Hi all,
I've just bought this.......
(Picture from seller's listing) - I'll post some of my own once the Jack is out of the box!
An Escort 5MHz EGC-3233 Sweep Function Generator in "Assumed not working condition" (Spares or repair).
It arrived today, and is currently waiting in quarantine for me to look at it. What can anyone tell me about it? I've never had one of these before, and don't really know anything about them other than they, or this one at any rate this one, outputs signals in Square Wave, Triangle (Saw Tooth?) and Sine Wave, from 0Hz to 5MHz, and can count frequencies from 0Hz to 20Mhz. Beyond that, there is a whole plethora of push buttons and dual function knobs. I don't have any operator's instructions, no tips and hints, nor quick start guide etc. So any help or info would be greatly received!
If anyone has any literature on this piece of kit, I would be very grateful of a copy, or a good walk through tutorial on how to use, and crucially, how to connect it safely to equipment on test. Let's say, I'd like to think it's going to be more useful than just ringing a few LOPTs and counting field and line frequencies!
As it comes, there are no leads, not even a mains lead. From the size of the box, there can't be much else in there than just the generator itself, so any advice on what I'm going to need by way of leads would also be welcome.
On these, triangle wave usually means just that - a triangle, not a sawtooth.
If nothing else, in conjunction with a 'scope you should be able to sweep radio IF stages.
Hi Mike, I get what you mean about about triangle Vs sawtooth. It's not helped by someone else' mnemonic "Square Saw Sine" (and presumably, he read the sign?), but looking at the picture, it looks like a triangle wave to me!
Now, after a fruitless "Googling" around the net, I couldn't find any manuals, but I did find a similar looking, but totally different model badged as "Kenwood" and with a reference another "Escort" model, so methinks there is a family link between them?
I must admit, I'm itching to look inside, and to powering it up to see what happens (if anything).
@katie-bush
I don’t know if this is free, or expensive or if it’s a trusted download but it claims to have a manual.
http://www.manuals.group/results.php?search=ESCORT%20EGC%203233
Frank
Hi Frank,
Maybe when I know if it's functional. Those manual are asking 20 Euros a pop - That's going to cost more than I paid for the generator and postage combined!
Hi Mike, I get what you mean about about triangle Vs sawtooth. It's not helped by someone else' mnemonic "Square Saw Sine" (and presumably, he read the sign?), but looking at the picture, it looks like a triangle wave to me!
Now, after a fruitless "Googling" around the net, I couldn't find any manuals, but I did find a similar looking, but totally different model badged as "Kenwood" and with a reference another "Escort" model, so methinks there is a family link between them?
I must admit, I'm itching to look inside, and to powering it up to see what happens (if anything).
Plug it in, Marion - what have you got to lose (apart from your eyebrows)?
When mine arrived unplugged it in and it went pop! Then I looked on the back and saw that it was for 110V! Doh!!! Luckily it was only the fuse that died, put a new one in and moved the jumper to the 240v pin and it came to life.
it looks a good bit of kit, Marion! Finding manuals for these things is a bit difficult, I still haven’t found one for mine, so far I’ve just pressed all the buttons to see what they do whilst connected to a scope, I did manage to set it to output 4.433Mhz to feed into that Sanyo tv’s decoder, for that I connected it via a cap to the TV.
Regards
Lloyd
The day is getting nearer! Hopefully, I'll uncrate it on Sunday, or maybe Monday. Then perhaps, I'll see what it needs for power. I also need to find some suitable cables for output. It's likely to be a slow greyhound race for this one, since I don't have the resources to spend on accessories for a potentially dead duck.
i think it'll be full beans on the mains! I can't see that a variac would be much help on this type of device. I may see if I can root out a ridiculously low rated fuse for testing purposes.
Alli-in-all, it was bought as spares or repair, and cost a grand sum of £12.00 plus a couple of quid postage, so my expectations are not high, hence the reluctance to spend anything extra until I at least see encouraging signs of life.
Okay, I had a spot of bother finding a suitable mains lead (crazy, I know, when you consider how common these computer power leads used to be), but I found one!
I've had the bottom cover off (the main PCB is mounted upside down) and all looks well. I was reassured at the sight of all those Philips and Motorola ICs, populating the board. No signs of anything untoward, so I went for a 'full beans power up' and was greeted by the led display and a couple of indicator leds. I had a play with the controls, and was able to cause the lcd to display a digital readout which varied as I turned the knobs.
The generator came with no leads at all (it was sold as spares, or not working) and was of unknown condition, so I haven't yet splurged out on any accessories for it, so further testing is very limited, but I figured that if I switched the generator to produce a sine wave output, I might be able to read that output on my Fluke 117 DMM, so I set the range to 10Hz, and the DMM to its Hz range, and held the probes against the outer sleeve and inner contact of the output BNC. I was more that pleased to see that the DMM was reading the Hz output from the generator, and tracked accurately with the generator's lcd display. I noted at this point that there was an approximately 0.5Hz difference at the low frequencies (up to about 500Hz). I went through the ranges and could read the output with my DMM all the way up to 100kHz, above which my DMM cannot read.
So it looks like there is some functionality to this instrument! I didn't try square or triangle output because I wasn't sure if the meter could read them, but I did try switching the generator to frequency counting, and was able to read some figures, I know not what, with the DMM's probes on the input of the counter, and was reading some random numbers, but there seemed to be a bit of a common theme at about 6kHz, and 8kHz - DMM sampling rate, maybe? Or random noise from various SMPSUs? Or could it be instability in a faulty instrument?
Next step, to get some leads for it!
I got me leads! - Yay!!
So this is what I did.... Pretty late on last night, I decided to juice up the generator and connect it to an audio amp (I have yet to venture into the cabin to retrieve my 'scope). Pleasingly, I could hear a difference in the sound when switching between sine, square and triangle waves, and could wind the frequency up and down, switching between ranges as I needed - I discovered that my hearing seems to drop off at around 14.45kHz, assuming my amp and speakers are good for that (Decent 1970s Hitachi 30W per channel Hi Fi).
Trying the counter function, I found a 13.6kHz signal just by hanging the leads (inner) close to the LOPT of an un-synchronised 625 line TV set.
So, we seem to have a function generator with at least some functionality, and potentially, a future.
Next step, dig out a 'scope, though that may be a while!
14.45kHz, I probably wouldn’t hear 405 line whistle, max 8Khz in one ear 4khz in the other. No point in me buying a top end HI-Fi.
You have a good function generator there.
Frank
I probably wouldn’t hear 405 line whistle,
It's interesting you should say that because at 10.125 kHz, I have to turn my head to be sure I'm still hearing the tone, but by the time it's at 12kHz, it's quite audible again, and that seems to happen at about three or four points along the way. Also, the shape of the wave makes quite a difference to just how easy the tone can be heard, though by the time it's into kHz, it all sounds much the same regardless of shape.
I'll need to work out how to use the more advanced features such as the sweep start and end point settings, sweep rate and whatever else it's capable of, but since I've never had a function generator before, never even thought I'd ever need one, I can play around with it and learn as I go. The thing was, I've been wanting a frequency meter for a while, now I have one as part of the function generator, so now I have two for the price of one, or to be honest, for a steal. Given that it was sold as 'spares or repair, condition unknown', it didn't make much in the bids, so I'm quite pleased with with what I've got so far.
