issues - once I figured out the red LEDs are *not* supposed to come on.
BTW - that rotary switch seems unavailable from anyone currently, but I found a 4-pole version and you can flip the last two wafers 180 degrees to fit perfectly. Or chops the bolts and center pin off if you are more ambitious.
super cool, this is the type of stuff i really enjoy watching, but there are not enough videos like this with such a good production value!
edit: it doesent just ALMOST look professional, it looks REALLY professional! I would pay good money for something like that.
@Theron Stevick just looked it up, not going there. also hello yt bots!
Saw your note on the Tekscopes group. Thanks for sharing this and well done!
Really like a nifty mechanical design like that. Perfect use of a PCB front panel too 👍👍
I just discovered your channel. Great videos and I love the direction your videos are going in. The Tek videos are needed on YT. Would you ever consider selling a set of the completed boards you made here? I would like to buy the kit. What plug-in chassis did you use?
I'm not in a position to sell stuff at the moment (Mainly as international shipping from Japan is very difficult with covid restrictions), but the files are in the link in the video description if you want to get them made at your fab house of choice yourself.
For the enclosure, I used a blank enclosure specifically for building your own module design, but they are quite hard to come across these days, so an otherwise unrepairable module can be salvaged for chassis parts instead.
A third option would be to make 3D printable chassis parts, something I'll have done and uploaded to Thingiverse once I get my laptop back from repair.
Great work, I hope to build this. Thank you.
What a great project, and I happen to have a blank module. I love the 5v banana move, good update.
If you do build one, let us know how you go! :)
The instruction manual is now uploaded too, so it should help with construction (let me know if you see any mistakes... :) )
Nicely Done Comrade!
Nice project
Where did you get the knob for the test selector switch?
I found it in a random store in Akihabara, but almost any knob roughly 1-inch in diameter should do.
Like your channel, I would also like to build the module. I've downloaded the files but for someone who has never ordered PCB's you do not provide enough information to complete the order. PCBWay asks a lot of questions which I do not know the answer to or how to get them. Can you help?
Love it!
@NFM Greeting. I watched your video last night and while your effort is to be applauded, there was something wrong in the mindset of your discussion that totally grated on my mind. Rather than blurt out you "stuffed up", I decided to sleep on it and re-look at your video in the light of day and clear mind after a first cup of tea.
Well 8hrs on and after watching your video again, I am sad to say you have made few simple mistakes, + 1 Major lacking in the overall redesign philosophy.
The single BIGGEST short fall in your PCB design is at the rear edge connector. You have NOT provided the ""FAMILY KEY"" cut away's between 23a/b & 24a/b {Signal Source) also 21a/b & 22a/b {Measurement Family) also 19a/b & 20a/b {Power Supply family} to mention a few. I think there were other allocated slots for keys across the TM500 & TM5000 Main Frame connector though 13a/b to 28 a/b. I humbly suggest you look into these ASAP and modify you design files to save people whom make this unit needing to hand cut slots in the PCB.
I will explain more on lacking, but 1st just wish to say I am not a TROLL but a Tektronix owner and user of many many Tek instrument for the past +54 years, inc TM500 &TM5000, having bought new my first TM515 a portable 5 bay mainframe back in 1976 along with a FG504 Function Generator & DC505 Counter/Timer; adding a SC503 scope in 1979. Add a few years & I got 3 Rack mounted TM506 and then TM5006 along with a heap of plugins; + I built numerous purpose built plugins in the Tek made Blank Modules. imgur.com/gallery/6UyxAIF
So yes I needed a Mainframe Tester like you, & I built one exactly according to the App Note, adding extra filtering to that 5v dc reg, but a time passed I found it Lacking. Why because both the original (and your redesign):-
1.DOES NOT allow you to test the isolated PNP and NPN series Pass Transistors in mainframe, except by having then in a circuit as per both the original and your redesign. Vitally important when you actually have total shorted or failed Transistors NOT to actually try and test them under operational conditions
2 Does not allow you isolated direct front panel access to both the 24.8v AC winding's for test & measurement with an external Oscilloscope with Multi-channel differential or to simply use as an AC supply source separately.
3. Does not allow you isolated direct front panel access to both the 17.5v AC winding's for test & measurement with an external Oscilloscope with Multi-channel differential inputs or to simply use as an AC supply source
4. Lacked a way of testing the user signal interconnect's on the pins 14 a/b through 28 a/b between one bay and another; for those chassis that had the rear interconnects wired. For this, I was 10 years ago planning building 2 test units with a small Micro in each with suitable analog and digital signals via a MUX to send and receive across a wired back plane and then display the connection result to say a program on my laptop. Now I just don''t have any spare time to do this.
5. In the TM5000 chassis lacks a way to test the GPIB connector interface and internal cables for continuity etc.
Anyways I hope you don't take offence but it realize at 70yo, it was you way of speaking about the original designers circuit drawing layout, that cranked me up. Many of the Tektronix designers started designing Valves circuit before moving to Transistor then IC designs, using pencil and rubber on a drawing board and I did not appreciate your belittling of them.
If you really want to use and repair older great Tek gear learn to look at the circuits from the designers eyes, NOT from some modern Computer Aided PCB circuit design mind set, else you will miss vital design information.
Further point to item one above I learnt this by bitter experience using my own hand built Tektronix 067-1201-99 Mainframe tester when I had badly shorted to metal chassis PNP transistor, that is it unwise to initially test these Series pass transistors in "under operation" in a suspect mainfame If I recall the resultant burning smell lingered for quite a while.
The latest version of my design has the key cutouts in the card edge connector, so that is already taken care of.
You can find the files in the links in the video description, along with the completely rewritten user manual I made.
I contemplated expanding the functionality of this unit when redesigning it, but decided not to as it would have been a major case of feature creep from what was originally simply meant to be a modern take on the original design.
I find it interesting how you rip the into the design of not only this test module, but also the original Tektronix design with all its deficiencies, but then take offence when I do a similar thing.....
Thanks for the feedback... This project is finished (besides any possible errors or faults in my version) as its goal was simply to replicate the original design, which it does perfectly.
One day I might go ahead and build a microprocessor controlled, fully automatic test module (I have a few ideas), but I've already tested and verified all 14 of my mainframes anyway and the basic tests that this module performs are usually sufficient to catch major faults anyway.
How much would you charge to make me one complete as that in the video?
Unfortunately I am not able to build these, but you can find all the files etc here:
www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/Tektronix_TM500_Mainframe_Tester_067_1201_99.html
Did you cannibalize an old plugin for the frame?
I believe he just created the connector on the PCB itself
@@mlefe09 asking about the aluminum frame, not the pcb
I used a blank module, Tektronix made blank modules for the purpose of making custom modules so I used one for this project.
No existing old plugins were harmed in the making of this module. :)
@@jmgallag of course, sorry! :p