On 5/2/22 2:58 am, paul swed wrote:
Julien
I don't think I would read a lot into the failed R just replace it. They
are in a nasty hot environment and simply can age and die. Get at leat 2
resistors just incase there really is a shorted transistor or something
else going on.
Regards
Paul
Oh absolutely, my rough guess is the thermal insulation foam degraded
corroding the leads /eventually/. This unit is over 30 years old, and
who knows how it was used, although being in a road case makes me
suspect it was not the sort of life we might like.
I swapped in two 10-ohm 1-watt carbon film resistors today (being what I
could get my hands on).
Sadly I couldn't just solder to the lead stubs still poking through the
board, they were just too corroded. A significant disassembly and
reassembly later the unit appears to be improved, but still not locking.
Should anyone run into this later, a clear bench, lots of lighting, and
a way to ensure any screw you drop doesn't disappear never to be seen
again are strongly recommended. Sadly my own bench is rather more of the
Jim Williams[1] variety. A good soldering setup is also needed, but
there I was rather luckier, even if my new desoldering iron did end up
lifting a few pads.
I /think/ it's using more power than it did before (right around 20W at
total cold, dipping to 10W after a while), although silly me didn't make
a note of it, but even after 30 minutes it's not locking.
Given that the resistor I replaced is in a key point for the lamp
excitation oscillator I won't be surprised if it's totally off and needs
a recalibration, but that's a task for another day. When I stick a scope
probe in the lamp cavity as the manual suggests I do see a a signal, so
there's certainly hope, although I don't see the expected glow.
I did confirm the heater is working, and was getting above 90c when I
poked a thermocouple at it just after power-off.
1: https://www.edn.com/honoring-jim-williams/
On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 3:50 AM Julien Goodwin <time-n...@studio442.com.au>
wrote:
Well that was unexpectedly easy (to diagnose).
Thanks all for the replies, much appreciated, you have once again
confirmed my appreciation for this group.
I sat down this evening to work through your various suggestions, and,
by chance, picked up the unit without my lab power supply (and more
importantly, its noisy fans) being on, where I heard a little rattle I
must have missed before.
Removed the bottom panel, which I hadn't done yet, and out dropped the
remnants of a Vishay RW80U 20-ohm resistor. Based on the circuit this
pretty much has to be R2 on the lamp board (following the December 73
circuit I have, which has that at 10 ohms), which is directly in-circuit
for the lamp, so would explain exactly what I've seen.
The lamp board in general seems to have a few holes missing components,
so I'm going to have to get it out which looks like a project in itself.
If anyone has any pointers to decent guides on optimum process on
further disassembly, otherwise I guess it's copious photos, notes, and
hoping I don't stuff up anything too much.
I'd also appreciate suggestions for replacement foam to use in the lamp
cavity as the original stuff has long since degraded.
Paul, Peter Robert,
Thanks for reinforcing what I'd suspected with the lamp.
Matthias,
I hadn't bothered with an actual temperature meter, luckily on the FRT
it's actually easy to confirm lamp temperature in use, and it certainly
wasn't anywhere near 100c. I think what heat there was likely leaked
through from the crystal oven, which was getting pretty hot.
Bob,
Fortunately the onboard crystal does seem likely to still be close
enough, based on what I was seeing on a counter, so I feel like I have a
hope of recovering the unit if I do manage to get the lamp going again.
On 1/2/22 8:17 pm, Julien Goodwin wrote:
I picked up an Efratom FRT a while ago, and it finally arrived the other
day, sadly it doesn't lock.
The oscillator inside is an older Efratom FRK, and it's also clear
someone had been inside already, although it does appear to be complete.
The FRK manual does include a key description I wish I'd noticed a few
days ago before full disassembly:
"Terminal pin 7 provides an indication of proper operation of the
rubidium lamp. For nominal operation the signal is 6 to 12V. An
inoperative lamp is indicated by an signal of approximately 3V. The
internal resistance of this circuit is approximately 6K."
... indeed I'm seeing 3v on that pin.
Based on the circuit this appears to simply be the output of the first
stage op-amp from the photo-cell, so is this effectively an indication
that the (electrical part of the) lamp is dead? Certainly it wasn't
anywhere near the temperature it should have been when I removed the
bulb after running for over an hour.
Just for completeness, the unit does draw up to ~0.8A when started up
cold with 24V, dropping down to about ~0.5A after a while. The sealed
sub-section of board A4 seems be where all the heat is, and I'm assuming
that's an ovenised part of the crystal oscillator.
I also popped the rubidium bulb out and confirmed there's no obvious
issues there.
I do have another FRK here, but as it's an FRK-LN, and it's also my
working house standard I'm somewhat loath to open it up lest I end up
with two dead units and zero working.
Any suggestions?
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