Wavetek 23 croaks, anyone know of "notorious" falure areas?

[Joerg]

So here I am, doing variable line frequency test and ... phssss ... PHUT
.... *BAM* ... followed by a stench wafting about. I looked at what was
supposed to be 265V/50Hz sine and found a totally distorted 1Hz, plus
lots of heat in my amp which luckily survived.

Turns out the Wavetek 23 function generator became totally "loose" in
frequency. Have to wrap up some stuff today so I tried and was able to
goose it to 50Hz by cranking it to 995Hz (above 1kHz it completely loses
it). But that's a white-knuckle ride because the test runs mostly
unattended.

Does anyone know whether these things have a typical pathology that can
be fixed? Like this or that cable always comes loose, etc.? I have
re-seated the EPROM, battery is fine, re-seated connectors, nada. I do
have the manual but diagnosing it from synthesizer to the end will take
hours because it's a uC driven instrument.

 

[tm]

So here I am, doing variable line frequency test and ... phssss ... PHUT
... *BAM* ... followed by a stench wafting about. I looked at what was
supposed to be 265V/50Hz sine and found a totally distorted 1Hz, plus lots
of heat in my amp which luckily survived.

Turns out the Wavetek 23 function generator became totally "loose" in
frequency. Have to wrap up some stuff today so I tried and was able to
goose it to 50Hz by cranking it to 995Hz (above 1kHz it completely loses
it). But that's a white-knuckle ride because the test runs mostly
unattended.

Does anyone know whether these things have a typical pathology that can be
fixed? Like this or that cable always comes loose, etc.? I have re-seated
the EPROM, battery is fine, re-seated connectors, nada. I do have the
manual but diagnosing it from synthesizer to the end will take hours
because it's a uC driven instrument.

What smoked, the Wavetek or the Amp? Sounds like a cap let loose.

You need to put the smoke back in.


T

 

[Joerg]

What smoked, the Wavetek or the Amp? Sounds like a cap let loose.

No, the DUT. It didn't appreciate several amps of near-DC current. So
it'll be a weekend project then, check the power supply caps, trace
stuff from synth to final amp and so on. <sigh>

Unfortunately there's already a nasty one on the list for Saturday, a

You need to put the smoke back in.

Dang, I opened the window and it's gone

 

[Joerg]

The old Waveteks are getting, well, old.

You should see the old Boonton Megacycle Meter here. It's this one:

http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~postr/bapix/Dip_59.htm

I just got a couple of B&K 4003As. Nice box.

Yes, although I hate to throw out stuff that could (reasonably) be
repaired and I need a function generator only once in a blue moon.

 

[Joerg]

Hey, it's Livermore Swap meet this Sunday.

To say I'm not a fan of Wavetek puts it mildly. Their stuff breaks
often.

Well, mechanically the units do not make a very good impression.
Electrically they are usually ok. Ok, was, for this one :-(

 

[Joerg]

The first problem is that it was made by Wavetek. About 90% of the
junked test equipment at Microdyne was Wavetek.

Luckily, I had a HP 3325B on my benches.

Maybe time to look for something better soon. A PC-driven "faceless" box
would be just fine for the lab here. All I use it for is as a signal
source, no need for fancy external triggering and stuff.

 

[Joerg]

I first used Wavetek equipment almost 30 years ago. I used it once,
and shoved it to the corner of the workbench. It was a so called
alignment system for CATV equipment. I could do a better job by watching
the output on a good TV.

In all fairness though, this Model 23 has been good to me. Allows all
sorts of fancy tricks, FM, AM, triggering. I rarely used those features
but they did come in handy on a pulsed laser project. The spectrum looks
quite clean. The only peeve for me is the sub-par mechanical quality. I
don't like plastic-studded BNC jacks where the whole board rocks because
it resides loosely inside two slits. It just doesn't have the cast-iron
"HP feel".

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Or HP's repairability.

Not to mention their amazing agilence and avagod-like nature.

 

[Joerg]

Not to mention their amazing agilence and avagod-like nature.

And Carly is now running for a US Senate seat

 

[[email protected]]

I'm thinking that largely destroying a company's culture and nearly running it
into the ground sound like good qualifications to be a politician...

While I'm certainly not a Carly fan, HP was on that trajectory long before she
came on the scene.

 

[Joerg]

Being able to largely just go with the status quo ought to help her
qualifications as a political candidate too?

Point taken, though -- Tektronix largley imploded as well, without any
one particular CEO to serve as whipping boy...

They should start talking to their customers more. I've filled out
numerous surveys for them. From those, they could have seen that I
haven't bought a Tek product in a long time. The smart thing would have
been to pick up the phone and have a chat, ask why. But no ... so I
don't participate in their surveys anymore, makes no sense to me.

They could have found some interesting things. For example that it
doesn't make sense to sell a DSO with a paltry 4k sample memory where
Asian mfgs are already eating their lunch by providing several times more.

Apple's a pretty amazing/rare case of a phoenix (named Steve Jobs)
rising from the ashes of near-irrelevancy.

He does have the right instincts. But IMHO it's more stuff for nerds and
consumers who like new toys all the time. And there's plenty of those

 

[Joerg]

Oh yeah, it's what drives the economy these days...

If all your neighbors were like you -- fixing anything that had a pretty
simple fix when it broke, only buying new cars/computers/TVs/etc. when
the old one actually wore out, etc... what kind of economy would that
be? I mean, I'd like to think we'd expend all our then-extra human
capital on, I dunno, finding a cure for cancer or feeding the hungry or
something, but I'm kinda dubious how likely that'd be...

Detroit's nightmare: An elegant elderly lady in front of Costco, loading
upscale food items into an Austin Healey. Her first car, she bought it
used in 1961, still looked almost like new. "I guess it'll survive me
...." she said.

 

[Joerg]

Would that be because it has no seat belts nor air bags to protect her
in case some teen driving a Humvee crashes into her, sending her body
flying around the passenger compartment while the car itself remains
relatively unschatched? ;-)

AFAIR it had seat belts retrofitted in, just like I did that with my old
Citroen. But no airbags, of course. With vintage cars you always take a
risk but obviously she has managed driving without a major accident for
almost 50 years.

I expect you've watched, "The Man in the White Suit," right? Admit it
-- you want to be Sidney Stratton!

No, never seen it. But now that we get the THIS-TV channel over the air
we might catch it one day. They have lots of classic movies and about
every 2nd one sticks, meaning the DTV signal doesn't pixelate.

 

[[email protected]]

Being able to largely just go with the status quo ought to help her
qualifications as a political candidate too?

Point taken, though -- Tektronix largley imploded as well, without any one
particular CEO to serve as whipping boy...

Apple's a pretty amazing/rare case of a phoenix (named Steve Jobs) rising
from the ashes of near-irrelevancy.

Jim Jones did pretty well for a while too. He just didn't market his brand of
soft drink as widely as Steve has.

 

[[email protected]]

AFAIR it had seat belts retrofitted in, just like I did that with my old
Citroen. But no airbags, of course. With vintage cars you always take a
risk but obviously she has managed driving without a major accident for
almost 50 years.



No, never seen it. But now that we get the THIS-TV channel over the air
we might catch it one day. They have lots of classic movies and about
every 2nd one sticks, meaning the DTV signal doesn't pixelate.

It was a good movie, though older than I am. I remember watching it in the
'60s on the Late Late Show.

 

[Joerg]

Nah, I much prefer black. White suit? In fact, suit? Yeah, I do have a
go-to-interview only suit hanging up in the closet. Yep, black. ;-) I guess
it has been off the hanger once since I interviewed for my present job; my
mother's funeral.

Didn't you work at IBM? At least it used to be that everyone had to wear
a dark-blue suit. With tie, and that alone would drive me nuts if doing
engineering work.

 

[[email protected]]

Didn't you work at IBM?

They were paying me to, anyway, for 32 1/2 years. Now they're just paying me.
;-)

At least it used to be that everyone had to wear a dark-blue suit. With tie,
and that alone would drive me nuts if doing engineering work.

When I started I wore a sports jacket to and from but never at work and even
that didn't last long. Within a year the jacket and tie were gone forever. I
don't believe I ever wore a suit to work at IBM. Suits were reserved for
weddings and funerals only. ...and that was limited to one a year. ;-)

 

[JosephKK]

So here I am, doing variable line frequency test and ... phssss ... PHUT
... *BAM* ... followed by a stench wafting about. I looked at what was
supposed to be 265V/50Hz sine and found a totally distorted 1Hz, plus
lots of heat in my amp which luckily survived.

Turns out the Wavetek 23 function generator became totally "loose" in
frequency. Have to wrap up some stuff today so I tried and was able to
goose it to 50Hz by cranking it to 995Hz (above 1kHz it completely loses
it). But that's a white-knuckle ride because the test runs mostly
unattended.

Does anyone know whether these things have a typical pathology that can
be fixed? Like this or that cable always comes loose, etc.? I have
re-seated the EPROM, battery is fine, re-seated connectors, nada. I do
have the manual but diagnosing it from synthesizer to the end will take
hours because it's a uC driven instrument.

For all equipment, first round from the shotgun, replace all large power
semi's and all large electrolytics, and anything that looks burnt. It is
still a matter of track record, the power parts go first. Next, diagnose
the frequency problem; it won't be worth a damn until fixed.

 

[Joerg]

My first Wavetek function generator, circa 1981, had a 50 ohm output
that blew up when I put 50 ohms on it. Had to replace the output
transistors with something much beefier, which slowed down the
edges--but at least the power supply could drive the 50 ohms!

Ouch! That doesn't exactly speak to the competence of the guys who
designed it. Or maybe they didn't do design reviews?

 

[Joerg]

I loved using the 3325 to test the integration time of our AGC
systems. The shorter time intervals were easy. The longer ones no
longer required measuring the time period and calculating the
frequency. The longest were 10 or 100 seconds, depending on the model.

It was also a breeze to use in measuring the -3 dB points on our
video amplifiers. You could do in 30 seconds what took ten minutes with
the Wavetek crap.

Huh? The Wavetek here can do millihertzes and you can set the display to
time or frequency. Well, at least until a few days ago ...