Trying to find (465B) scope part

[Danelectron]

Does anyone know where I can find an electrolytic cap for a Tektronix 465B? It is a 5600uf / 35v, 105 degree C, -10 +75% tolerance with radial leads. Physical dimensions are approx. 1" x 3.5". I sent an email to Tektronix, but as old as this is I may get shot down and I haven't found any on the web with radial leads. They are mostly snap-in. Thanks, Dan

[Jazz P Bass]

What is with the Snap Ins?
You get above 25V , Snap In.
I thought this aluminum flatpack was cool.
Link:MLP562M063EB0A Cornell Dubilier Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors - Leaded

[Enzo]

Mouser stock 647-UVZ1V682MRD
UVZ1V682MRD Nichicon Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors - Leaded

5600uf wasn't readily available, so bump it up to 6800uf. Same 35v, radial leads, 105 degree, not snappers, $2.39 and in stock.

No one really makes such loose tolerance caps anymore, that +75% thing, and modern caps are physically smaller than they were back then.

[Danelectron]

Enzo, Thanks, I had no luck with Tektronix. These have been out of production for parts or manuals since '94. That tolerance is strange. Why would they rate a cap in such a way?

Jazz P Bass, Cool, but the other will drop right onto the board. Thanks anyway, Dan

[Enzo]

That wasn't strange back then. Big filter caps commonly had tolerances like -20/+80% a few decades ago. That was the nature of the thing. It wasn;t like they made special parts with wide upper tolerance. They were saying the part will be at least no more that 10% low, but could be way high. But way high is just fine for a filter cap. If the cap was doing something frequency related, like a crossover network or something, then you'd need tighter tolerance.

[km6xz]

Be happy that Tek did not have them, the last time I bought one it was $56. I used to have dozens of 465/475/485 in my shop on the tech benches and kept my eye out for Ham swap meets to pick up more working or not for parts. Regardless of the loose tolerance the parts in that scope were quite long lived. The military bought them by the thousands in a blue plastic case as the 465M,that were ruggedized yet hobbyists though they were lighter duty due to the plastic case so sell them as swap meets for $25-50. Pick those up if you can, some critical parts are likely to be higher tolerance overall hard to kill.

[Danelectron]

Enzo, Thanks for the link. Soldered it in Saturday and I'm up and running. I should have ordered some other stuff at the same time. I think shipping was over twice the parts' cost.

km6zx, $2.39 + shipping. Not bad. I'm curious, when did you buy/price yours? That reminds me of a relief valve I priced from a fire pump company we deal with. They quoted $430. I shopped around and found one for $63. Same manufacturer. I would understand if the part was in some way superior, warranteed better or came with a kiss, but no difference. A bit crooked IMO.

[km6xz]

High parts costs are seldom compared, as labor is, so many suppliers of less standard parts mark up many times over normal retail price/wholesale ratios. That is nothing compared to pharmaceuticals where medications in Europe or here in Russia might go for $0.20 a tablet with a reasonable profit for all concerned, sells for $75 in the US. I had a hip replacement operation with excellent care and deluxe private room here for $5700 after my $1000/mo insurance in the US would not cover it. They wanted $90,000 for the same 45 minute procedure. There are crooks everywhere but that is the norm in some fields so people do not complain much. But if a gallon of gas raises $0.10, it is headline making. Being gouged for $90,000 if it involves medicine is accepted.

As for used test gear, I used to go to swap meets in California that were centered around test equipment and Ham radio. During the heyday of Silicon Valley, there was a monthly meet at a Palo Alto college that had thousands of experimenters, designers and test gear geeks buying, selling and trading all sorts of high end test gear. I had hundreds of pieces of HP, Tek, GR, FairChild, IFR, Motorola etc pieces. Just in HP 400GL AC True RMS meters, I had a rack that must have had 30 spares after putting 1-2 on each tech bench(15 techs). For general bench diagnosis I liked my cheap Tek 2236a, one of the few pieces I bought new, the other main New purchase was the Motorola Service Monitor for $28,000. I leased a Audio Precision Dual Domain analyzer that cost that much, never owned one outright. With the high stability TCXO for its counter the Tektronix 2236a was $3700 even though it was a light weight in construction compared to the 465. It has a counter, DVM, and time base readouts that made repair work easier than most of the lab type scopes. I had a couple 74x series lab scopes with a wide variety of plugins but they were large and heavy, great for lab and when designing, not so great for repair tasks on the bench. Their carts took too much room. The dozens of available plugins were hot trading commodities in the test geek circles at that time.
Military version of the 465, called the 465M, was easily identified by its plastic light blue case and tapered sides. It was one of the first common military buys that did not have specialized power connectors, essentially a civilian unit with different case. They were often overlooked at the swap meets so would go for any offer. I had several over the years but always looked down on them for some reason, the plastic case probably. But every one could handle rough field work in studios or venues, or flights without complaints. There was a ruggedized version of the HP 170 from the same era that was pretty good also but had low resale value that would be a fine bench scope for very little money. I still prefer CRT scopes over the DSO although the calculated functions are useful.
My little workbench here in my apartment in Russia is a far cry from what I had before. i brought everything in suitcases over a number of trips back to California. I am using the Tek2236 scope, a Sound Technology 1700B ultralow distortion analyzer/generator, Motorola R2008D RF service monitor(for all sorts of wireless and hf purposes, with 21 instruments built in), a Philips PM2525, a HP 3580 spectrum analyzer/tracking generator, Fluke 8050a, and several other pieces. The service monitor was 12 lbs over my luggage limit but they let me pass without a charge. My next trip in 2 months will bring back a Fairchild semiconductor curve tracer. I have a rare Tek 570 tube curve tracer in storage but it is too big, heavy and fragile to ship. I will try to time my trip to include dates that allow visiting a swap meet or two. I really miss a good bench tracking power supply and my tube regulated Lambda lab supply that has metered variable A. B and C supplies. Breadboarding a tube preamp, effect or amp, up to about 150 watts in power using that lab supply was a joy, having full control of all values up to 600volts. I would love to get it over here but it would have to be shipped by cargo instead of in my luggage.
Having good test gear on my benches was always a high priority, good fast diagnosis requires having confidence in measurement results. My main skill was getting to the heart of problems that were not routine. I found that 90-95% of repairs could be done by limited skill set techs, the remaining 10-5% where usually never repaired due to lack if technical or diagnostic skills, given back to customers as not repairable. Those are the ones I enjoyed working on. Customers do not seem to see a difference however, if their 5%er gets done, they assume it took no more skill or training than a typical repair. They also tend to equate the number of parts replaced with the extensiveness of the problem and accuracy of repair when in reality it is a sign of the exact opposite. In almost all cases, getting charges for a long list of parts in a repair(not a restoration) is a sign that the tech never figured it out and resorted to replacing things until it seemed to work, or deliberate bill padding, in either case, a bad tech or shop manager.