Help with my new Oscilloscope from 1959

[kstl]

Hi! First of all sorry for my ignorance but are my first steps with oscilloscopes

Just bought a mint condition Oscilloscope yesterday, model Kikusui 536A from 1959, but I don't know exactly how to connect it for read some audio waves. I see that it doesn't have BNC connectors, only a simple connector like the speakers out of a hi-fi amp. Should I connect a cable directly there, I have some BNC Promax probes, but i think would not work with this one right?

Here are some pictures of the front panel from the web (don't have mine here now)





Thanks!

[wsy]

Hi! First of all sorry for my ignorance but are my first steps with oscilloscopes

Just bought a mint condition Oscilloscope yesterday, model Kikusui 536A from 1959, but I don't know exactly how to connect it for read some audio waves. I see that it doesn't have BNC connectors, only a simple connector like the speakers out of a hi-fi amp. Should I connect a cable directly there, I have some BNC Promax probes, but i think would not work with this one right?

Here are some pictures of the front panel from the web (don't have mine here now)





Thanks!

Ayup! That's your input.

For synth purposes, the easiest thing to do is to take a long and crappy cable, and sacrifice it to Ultor. Cut the more-bunged-up
end off, strip it back, and use an ohmmeter to find which of the two conductors inside is actually connected to the sleeve and which to the
tip of the remaining connector.

Mark the sleeve "GND" and the center conductor "HOT". Then attach HOT to VERT IN and GND to GND.

Do one final sanity check - power up your synth and your new scope, and use a voltmeter to measure the CURRENT
(not voltage) between the sleeve of your new conductor and the ground of your modular. If you see more than a few
mA, you may have some problems with power supply ground loops.

Absent that, plug it right into your synth, and off you go!

- Bill

[kstl]

MANY thanks wsy!!! Working perfect

[Dimension]

How much did that unit cost you?

[wsy]

MANY thanks wsy!!! Working perfect

Excellent!!!

OK, now that you have it working, here's a pro-tip:

That thin wire inside won't last log without reinforcement - it's probably single-conductor, not stranded wire (if it is stranded, consider
yourself lucky and don't bother with the rest of this). So (if you can solder and have heat shrink tubing, or knows someone who
does) here's what you should do:

Get yourself about a foot of "lamp cord" - literally, this is the stuff that you use to plug in a table lamp, small radio or TV set, etc.
Trash-picked wire is especially good because it has the positive
karma of re-purposement.

Also, if you can, get about 4 inches (10 cm) of heat-shrink tubing, big enough to go over your big cable, and about a foot (30 cm) of heat-shrink
tubing about 50% larger than it needs to be to go over your lamp cord. If you can't get heat shrink (or beg it from someone, like
the local technical high school) you can fake it with electrical tape but electrical tape will eventually soften and make a mess;
heat-shrink is much more "pro".

Slide the big heat shrink tubing over your cable end, about a foot up the cable.

Separate your lamp cord into two wires. Solder one to the center conductor, and the other to the outside shield (or, if your
connector-cable has two equal sized wires, just solder one on each wire.)

Cut the small heat shrink tubing

Cut your foot of smaller heat-shrink into two UNequal parts (one about 4", one about 8",
or 10 and 20 cm if you're metric) Slide
those pieces of heat shrink down your lamp cord wires as far as they will go. They should completely insulate the two
connections and the wires from each other.

Put the LONGER heat shrink on the center "HOT" conductor, as a reminder of which is the hot signal line.

Shrink the two smaller heat-shrinks with a heat gun, soldering iron, or (in a pinch) a cigarette lighter.

Wait for the heatshrink to cool completely. Really. DAMHIK. .

Now slide that big piece of heatshrink back and center it over where the soldered joints are, and shrink it with heat gun, soldering iron,
or cigarette lighter. This outer piece is there to add structural strength and prevent the soldered joints from breaking.

You can now 'tin' the free ends of the cable if you like, or crimp on spade-type connectors or even ferrules to hide the
stranded wire ends, and make the whole thing look really nice. I don't know what tools and supplies you have, but you'll be looking
at this for a long time, make it something you're proud to have in your studio (and especially make it durable!

Super Pro-Tip: I've even been known to put some heat-shrink on over a crimped connector, and then injected hot glue
from a glue gun into the open end, and THEN shrink the tubing. The hot glue really "locks" the heat shrink onto the wire
and connector; that's about as durable a connection as I've ever made on flexible wire short of an external strain relief.

- Bill

[Hubertus]

Hi, I also got an old oscilloscope, not from 1959 but looks as old.
It's a Kenwood CS-4025 and I somehow managed to get it "working", i.e. plugging in the cables and displaying the waves, but it keeps flickering so that it is super hard to see the actual wave form.

I've been tweeking the know for the entire afternoon now, I read the manual. But nothing points me towards a clearly displayed waveform on the CS-4025.

Maybe one of you guys can help me out with the settings I need to make?

Cheers

[wsy]

Hi, I also got an old oscilloscope, not from 1959 but looks as old.
It's a Kenwood CS-4025 and I somehow managed to get it "working", i.e. plugging in the cables and displaying the waves, but it keeps flickering so that it is super hard to see the actual wave form.

I've been tweeking the know for the entire afternoon now, I read the manual. But nothing points me towards a clearly displayed waveform on the CS-4025.

Maybe one of you guys can help me out with the settings I need to make?

Cheers

Is it triggered sweep? Switch triggering off, go with free-running.

Old CRT scopes also have a high voltage control pot for "brightness" - those sometimes get wonky. Try twiddling brightness
back and forth a few dozen times, don't be afraid to leave it a bit high as long as the trace on the scope is moving. (this is
the front-panel knob; don't touch the inside pots without the service manual guidance)

EDIT: th wonkyness sometimes causes the trace to flicker pretty badly. I don't know why so many scopes have this
problem but they do. Even good tek CRT scopes do when they get old and I have no clue why it happens specifically
to the brightness pot, not the trace rotation pot or graticule pot or stuff like that.

- Bill

[Hubertus]

hm, I have to admit I don't have much of a clue really.
I tried it with one cable only on channel 1 and got a stable waveform on the screen (the other cable from channel 2 was still plugged in to the oscilloscope) but not into any oscillator. However, the wave displayed was a sinewave which was clearly not what was being produced by the oscillator.

The easiest and best thing would probably be to find a shop where the guys can have a look.

Does anyone know a shop in London where they can help with oscilloscopes?

[Ears]

I did well buying a vintage Tektronics and Hickmans “Oscilloscopes” and Griffiths “Oscilloscopes selecting and buying a classic.”

Lots of new books since I took the plunge in the 90s (for tape head alignment purposes) so look around. But these are not simple machines and reading up will help.