I was poking around in the Design Lab at work and happened to come across a few pieces of old Tek Gear. There’s one FG504 Function Generator and two AM503 Current Probe Amplifier modules together in a TM504 Power Supply chassis. The FG504 can generate a sine, square, or triangle waveform up to 30Vpp over an impressive 1mHz to 40MHz frequency range. It also has a host of other features too including burst and sweep modes. The AM503 can be attached to any oscilloscope and allows for current measurements of up to 100 A depending on the current probe used with it. I’m not sure if this stuff gets used much anymore, if at all, but it’s still cool none the less so I snapped a few pictures to share my findings. I also did a Google search for each module and found a few interesting sites which I linked to at the end. Enjoy!
Results of my Google searching:
- What looks like a product page from a catalog for the function generator
- Catalog page for the current probe amp. The AM501 Op Amp Module also on this page looks pretty cool too. I’d definitely like to play around with one of those.
- An ebay page selling the power supply (includes pics of just the supply itself).
- A manual for newer versions of the AM503 (AM503B and AM5030)
- Website which shows a picture of the inside of the FG504, all through-hole and some crazy looking traces.
Want to see some more Vintage Tek Gear? Check out my new post on the 576 Curve Tracer.
Fake EE Quips 
October 25th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
I saw a video demonstrating the Tek 1401A recently. It’s a box that turns any oscilloscope into a spectrum analyzer. I would love to have one of those! You found some cool stuff – the current probe and amp would be super handy!
October 26th, 2011 at 6:28 pm
I could definitely see how the 1401A would be a useful thing to have around…
October 26th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Awesome! Thanks for sharing. Those TM500 mainframes are classic and really flexible with the expandable chassis. When I was in school I used a lot of these and got familiar with each of plugins. There was a GPIB programmable version made too, the TM5000 mainframe. You gotta love those big frequency control dials on the FG504. Thanks again for sharing! Also, you may be interested in checking out the VintageTek museum (http://www.vintagetek.org/) that opened recently here in Beaverton, OR. A great group of Tektronix retirees developed and manage this museum and I’m sure would be happy to talk with you.
October 26th, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Yeah all those dials make it seem like you can get some serious work done. You can set frequency with authority. Vintage Tek looks like a great website too, I’ll have to check it out in depth tonight, thanks for sharing it. Now if I can just make it out to Oregon to see the museum in person…
January 23rd, 2012 at 6:38 pm
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