Restoring a vintage Tektronix 323

Description

I picked this up for a very small amount of money and the only thing I can see that it is not functional is the rechargeable nickel cadmium batteries which had not leaked but are completely spent and it even came with a nice shield for the front of the cathode ray to which probably is not very safe to look at directly without said shield in place. I would be really thankful for anyone with more knowledge than I have and doing this very interesting and rather cool restoration it has a serial number and the 1992 with a publication date on the manual of 1980. The serial number is actually the number assigned by the Swiss military for this piece of equipment and as you can see it's a surely at the edge of solid state and digital. Anyone wishing to donate either their knowledge or some money to help me restore this awesome piece of historical electrical engineering testing equipment would be more than welcome to reach out to me let me know.

Project Logs

Collapse

Initial assessment of components and the need to replace some dead but not leaking nickel academy and rechargeable batteries
aquahoodchJD • 10/12/2024 at 11:26 • 0 comments

Find some appropriate rechargeable nickel cadmium size c batteries or adding battery management system and replacing those with lithium ion or lithium po. It allows for external powering via the two DC inputs and I have a bench power supply and it's the standard barrel type of inserts but I really kind of want to get the batteries all replaced and soldered in place and have everything as check everything a little bit better look at some of the caps so little closer test them a little bit and see if there's anything dramatically wrong with it before I power it up....
As I said I really want to look at the capacitors even though it is meticulously well cared for there's not a bit of dust inside this case and I still want to test some of these old capacitors to see if there's anything straight up bad but nothing has leaked and there's nothing fouled that's directly obvious but as you can see from the photos the it's old school PCBs
Initial assessment of components and the need to replace some dead but not leaking nickel academy and rechargeable batteries
aquahoodchJD • 10/12/2024 at 11:26 • 0 comments

Find some appropriate rechargeable nickel cadmium size c batteries or adding battery management system and replacing those with lithium ion or lithium po. It allows for external powering via the two DC inputs and I have a bench power supply and it's the standard barrel type of inserts but I really kind of want to get the batteries all replaced and soldered in place and have everything as check everything a little bit better look at some of the caps so little closer test them a little bit and see if there's anything dramatically wrong with it before I power it up....
As I said I really want to look at the capacitors even though it is meticulously well cared for there's not a bit of dust inside this case and I still want to test some of these old capacitors to see if there's anything straight up bad but nothing has leaked and there's nothing fouled that's directly obvious but as you can see from the photos the it's old school PCBs
First steps checking out what I have to work with...
aquahoodchJD • 10/07/2024 at 00:05 • 0 comments

so I've taken off the cover examining the exterior which is extraordinarily well kept as one might would assume from the Swiss military not a shred of dust inside and the only things that were spent or the nickel cadmium size D batteries and they weren't leaking they were just about to leak.

View all 3 project logs

Discussions

Easton wrote 10/11/2024 at 21:38

I have a working Tektronix 321a with the exception that I lost the AC power plug a few years ago. What kind of AC input does the 323 have? There’s also a DC input (on the bottom) that I haven’t tried yet, but I don’t have a DC power supply for the specific required voltages

I do have the original manual as well (English) if it is of any help, granted your model is the 323.

Are you sure? yes | no

aquahoodchJD wrote 10/12/2024 at 11:17

I'll take a picture and add it to the collection above and it gives all the ranges on the back but it can take an AC variable input from it looks like it's a switching and it hasn't on power range it's 30 to 1:34 or 180 to 272 volts with 48 to $44 Hertz 18 watts Max 0.13 amps max so that's at 115 volt set 60 Hz for the lower portion and it has a DC input from 5 volts to 16 volts 4.5 watts max at 16 volts and 7 amps max at 6 volts..

Are you sure? yes | no

aquahoodchJD wrote 10/12/2024 at 11:18

But if you notice it's impeccably clean inside they took really good care of this in the army this is a Swiss army surplus.

Are you sure? yes | no

aquahoodchJD wrote 10/12/2024 at 11:21

It has two inputs for the DC and it does have an odd plug for the AC but you can change the voltage on the inside and there's a switch and it allows for trickle charge of nickel nickel cadmium old school d size batteries which I need to find a replacement for the batteries are shot but they didn't leak!

Are you sure? yes | no

aquahoodchJD wrote 10/12/2024 at 11:29

I'm really surprised at how well maintained and how clean the interior of this old machine is and there doesn't appear to be any leakage whatsoever no bulging no nothing from any of the capacitors so cross my fingers but I'm still going to test and I just ordered a new oscilloscope because I didn't have one I kind of a newbie and it's not the best one but it's what I can afford at the moment and logic analyzer so I'm really excited but I do have a good multimeter that's very capable that I actually know how to use now.....

Are you sure? yes | no

aquahoodchJD wrote 10/07/2024 at 00:04

like I said I wouldn't mind turning this into a team effort given its value from a historic perspective as it's right on the edge of the changeover between solid state and digital technology. What this device has tested and seen over its lifetime can only be imagined.

Are you sure? yes | no

Restoring a vintage Tektronix 323

Description

Project Logs

Collapse

Initial assessment of components and the need to replace some dead but not leaking nickel academy and rechargeable batteries

Initial assessment of components and the need to replace some dead but not leaking nickel academy and rechargeable batteries

First steps checking out what I have to work with...

Discussions

Similar Projects

Solder Sniffer 9000

Modular modular case

Wordy

Evolution of My Coil Gun

Restoring a vintage Tektronix 323

Become a Hackaday.io member

Just one more thing

Description

Project Logs Collapse

Initial assessment of components and the need to replace some dead but not leaking nickel academy and rechargeable batteries

Initial assessment of components and the need to replace some dead but not leaking nickel academy and rechargeable batteries

First steps checking out what I have to work with...

Enjoy this project?

Discussions

Become a Hackaday.io Member

Similar Projects

Solder Sniffer 9000

Modular modular case

Wordy

Evolution of My Coil Gun

Does this project spark your interest?

Report project as inappropriate

Send message

Remove Member

Project Logs

Collapse