Oscilloscope Restoration 

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I am now in my 70s watching this project brought back some long forgotton memories. at the age of forteen i had just started work having been interested in radio comunications since the age of 8 i came across an article in practical electronics offering a new way to learn electronics and new trouble shooting tecniques by building your own occilscope the course ran for 12 and all it would cost me £2.17'6d per month so i sighned up and it was one of the best moves i ever made I learnt a lot from that course and ended it with my very own occliscope and mutimeter both built during course. De Bob G7DME UK

Hi. Regarding the flat head screwdriver slipping and marking a nice face. From experience (watchmaker) I have found that it often happens because the tip of the screwdriver blade is too thin. The blade tip rests against the bottom of the screw slot and it is basically similar to resting on any flat surface. To avoid slipping, the screwdriver blade should be thick enough so the contact points with the screw head are along the edges of the slot. It should not touch the bottom of the slot. That way when you press on the screw, the blade jams in the edges and it stays fixed. Also it leaves the screw head in better condition than a thin blade. In watchmaking we use many screwdrivers with different blade profiles. Sorry for the length of the comment :-) Merry Christmas!

Very nice video. I worked at Heath Co. from 1963 through the last day before closing. Worked as a service technician and worked on many O-11 scopes. Also worked on most other products in the Heath line. Nice to see this test epuipment get such TLC

This video just saved me a lot of time and trouble. Got a Heathkit IO-4205 dual trace 5 MHz scope real cheap and started to restore. I got to the point of calibration and adjustment. I got to the triggering adjustments and realized something was very wrong. About half the trigger mode setting combinations didn't work! I was about to go hunting through the trigger circuits when I remembered what you said about the builders being in a hurry and making mistakes on point to point wiring. Ten minutes later checking the wiring to the trigger mode switches and comparing to the schematic and I had the answer. The builder remembered to solder all connections, unfortunately one wire was soldered to the wrong switch. He/she was in a hurry, got confused, and messed up the wiring job. A quick rewiring and I was back in business. Thankyou very much Paul.

Can you imagine, some old retired technician, watching these videos, and suddenly realizing "Well, I'll be damned! That's the exact same damn device that drove me nuts back in 1984!"

I know everything takes a lot longer when you have to shoot the video too, but we all appreciate it. I always learn something new. Keep up the good work.

Thank you Mr. Carlson, for the step by step process of restoring these classic electronic instruments !! You are keeping the hobby very much alive and well !!

This is another movie that I watched with real pleasure, Mr Carlson !, and I am still learning despite my retired age and almost 60 years of my own experience in this field :-) Thank you! and Best Regards Vy73!

I really love these Heathkit vacuum tube test equipments. Discharge the caps and use the assembly instructions. The nicest thing about obtaining the assembly instructions is to understand the equipment.

Being the clueless bodger that I am I was expecting my brain to melt early in on this job, your skill in preventing that from happening is amazing! I loved the neatness of the work, the cable management, the complete absence of hot snot, the aesthetics in retaining the original cans and the overall level of care and attention made this a pleasure to watch. Great job!

"Let's see how it does at 2MHz.. now at 3MHz..." "...at 3GHz." Awesome video - reminds me of my old EICO I had many moons ago. That thing was a tank of a scope!

Sometimes resistor values change to compensate for higher input voltages. When working on tube circuits you must not let the voltage exceed the rating of the tubes. Remember line voltages were lower when tubes were used in electronics. Most line voltages were 110 to 115 volts AC. Now voltages are 125 to 128 Volts AC. I always use a voltage reducer when I plug in my tube electronics. I saved even my string of lights by using a voltage reducer. Thanks for this Video I am glad tube electronics is still alive to this day.

You seem to be a very kind man and eager to share your knowledge with the world, so thank you because that is rare.

Thank you. I was able to build a number of laboratory instruments as a PhD research scientist. I enjoyed your video.

Awesome !!! Old Oscilloscope is brand new. It will be another 50 years life.

I restored a Heathkit Model IO-18. I cleaned the case and spray lined it with flat black Rustolium. I placed brand new capacitors in my oscilloscope, replaced the light bulb with a super bright LED and 1K resistor. Cleaned and lubed the switches with CRC QD contact cleaner. Careful to not remove the paint from the tubes. My Heathkit IO-18 works perfectly. I recommend to obtain the assembly instructions, go about restoring the oscilloscope as like building the kit. That's the best way to learn.

Wonderful! Excellent job, and fascinating work! I had an old Eico at one time, my first o-scope, that I picked up at a garage sale for around $5.00. It worked pretty well, though at 13 I had little idea how to use it properly and no one to teach me. I managed to make it do all sorts of stuff before a lack of knowledge...and a lack of anything to use it on...got it relegated to my closet. I'd also picked up what had to be someone's educational kit, a very small, open-chassis o-scope with a very small CRT, no more than 2" in diameter. The CRT mount was at an angle, the front faceplate of the unit bent at an obtuse angle back towards the rear of the scope near the top to accommodate it. I managed to get that one working as well, but it made me nervous as it had NO chassis cover on the back portion, and high voltage was not my idea of a good time. I'd tried when still younger to re-string a vernier in an old shortwave by leaving it on and using the panel lights to see by. I should have found a flashlight or moved a lamp so I could see, in hindsight, as I must have bridged something VERY hot. I got my tush shocked across the room, and my arm tingled and wouldn't work properly for a few minutes afterward. It was a great teacher in any case, and I had a far healthier respect of high voltage after that!

Wish I had found this channel earlier, love older test equipment and bringing them back to life and usable again!

Paul, good job. A tip for those who do this restoration: level the CRT trace by marking a line on the horizontal trace with a ruler and a felt marker then power the unit off, discharge the caps, etc. Then twist the CRT until the line is perfectly horizontal. Tighten up the clamp and wipe the marker line off with alcohol.

I think my dad has one of those! He inherited it from Grandpa, and I remember playing with it in his shop.

You should be a professor/teacher/instructor. Very well explained and detailed. I wish I had half the knowledge!

Love old Heathkit gear, love to see it restored and enjoying the feeling that it now has built-in reliability.

Oh my god, I have the EXACT same oscilloscope at home and I was just about to tear it apart the other day to use the parts, I'm so glad I didn't. I'm going to see if I can get her going now. Everybody that I talked to said it was useless, but I had a feeling I would use it for something, I'm old school so I like the older stuff. Thanks so much for the video !

I bought this exact scope on ebay a while back, because of the cool, old timey round screen, with the aim of fixing it up to use in a "Frankenstein's Lab" Halloween display. I plan on building a little circuit which produces a heartbeat trace and a new enclosure with large vacuum tubes glowing at the top. Of course, the other 364 days of the year I get to use it as a normal scope. Another great video, sir!

Love the attention to detail - great job! Thanks!

My dad used an 0-11 at home for many years. He was a Bell Labs man. I sold it on Ebay a year ago, to someone who was planning to restore it. Maybe he had seen this excellent video. I bought a digital scope to do work on digital clocks and electronics... and I am not sorry I sold the 0-11 - but this does bring back memories.

Before you even explained why you're making this video, I said to myself, "Yes, I do want to watch this. Using tools to repair tools. And not just any tools. Very sophisticated ones.

Excellent. This kind of repair/ rebuild is just what I like. Please keep up the good work!

I have an older Sony 308 analyzer I've been playing around with. I'm hooked again once more. Thank you sir

Thanks Paul, once again, a beautiful restoration job!! Cheers, Earl

Fascinating stuff! Love your videos...you have a great teaching/explaining style.

You sir, have got some incredible talent and knowledge! Thank you for sharing it with us and please don't stop!

I just logged in to request this after watching the preceding video, and here it is! Thanks!

You are always extremely informative. it's good to know that there are still people who can teach me things.

Impressive, You attention to details is what makes the difference. I always learn something new from You. Thank You.

Fantastic job! Loved every minute of it.

Used to watch these vids while bored in my math/reading help class in freshman year. Just graduated and came back to watch some more. Crazy.

Thanks for showing this!!! Really cool to see what these old units can do!

Really enjoyed your presentation on this Heathkit oscilloscope. You explain it very well. Thank you Mr. Carlson.

Very nice video. I especially appreciate the extra details you include. Good stuff to learn.

I love it, very well done Paul! Like how you fixed the caps. Great old stuff glad that you have done this restoration and the excellent demonstration. See you 73

Great video Paul. I just ran across a Heathkit OM-3 that I'll be restoring soon. Thanks for the preview.

Still got my Tektronix Type 422 Portable Oscilloscope from 1985 when i was a field Eng. for DEC ' Still works good could use a good calibration - last one 1982

I really enjoy how small modern capacitors are. I replaced those 2 high voltage .1uF 1600V capacitors with film capacitors on my Heathkit IO-18.

Extraordinary good job. People like deserves to live for ever. Thanks.

Really nice video, again. Thank you for sharing not only the video, but also quite a bit of your knowledge and experience. I found your videos an invaluable resource to come back to while troubleshooting vintage gear.

Wow! So many professional electronics around you! Congratulations!

This is a keeper as all of your videos, thanks for taking time to explain this electronic stuff. Very well done.

Thanks Paul! Really looking forward to the rest of this series!

Like always, very professional, you got me watching the entire video. Awesome content. Thanks for the knowledge.

Nicely done Mr. C - you are a class act.

I bet it's the best that scope ever ran! Thank you for the lesson/video!

Great video! Thanks for taking us along for the ride. I now have a much clearer idea of how to re-cap and troubleshoot my functional but finicky HP 120B scope. Thanks!

More awesome stuff Mr. Carlson! I'm still looking forward to the Panadaptor restoration. Keep up the good work! 73

Very nice restoration Paul. Excellent job! I liked the way you mounted those capacitors, very clever. Much easier than restuffing them. This was a very nice video to wake up too. Thanks for sharing.

Great point about capacitor voltage labeling!

Great and tidy work as always, thanks for posting.

Thank you for taking time to make this video. You can resoften old hard rubber if you leave it in break fluid for a day or so until it get soft. It will never be as new, but it will be close.

Very nicely done, as usual, Mr Carlson. I love every one of your videos and can wait for the next one.

Great video, Paul. I picked up a few more tips and tricks from watching you work. Thanks!

Great series and so well done. I appreciate the detailed explanations and especially the side hints on what to watch out for concerning components (old rounded molded resistor trouble, shielded end of caps for example). I have been restoring receivers for years but with your videos I am learning a lot. I really liked your approach replacing gang can caps using the existing tie posts and the ceramic stand-offs. Thank you so much. Looking forward to more!

Nice demonstration of making an old workhorse earn it's keep. I learn something new every time I watch one of your videos. thanks and look forward to more!

Excellent job Paul couldn't have done better my self. A top class restoration loved it.

After all this time, it still facinates me how clean and precise your work is, Mr C. As they used to say in the Army "...lead by example", which you most definitely do well. Looking at the insides of this Heathkit, it surprises me how low the component count is, I thought there would be more (expectations ruined by modern technology, lol). thanks for posting this and for 'mentoring' me for the last year and a bit - cannot wait to see what 2017 brings ;)

That was great. I own one of these model Heathkit Oscilloscopes. I will follow your video as I go through the restoration of mine. You are so thorough in your explanations, I am confident I can accomplish the task. Thanks again.

Learning restoration on older test equipment would be good knowledge. The cost of old equipment is low enough for most of us to acquire. For the cost of a few parts it's well worth it.

My Eico 460 can't even push 2 MHz half the time w/o issue. Guess it's time to go through the guts and see what needs replacement. This was an incredibly informative video and even as much as I thought I knew about electronics and scopes this gave me a few "huh" moments. Thanks a ton!

Thanks Paul awesome restoration and tips.

Awesome restore Paul...wow! Thanks 4 sharing!

Nice job, Paul. It was a pleasure to watch. Thanks.

Great video! I'm in the works of restoring and replacing all the old caps on my O-9 Heathkit from 1953.

Nice restoration Paul. I really enjoyed the video.

Benjamin Franklin's glass harp comes to mind when I see these old, long 'scope CRT's! : )

Very nice video. I have an old RCA WO-33 and a Heathkit IO-17 I need to restore and this video helped greatly.

Great work as usual, thanks for showing us through this restoration. I liked it very much.

I had a 70's/80's Hitachi dual scope but that Heathkit is a much more attractive looking scope. I love it! Wish we got more of them this side of the pond.

This scope made the company really popular post WW-III?! LOVE your vids, Prof Carlson!!!! 👍

Thanks, that took me down memory lane. My very first scope was indeed a heathkit, though not a tube one, but with a very similar crt tube. dual trace, discrete components. thanks bunches. :)

Thanks - another great video and great information! I'm about to refurbish my Heathkit IO-21 and I'm sure many of the tips for the IO-11 will apply. If you ever have time, I'm still really interested in seeing more about your modified EICO 430/Curve Tracer. Thanks again for all of your efforts to instruct and entertain us...very well done! Take care!

Very well done; it is nice to see these old scopes come back to life and still be usable in majority of repairs where most people would landfill them. Like you I prefer the analog type and still use one to this day in my shop, thank you Paul for the follow up restoration in demonstrating the revival of the Heathkit O-11 Oscilloscope.

Interesting how this Heathkit scope front panel closely resembles the British Cossor scope I had in the 80s. I did replace a couple of weak tubes but it needed recapping and I sold it at a garage sale. Tandy/Radio Shack still had tube testers in their stores and I was able to buy any tubes I needed from the store. I made sure I read the instructions before I tested any tube and checked that I had the right settings for the tube so I didn't get any bad results. The Cossor had more tubes and was dual trace, there was also a voltage reference tube.

Hello Mister Great and beautiful job !!! Respect and long life for you Eric from France ...

Mr Carlson, The can cap mod solved something I have pondered for some time. Excellent advice. I started a binder labeled Carlson's hints to keep track all of the good examples your videos provide. Thanks again for sharing your skills with us.

Great Instructor..... the best!

Great job! It is great to see your respect for vintage gear and to keep it relative to today's needs. Watching your restoration made me feel like it was 1961 again when I built my first Heathkit. As for electric shocks, I got zapped plenty of times playing around with old TV sets picked up off the curbs in my home town on junk day and building bootleg CW transmitters out of those parts. Gee, a thirteen year old had to have some kind of hobby back then, Hi Hi!

Hey Paul, Great video and really enjoyed watching it.Your explanation style is excellent.

Great Video, as usual. I restored a Heathkit 09 (1950) last week based on this video and the original manual that came with it. Works great! Only issue is the focus can't get to a sharp line in both axis. I can get a sharp vertical line OR a sharp horizontal line but not both at the same time. Obviously some issue with focus circuitry that I haven't figured out. But I'll keep trying! Great Job Mr C!

Excellent Paul, really informative and useful, as usual - keep up the good work...

I supported my ham radio hobby, while I was in college, by going to hamfests and buying, restoring, repairing and re-selling Heathkit equipment. Most of the time, it was just a matter of repairing solder joints, placing transistors into the correct orientation and other building mistakes. I could buy the equipment very cheap, sell it for a fair price and still make a good amount of money.

I have a few kit scopes on the shelf 30-40 years old. My current project is restoring a Bell & Howell 100-4540. I think it's only 1-2 mhz, but it will be good as a starter for my grandson. Always enjoy the detail explanations you give, very helpful

I just bought the same scope for 20 bux . Looking forward to the rebuild. Thanks for the video.

@ Mr Carlson's Lab.... Beautiful . I've the same make and model. It literally fell off a truck. I did some work and it lives. Has actually been my #1 mamajama for quite sometime. After seeing your video, I will be doing a complete overhaul of it in the following week.

Looking forward to the diagnosing videos, can't wait sounds like a great series idea!

Great video Mr Carlson. I've got a KG 635 that needs going through. It was meticulously built many years ago at a vocational school. So I want to bring it back to life. Lost the high voltage to the crt when I briefly looked at it. Going to check it out very carefully before powering it up again. It worked amazingly well for many years. Have some more modern scopes but enjoy the older stuff still. Your lab is a very cool time warp! Thanks

Good restoration on this scope. I'm actually impressed that the signal was view-able past 5 mHz! I still use my old Eico 460. I have a few 2200 and 2400 series Tek scopes, but still favor the old Eico for most of my work. Keep 'em coming! :)

I have an Heathkit om-3, with the help of this video I think I can get working again! I restore tube radios and amps and would very much like to see how you use your 0-11 when trouble shooting. Thanks!

Ah great! I just picked up an old philips scope that I'm going to restore. This will come in very helpful! Thanks

I was correct. You always suprise with new knowledge nuggets. Kudos to one of your best yet. You prove beyond a doubt that presetation of your work is just as important as quality, but I especially enjoyed the reasoning behind your repair decisions and methods. Keep up these great presentations.

Great Job!! Appreciate all your efforts and attention to detail. Looking forward to those other video's. Especially those on trouble shooting vintage vacuum tube radio's etc.