Restoring a Supreme Model 560A Vedolyzer
Supreme described their Vedolyzer as a dynamic signal analyzer that can not only reveal the presence of a signal, and its relative amplitude and frequency, but can also determine the quality of the signal. In another advert they referred to it as a super voltmeter. It's a combination of a VTVM, a wavemeter, a 3" oscillograph, a signal tracer and a multiple monitoring system, and was the foundational instrument of Supreme's dynamic analysis system called "See The Signal".
This was hi-tech stuff in 1939 for servicing radios and amplifiers under actual operating conditions. And with a name like the "Vedolyzer" how much more Buck Rogers can you get.
The Vedolyzer was advertised for use in combination with Supreme's model 561 RF generator, and I'm still looking for a model 561 to use with this and my Supreme model 562 Audolyzer.
FYI: Check out Mr. Carlson's Lab on YouTube where he has a 4-part series on restoring a Vedolyzer, and as always he does a masterful job. His videos will be a great reference for restoring this one.
This was hi-tech stuff in 1939 for servicing radios and amplifiers under actual operating conditions. And with a name like the "Vedolyzer" how much more Buck Rogers can you get.
The Vedolyzer was advertised for use in combination with Supreme's model 561 RF generator, and I'm still looking for a model 561 to use with this and my Supreme model 562 Audolyzer.
FYI: Check out Mr. Carlson's Lab on YouTube where he has a 4-part series on restoring a Vedolyzer, and as always he does a masterful job. His videos will be a great reference for restoring this one.
This instrument is S/N 101. I'm not sure where Supreme started with serial numbers (companies didn't always, or even usually, start with 1), but regardless this is a fairly early "A" version, probably dating to mid or late 1940. The front panel is in very good condition, no big scratches or dents, and will clean up nicely. All the knobs are there and the only things that might need changed are the obsolete Amphenol microphone-style input connectors.
The manual available online for the 560A is from S/N 364, the one in Mr. Carlson's videos looks to be in the 400's, and I've seen a photo online of another in the 500's, so Supreme made many hundreds of the "A" model. Also, the "A" schematic is in the September 1945 edition of Radio Service Dealer magazine (RSD), which is also available online. The original Vedolyzer model 560 schematic is dated September 1939 and the instrument was advertised in the Supreme 1940 catalog, which can be found at supremeinstruments.org. The 560A was first advertised in their 1941 catalog, and an ad in the January 1941 RSD offers the 561A Vedolyzer or the 562 Audolyzer in combo with the model 561 generator as a package deal. In the May 1941 RSD Supreme advised customers that the 1941 models would also be their 1942 models, so the 560A was available at least through '42.
The manual available online for the 560A is from S/N 364, the one in Mr. Carlson's videos looks to be in the 400's, and I've seen a photo online of another in the 500's, so Supreme made many hundreds of the "A" model. Also, the "A" schematic is in the September 1945 edition of Radio Service Dealer magazine (RSD), which is also available online. The original Vedolyzer model 560 schematic is dated September 1939 and the instrument was advertised in the Supreme 1940 catalog, which can be found at supremeinstruments.org. The 560A was first advertised in their 1941 catalog, and an ad in the January 1941 RSD offers the 561A Vedolyzer or the 562 Audolyzer in combo with the model 561 generator as a package deal. In the May 1941 RSD Supreme advised customers that the 1941 models would also be their 1942 models, so the 560A was available at least through '42.
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On the left side is the Vacuum Tube Voltmeter and ohm meter with pushbutton range selection and the Zero controls for the meter. The Power switch and Function Selector are right below the Zero controls. Near the top left are the Horizontal and Vertical Position controls for the oscillograph, placed on the left for symmetry.
In the center section is the Wavemeter with a range of 65KC to 6.5MC. Below the wavemeter are the Multiplier pushbuttons, the input signal selectors, and the three input jacks for the RF, IF and AF probes. |
And on the right side is the 3" oscillograph with Focus and Intensity controls near the top, the Sync Adjustments and Vertical and Horizontal Gain controls below, and Sweep selector buttons down the side.
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The oak cabinet is sound and only needs some minor gluing before refinishing. This and the Audolyzer, both with their oak cabinets and similar face designs, will make a nice set on my radio bench. My Audolyzer is an early gray-faced one, not the matching black, but that's OK, it will still do the job.
Another good thing about this unit is it still has the original metal back panel attached. |
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Inside, the chassis is covered in dirt and a thick film, probably residue from cigarette smoke. Unfortunately the chromed chassis is very spotted with rust, and battery acid has created a couple of larger rusty areas, one on top of the chassis and one underneath. I'm going to have to disassemble most of the unit just to get everything cleaned and polished.
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Someone has definitely had their hands in this thing. A lot of capacitors have been changed, and some resistors, but they didn't change all the old paper caps or electrolytics. It appears they were just trying to get the scope working. And the workmanship was not very good either: long leads, tack soldering and cold solder joints abound. I hope this isn't going to turn out to be all hacked up.
There are also numerous wires and capacitors just hanging loose and one resistor from the video amp even fell out the bottom when I pulled the chassis. Screws and spacers are also missing and I noticed a ground lug hanging loose because its screw was gone. It's beginning to look more and more like the work of a hack, and there's definitely going to be plenty of work involved in restoring it. |
I checked the date codes on the replacement Sprague electrolytics and they are all from 1984, and it looks like that's probably about the last time someone had their fingers in it.
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Well, this is a bit dissappointing. Someone, who obviously didn't know what they were doing, has pulled the 3AP1 CRT right out of its plug. They must have been trying to get the tube out of the socket by pulling on the glass. Looking at the tube's wires, I see they were just soldered at the very tips of the pins and the solder joints gave way before the wires broke, thankfully I guess. The plug pins were really stuck in the socket and I used WD-40 to loosen them up, and then carefully pried out the plug using a small screwdriver.
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Now I have to try to figure out the pin wiring by peering through the CRT glass to see if I can trace which wires connect to which electrodes. The filaments test good, so it will probably work just fine if I can get it back together. This is why you don't pull on the glass tube when removing a CRT.
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With the CRT out of the way the video amp and wavemeter subchassis have been pulled for cleaning and rebuild. The chrome is in poor conditon but cleaning has restored at least some of its luster. Next the face plate needs to come off for cleaning and to pull the left and right switch banks.
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This is about as clean as the chrome is going to get, but it's still a lot better than at the start. The video amp will get pretty well stripped down and rebuilt with mostly new components since the old parts have to go anyway, the soldering is pretty bad, and some components aren't even soldered.
Interestingly, the video amp specs of the original model 560 claimed to have 4.5MHz of video bandwidth, but the updated 560A only claimed 2.5MHz. Sounds like the original design didn't live up to expectations.
Interestingly, the video amp specs of the original model 560 claimed to have 4.5MHz of video bandwidth, but the updated 560A only claimed 2.5MHz. Sounds like the original design didn't live up to expectations.
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There are several components in the wavemeter to check and replace. I removed the wavemeter coils and stashed them in a cabinet until I'm finished under the chassis. Too many delicate wires there to take a chance.
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Not much left on top of the main chassis now that the front panel is off. I will start rebuilding this section first and then move on to the other modules afterwards.
I already see the Horzontal Position control is not original and needs replaced. It's very hard to turn, cleaning would probably fix that, but it's not even the correct value. The other pots all look original and will get a good cleaning. |
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Now that I'm actually replacing components under the chassis I am really discovering just how hacked up it is. I was wondering why all the lacing had been cut away from the wiring and now I know after putting in some late nights tracing down the wiring and component mistakes I'm finding. Plus I have to clean and resolder every solder joint that whoever did this has touched. Many terminals are just covered in globs of solder.
And just to make it all a little more challenging, I've also discovered there are some switches on control pots that are not shown on the schematic. |
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In all I found two bad potentiometers. One is the aforementioned Horizontal control and the other is the Meter Zero pot. On it the wiper connection is a coiled "spring" around the center shaft that solders to the center terminal. The spring wire had broken at the terminal, but I was able to solder it back and save the pot.
The left and right pushbutton racks have been cleaned and are operating smoothly, but I notice on both sets that there were originally rubber pieces around each shaft at the inside tops of the plungers, to keep them from hitting the frame with a loud 'clack" when they pop up. I'll see about fabricating replacements.
The left and right pushbutton racks have been cleaned and are operating smoothly, but I notice on both sets that there were originally rubber pieces around each shaft at the inside tops of the plungers, to keep them from hitting the frame with a loud 'clack" when they pop up. I'll see about fabricating replacements.
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The front panel has been cleaned and polished, and the two pushbutton switch banks pulled, restored, and reinstalled, so now I want to get the front back on quickly to prevent breaking any wires on the components that are just hanging loose without it. I added flat washers under all the potentiometer nuts to protect the front panel finish, with the exception of the Focus and Intensity pots, which are insulated from the front panel by phenolic washer sets. I also removed the internal-tooth lock washers from under the heads of the fillester head screws that attach the front panel to the chassis. The toothed washers were digging into the aluminum panel and ruining the finish around the screw holes. But the original external-tooth washers are still used under the nuts on the chassis side.
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Can't do much more on the main chassis until I get the video amp installed. To get started on the amp I had to take it down to the basics for cleaning and to make it easier to replace componets.
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While waiting on parts I created a gratiicule using a scan of one from the Supreme site. This one is not printed but cut into a heavy piece of plastic with an exacto knife and then filled with a black paint pen. The lettering is also done with a paint pen. It slips under the three little ears on the front of the bezel. This particular graticule would be for use with the model 561 generator in FM mode.
After several late nights at the bench the video amp is finally ready to reinstall. Almost every resistor and capacitor has been replaced. Some resistors were wildly out of spec, double or triple their marked values. A lot of the capacitors had already been changed once, and the orange dip caps are good film caps, but I don't like their radial style leads for point-to-point wiring like in the video amp, so I replaced all but a couple with axial lead film capacitors. All the old hard as a rock rubber grommets were replaced and new B+ and -Bias buses were made from 14awg solid copper wire.
Some of the resistors did not match either the values or wattages shown on the schematic. Thanks to the poor workmanship by whoever tried to work on this, it was fairly easy to tell which components were from the factory just by inspecting the lead wraps on the terminsls and the soldering. All the component differences I found appear to be factory. I even checked Mr. Carlson's videos to compare with his Vedolyzer and he had the same differences I found in mine. So I'm editing the schematic as I go to reflect the changes.
Some of the resistors did not match either the values or wattages shown on the schematic. Thanks to the poor workmanship by whoever tried to work on this, it was fairly easy to tell which components were from the factory just by inspecting the lead wraps on the terminsls and the soldering. All the component differences I found appear to be factory. I even checked Mr. Carlson's videos to compare with his Vedolyzer and he had the same differences I found in mine. So I'm editing the schematic as I go to reflect the changes.
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Under the Wavemeter subchassis I replaced all three resistors and two of the three capacitors (the mica was OK) that connect to the Multiplier switches. I ran into a small problem replacing the resistors, the leads on my modern film resistors are just a little too short. I had one older 1/2-watt film resistor with longer leads for the 4K ohm resistor, but had to dig through my 1-watt carbon comp resistor drawers to come up with the other two replacements.
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Still not finished, but it's getting closer. I still need to reinstall the power supply choke, solder some connections and re-lace the cabling. This has been a whole lot of work getting it back to this point.
I changed the three input connectors to UHF connectors because they are a perfect fit for the holes, and adapters to BNC are easy to get. The original single pin microphone connectors are obsolete and not available except used. I will bag the originals and keep them for the unit in case I'd ever want to put it back to factory. I also replaced all the pin jacks with matching style banana jacks, because I don't use or like pin plugs.
I added a 2-cell AA battery holder for the bias batteries. This way I don't have to solder directly to them. The original battery clamp was AA size.
I changed the three input connectors to UHF connectors because they are a perfect fit for the holes, and adapters to BNC are easy to get. The original single pin microphone connectors are obsolete and not available except used. I will bag the originals and keep them for the unit in case I'd ever want to put it back to factory. I also replaced all the pin jacks with matching style banana jacks, because I don't use or like pin plugs.
I added a 2-cell AA battery holder for the bias batteries. This way I don't have to solder directly to them. The original battery clamp was AA size.
More to come as I get time to work on it...
Page created 6/3/2020
Last edited 7/2/2020
Last edited 7/2/2020
