DIY PS503A Rebuild Prototype

 This is the start of a DIY rebuild project for the Tektronix PS503A dual tracking power supply.

I once build this unit a long time ago, in the late 70's, using several original parts.

This version of the PS503A is a little strange because I can't find any information on the net about this particular unit, that uses 14-pin Fairchild 741 amplifiers, and I don't have the manual anymore. All the pictures that I could find use the more common 8-pin versions. In any case, I sold it to a collector together with all my Tektronix gear quite some time ago. Overview here.

An attempt to create my own replacement many years later is described on my Blog here.

I'm showing this instrument because my plan is to use the same enclosure and the controls, but with a new PCB front panel. The PS503A does not have a display, but I'm going to use this one. After I build it, I made several changes to the way the display is used, hence the handwriting on the panel.  It is actually an accurate voltmeter with an LCD. I use a switch to show either the positive or the negative voltage. The switch above with the +/-V does that. The switch labeled Tracking will tie the two supplies together such that the voltage set for the positive supply will be tracked by the negative supply. This Master-Slave method is quite common, but the Tek engineers figured out a way to select separate rail voltages and use the tracking to change the set voltages by a percentage. So you can have a rail for +15V and one for -8V and change both voltages together. That's what I will use too.

Unfortunately, this supply, that started as a study on using the standard LM317 and LM337 regulators works OK, but not great. The main drawback is that I used a transformer that only allows +/- 100mA and that's not enough for many of my projects.

The goals for this DIY PS503A project

The goal is to build a standalone unit that can be placed close to a prototype to supply the required rail voltages. My intention is to use this supply when I'm working with Opamps that need a positive and a negative rail. 

The rather special feature of the PS503A is that it not only had dual tracking, but also with two different voltages. The dual tracking in this case will supply a percentage change on both rails. More information can be found on the Tek Wiki pages here. 

The SG503A goes up to +/-20V and 1A, and I'm planning to see if I can increase the voltage to +/-30V, probably not with a 1A output, but maybe half of that above 20V.

The Current limiters only work on each rail separately, which is normal. I would like to see if I can add circuitry to limit both rails if one of them gets triggered due to a serious failure like a short.

The next item I would like to address is the over-voltage protection. The original over-voltage protection for the PS503A uses a Zener with an SCR to cut the output if it is above about 24V.  In earlier versions, like the one I had, the SCR would actually short the raw supply rails with a small resistor to the common such that it would blow a fuse. That's pretty dramatic, and that method is called a crow-bar circuit. In later versions of the supply however, the SCR now cuts the drive to the output transistors, and will also discharge the output capacitor. A clever trick also protects the DUT in case the power transistors fail. Also this circuit works on only one rail at a time.

There are several components that do not like a dramatic disappearance of one of the rails, it could actually damage the chip. So my plan is to see if I can couple the fault mechanism to both rails at the same time.

I hope I'm smart enough to figure this out, or I may need to get some help, because this old tinkerer has it's limits.

Building a simple prototype

To better understand the circuitry and try some of the enhancements or changes, I built the positive supply section and the voltage reference section on protoboard. I did that in several steps to test them out before adding more complexity.

Here is the complete positive supply section, working and functional with some improvements already. It does not have the over voltage protection. That was added later.

What you see here on the left is the original voltage reference section with an alternative. Next to it the dual +/-10V references (for both supplies) followed by the voltage controller and the output section. The red test lead in the middle is connected to the output terminal, which is the right side of the green 0.6 Ohm current sense resistor. To the left of that are the two output transistors. On the top right edge of the first board you can also see a device on a carrier which is the new current source.

The circuit on the protoboard on the right is the current controller. The red LED is lit, because I adjusted the output current with my Dynamic Load and dialed in the tripping point of the Current Limiter, such that the supply is now in the Constant Current mode. The original PS503A uses a little incandescent light bulb (18V 26mA) to show an indication of the output level voltage. I changed that circuit slightly to use a yellow LED, and you see that lit on the right hand side. More about that below.

Improvements

As a reference to what I did and will be doing, you can use the original schematic, published by Tektronix of the latest revision.

This can also be found here, when you look at the manual on the right hand side of the page. 

The quality is not great, because it is a scanned copy of the manual.
Here is the positive supply section I prototyped and will be addressing below:

The reference supply

While I was building and testing the prototype, I noticed a few items that I wanted to address. First of all, I found that the reference supply is not as stable or resistant to sudden temperature changes, although it the classic form of temperature compensation built in. The engineers used a common trick by using a diode (CR24) in combination with a Zener (VR24) to counter the voltage change due to temperature. (one has a positive coefficient, and the other has a negative effect) However, that does not work well with sudden changes, like a draft. It also takes quite some time to warm-up to a stable reference voltage. When I used my DMM on the reference voltage and briefly blew some air over it, the voltage jumped before it slowly normalized again.

Granted, this will not happen this drastic when everything is warmed-up and inside an enclosure.

But, it's also not as stable as I would like to have it (see below), so I tried a voltage reference chip that the engineers at the time most likely didn't have access to, or it was deemed too expensive, or deemed to be too good for the intended applications for this supply. I will most likely make both options available on the PCB, if there is enough room.

Here is the schematic (in KiCad) for the VRef and Tracking circuit. On the left in the box the original voltage reference circuit and in the smaller box the new one.

The Vref of 9V, or in my case 10V is fed to the two Opamps, in a configuration where one is a voltage follower with the same output as the input, U1, to provide +10V for the posive supply, and U2 that changes the polarity to a -10V reference voltage for the negative supply. By flipping switch SW1, the reference voltage is now made variable and that sets up the dual tracking feature. The two trimmers are used to calibrate the output of the supplies to the maximum output voltage, plus a bit.

Here is the measurement that I took from the original reference voltage output.

This is after a warm-up period of about 15 minutes. It takes a very long time to settle. Note the span of 14.3mV over this 1hr period. This is not all together bad, but it also means that the output will swing with it, amplified by a factor of two. (10V reference amplified to get a 20V output)

The real test is to measure the output of the supply and include all components that could contribute.

Here is how that looks for a small snap-shot:

Not impressed with this, I used a REF01 10V reference chip to replace the original 9V reference, and this is the result measuring the output again:

The swings look much more dramatic, but the span is only 3.8mV, a 4x improvement and this was after a rather short warm-up with a reference that did not have a burn-in period yet.

These measurements need to be repeated with the circuits on a proper PCB and within an enclosure, but the result is good enough to include both as an option.

Lets have a look at the various other building blocks of this instrument.

The positive supply

This schematic already shows my latest changes in it, explained next.

Please note that this is still under development so can easily change. I will do my best to update the schematics as I'm progressing, but don't use them yet to build your own, give me some time to complete it first. There is now a 2.7R resistor from the cathode of Q15 to GDN, and D29 is now a 1N5401.

The improvements I already made

The Opamps

Instead of the 741 Opamps that were used in the earlier generations, I selected the TLE2141 Opamps. Mainly because they can stand a 44V supply maximum, which makes it more reliable than the originals that went kaduk quite often. Even so much so that lower (+/-27V) rails were added to the design, and even that did not stop all the failures. This could also be contributed to the fact that the early 741's were not that reliable stemming from earlier manufacturing processes. I could have use the TL071, but that also has a rather limited maximum supply voltage specification. As a minimum, during the prototyping phase, I will be using the more rail tolerant TLE2141. It also allows me to raise the +/-6V2 voltages to +/-8V by using regulators.

The current source/bias for the diode OR and output transistor

This step is a pre-cursor requirement for increasing the supply voltage.

If you look at the original schematic, I replaced the bias setting resistor (R87) to the Base of the driving transistor Q14 from a 3K resistor to a 5mA Current Sink. This will make the diode OR circuit and Base current independent of the raw supply and the variable current flow when the output voltage is changed from the minimum to the maximum. In the 20V version, that point moves from 9V to about 25V, and hence the Base current changes for Q14.

The just about standard method is to use a current source and not a resistor. In my previous design for a power supply, I used a typical circuit to create a stable current source. 

Below is that circuit. It used a red LED as a rather stable voltage source to bias the PNP transistor Q2. The Emitter resistor R4 sets the current, R15 sets the LED current. The capacitor of 220uF was added as a startup glitch protection, because it delayed the bias setting until the other supplies where stable.

In that supply design, I used LED's as the diode OR because they were used on the front panel showing the CV or CC mode activity.

There are many other possibilities to create a current sink/source, like a J-FET but this time I opted to use a dedicated LTC chip (LT3092) and two resistors to precisely set the current. I already have two of them in my stash, waiting to be used. I tried it out and it works really well. By using the formula in the datasheet, I could easily select the resistor value for the 5 mA current I wanted. This is a little higher than the original current that varied between 1.7mA and 4.9mA using the resistor, but that is not very critical.

The Vref for the current limiter

Because I'm now using a different VRef circuit, I needed to change the Voltage reference for the current limit circuit. In the original, that voltage was tapped from the VRef circuit (connection between R28 and R29), and then fed through a diode (CR78) to the base of Q80. I simply adopted the circuit from the negative supply and used that for the positive supply as well. This adds R41, Q11 and R40 in my schematic.

The Voltage output indicator

Because I don't want to use a light bulb for the Voltage indicator (old school), I'm using an LED that many users of the PS503A had to change to as well because these bulbs are hard to get. I opted for a  yellow LED, and that required a value change for two resistors, R14 from 5K6 to 15K and R15 from 510R to 150K in my schematic. Both values depend on the LED current, so may need some tweaking. I'm simply using one that I already have, but is without specifications. In my case, the LED is very dim but still visible with a zero Volt output and will be bright at 20V. When the output is switched off with SW2, the current from R15 is disconnected and the LED is off to show you that there is no output voltage present. Just like the original.

Decoupling the Opamps

I also added decoupling capacitors for the two Opamps.

Sziklai output transistor pair

The last change, for the time being, is the change of the Sziklai output transistor pair. In the original, the power transistor was in the TMXXX mainframe and is not so easy to find. I selected a combination of the BD139 and the D45H11. I had a few left from my Walt Jung voltage regulator design, and if Walt found this transistor good enough, who am I to disagree? This selection may change however when I have a real setup that will allow me to do some power stress tests later on. 

If you want to know more about this Sziklai configuration and the difference or pro & cons compared with a Darlington pair, use Google.

There are two main differences that I care about. First of all the input voltage for the first transistor is 0.6V for the Sziklai and double that or 1.2V for the Darlington combo. The other difference is the thermal stability that is reportedly better with the Sziklai, and the two transistors do not need to be on the same heat sink, which was important for the original PS503A with the output transistor located in the TM5XXX mainframe.

Resistor value changes

Although I purchased all the required (odd) resistor values, I will probably change them to the E96 range. The reason Tek used these sometimes odd ball values, like 1K05 or 1K62 and 976 Ohm is that in those days, through-hole metal film 1% or better resistors only came in these values (not even in E192). 

I started to make some changes already, but want to be careful not to make mistakes.

The over voltage protection

I waited to describe this circuit because I wanted to test and understand it first and also see if I could improve on it.

After adding the circuit to my prototype I finally figured it out. It turns out that I totally overlooked the presence and functionality of CR66 in that original circuit. (D29 below)

Let me explain it with this circuit section in the box.

D29 is now a 1N5401.

The output voltage is tapped by R13 and the 24V Zener D28 that go to the Gate of the SCR. That voltage is filtered by C47, and R42 pulls the Gate low to avoid false triggers. 

So, if there is a voltage on the output that exceeds the Zener voltage, the Gate of the SCR gets pulled-up and is triggered. When that happens, the Anode of the SCR will be shorted to the Cathode at GND level, pulling the Bias of the diode OR also to GND and thereby removing the drive to the Base of Q14 and that in turn turns off the output transistor Q13. So far so good.

However there is also the 50uF output capacitor C2 that still dumps it's capacity into the DUT. The Cathode of D29, which function I initially overlooked, gets pulled down and conducts and that shortens the output through D29 and the SCR to GND. Great solution, however, there is even more to it. 

In case the output transistors malfunction, like an E-C short of Q13 which will be the cause of the over voltage, they will no longer react to the removal of the Bias to the Base of Q14. D19 will come to the rescue again and will also short the unregulated 33V rail to GND and that will blow the main fuse. 

 

So this clever circuit takes care of all possible over voltage causes and protects the DUT.

Hats off to the Tek engineers, they are much more clever than I first anticipated, and I just didn't get it at first. At a later stage I'm going to try to couple both protections together, so if one fails, both outputs will be removed.

The negative supply

This supply is almost a mirror image of the positive supply.

Note that I copied the current limiter reference voltage circuit around Q10, D21 and Q4 and also use that on the positive supply, because I use a different main voltage reference. C18, on the Base of Q9 is not in the original circuit, but I've added it here too, just in case it is needed. D34 is now a 1N5401.

The Power rails

There are actually three different dual rail voltages, the unregulated +/-33V, the regulated +/-27V and the regulated +/- 6V2. Regulated means simply set by a Zener diode. The original for the +/- 6V2 rails used large 750 Ohm 2W resistors, but I don't like that at all so I'm simply using 8V regulators. 

Depending on how I'm going to implement the over-voltage protection, I may have to change the PTC fuses back to glass fast blow fuses.

I have also not selected the main transformer yet. I have two versions that I will try, but they also have to fit in the enclosure, together with heat sinks for the power transistors. That decision will be made soon, because it will dictate the PCB I'm going to design next.

I added a second main filter capacitor of 1,000uF separated by a small 2 Ohm series resistor to better filter the unregulated raw rail voltages. This will become more important when I increase the output voltages with as high a current as possible at the maximum output of hopefully +/-30V. Both the resistor value and the 1,000uF size can change based on actual stress tests.

The circuit around Q5 and Q6 is a startup protection circuit to make sure everything powers-up correctly and at the same time. It also functions as further protection if one of unregulated rails have a fault.

The resistor values for the Sobel networks on the secondaries of the transformer will be determined when I have selected the main transformer.

The transistors used in the +/- 27V rails may change once I know the total current consumption, which is unknown at the moment.

Note that there are several different GND symbols used in the circuits indicated by a number. Eventually, they all come together at the Common output connection, but are kept separate from each other to create a "Star" GND. You can easily see that when you study the PCB pictures on the Wiki site.

The Voltmeter

This circuit is quite simple but in order to switch the display voltmeter inputs around so we can measure the positive and the negative supplies, the power rails for the meter have to be galvanically isolated from the rest of the circuits, hence the small additional transformer. The minus input from the voltmeter is internally connected to the minus supply voltage of the meter/display, so that's why this is needed.

Tracking overvoltage protection

Before I can start to work on a PCB layout, I wanted to investigate if I can make the over-voltage protection "tracking" so it will not just watch out for a +/-27V overvoltage caused by an output section failure, but also protect against a certain voltage delta above the actual voltage setting.

This is especially important when you are dealing with low voltage devices, because the original over-voltage protection will activate only when a voltage in access of 24V is detected. That could happen when there is a failure in the output section, the Sziklai pair as an example. By the time the over-voltage protection is activated, your DUT could already have died from a voltage overdose.

The tracking overvoltage protection will activate when approx. 1V above the set voltage is detected, so when your working with 1V8, 3V3, or 5V devices, they will hopefully survive.

Here is my current implementation for the moment:

I'm using U13 as a comparator to determine the tripping point. (I may change later that to the LM311) The output of the voltage setting Opamp U7 is used as the reference voltage for U13. The output of U7 has almost the same voltage as the output. I'm also tapping the output terminal and drop that voltage by two diodes in series to create a delta between the output and the set voltage. C51 and R52 are to provide a bias for the diodes and also a filter.

When experimenting with it, I noticed that the protection would activate with the voltage setting potmeter fully counter clockwise (zero volt out). This was caused by the fact the the output of U7 was going slightly negative in that position, and that would trigger the comparator. Adding a small resistor (R58) in series with the voltage setting potmeter lifted the output to less than 100mV positive, and that solved that problem and still provided an over-voltage trigger.

Switch between 1A and 100mA output

The other addition that I added is a slightly different use of the original detection of a high power TM5XXX compartment to provide a 1A current instead of the 400mA for other compartments. While thinking about that relatively high output current, and the rudimentary adjustment for the Current Limit trigger potmeter, I'm going to use the same principle, but use a switch (SW6) on the front panel to lower the current to 100mA and make the adjustments more precise. So the adjustment of the CL potmeter will switch from 0-100% for 1A to  0-100% for 100mA. This will require the same switch as in the original, to activate a new parallel resistor to R51. I will also add an LED on the front panel to warn the user that the output is rated at 1A.

More later....

Github project repository

There will be a dedicated Github project when I have finished the design, that will have all the information you need to build one yourself and I will also enter the project in the Shared Project section of my sponsor PCBWay.

The DIY SG505 mains power supply

This post will detail the mains related portion of the SG505 generator. I decided to split the whole power section in two, the quiet parts stay with the main generator, and the mains related and otherwise inherently noisier parts will go into another enclosure, all by themselves.

Think of it as a dedicated substitute for the TM5XX mainframe the original SG505 would have as its home.

After a few revisions, this is the final version of the supply, Version 4. (I'm showing it here so it shows-up on the title page of the Blog post)

The V3 Mains Power Supply

In an earlier version, the power supply was on the main SG505 generator board. This circuit  is inherently noisy and will no longer be in the same enclosure as the generator. 

This is the schematic of the new version I'm now working from. There are not too many changes, but I added ferrite coils in between the larger reservoir caps, and I used a common mode coil at the output. I also added a few more capacitors to quiet the thing down as much as possible.

The dimensions of the board are such that it can go in any kind of enclosure, and mounted on studs through the 4 mounting holes.

Discovered an issue

After trying the new setup, I discovered that I made a mistake...

A wimpy transformer

With the generator working, I started on the counter section. However, when I flipped the power switch, the generator almost stopped working, the output dropped significantly. To make a long and embarrassing story short, I misjudged the amount of power that the counter circuit draws on the supply. I measured it at 120mA, and was under the impression that with the 50mA for the generator I was within the power budget of the transformer. We're not because there is a significant voltage drop of the raw supply, dropping the headroom for the 40V regulator, and then also for the shunt regulators.

Here is the culprit, the VPP28-180, a 2x14VAC @ 180mA. It's not beefy enough. I had that one in my stock so used it. I should have know better, and I should have tested it better.

A new transformer will require a turn of the board, but I'll wait to be sure. Extra sure. This time.

To continue with the rest of the assembly and testing, I took off the 12V regulator parts from the main board, so they would not interfere and I could supply an external 12V to power the counter circuit.

The rest of the generator worked fine, so I could spend some more time on the power supply fixes that resulted in a board turn and a version 4.

Power Supply V4

To counter the lost head room when the current goes up, I tried a 15-0-15VAC transformer that I have in stock and is much beefier with 800mA. I used one of the spare V3 PCB's to build-up a new version, and also made some changes, reflected in the new schematic.

I used larger filter capacitors with 2200uF/63V, the only ones that I have with this voltage. The 1000uF/50V that I used before is a little tricky now with the higher input voltage. I ordered 1000uF/63V, and also 3300uF/63V to give them a try later. 

The second 75mA fuse is gone. The larger load and the filter capacitors cause an in-rush current that is blowing the fuse. I now use a 500mA PTC instead while testing, it will be lowered to 200mA after my testing.

When using the new 30VAC transformer, I measure the ripple at a load current of 200mA (using my Dynamic Load), and I only see 400mV, the raw voltage is 42.5V, which is not enough head-room for the regulator to provide 40V. 

When I increase the current to 240mA, the voltage regulator drops out of regulation.

At a load of 160mA, the raw voltage is 43.2V and this is the expected current draw of the instrument as far as I can tell. I need to measure that again, but I need to put the parts that I removed from the 12V circuit back on the main board in to do that. That requires a disassembly of the instrument again, and is next on my list, but not today.

I added the 12V regulator components on the main board and started testing again. The generator works fine when the counter is off, but when I switch it on, the positive 16.5V supply drops, this is due to the 40V dropping a bit, and that is because the raw unregulated voltage is dropping too much for the 40V regulator to continue to provide a steady 40V. That was to be expected because there is not enough headroom. 

The result of this investigation is that even a 2x15VAC is not enough, even though the transformer should have plenty of power.

Here is what I measured at the DC unregulated side with that supply:

Open : 49V, Generator 46V, Generator + Counter 42.7V: not enough, another wimpy transformer.

Using a beefier version

Next try is with a VPP36-560, a 2x18VAC transformer, another one that I have in stock. It was a left over from the Curve Tracer project. I don't need the 560mA it provides, but this transformer type is also available in a 280VA version.

When I measured this transformer, it showed these results:

Open : 60V, Generator 56V, Generator + Counter 51V.
The ripple is still 200mVp-p but we have plenty of headroom now.

With the unregulated input this high, the 40V regulator must now have a good heatsink, which was not required with the lower voltages. It's easy to create some room on the PCB to add one though.

With this transformer, there is no voltage drop anymore, and the other good news is that the generator continues to function very well with the counter on or off.

New power supply, counter off:

And below is with the counter on.

 
Note that this FFT is not as nice as the previous one, it has some hum and I had to readjust the H2 but this time could not make it disappear. I also found that the Vernier adjustment changes the H2 distortion level a bit. Looking at the circuit, that seems to make sense as it is in the feed-back loop of U1 where also the AGC is used as a summing-input. I'm speculating that the hum could be the result of the 40V regulator needing to work so much harder due to the significantly higher raw input voltage.

There is virtually no change in the noise floor (-128dBV and also in the harmonics). The 12V section is now quiet enough although for very clean measurements, you could switch it off, just in case.

THD is now 0.00033%. 

Adding a pre-regulator

With the extra head-room that the 2x18V transformer provides, I can now also implement a pre-tracking regulator. Because the job is then split in two, with one working on the line regulation, and the other on regulating the voltage output. The load is shared, so I can use two much smaller heatsinks.

Besides, the split will also create more separation between the mains related hum and the output voltage. The U1 pre-regulator provides about a 5V head-room for the U2 voltage regulator. Only 4 additional parts are needed for this pre-reg circuit.

Below is the text-book (from the LM317 datasheet) implementation of the pre-regulator, or tracking regulator.

(this is not the final version, have a look at the Github site (link below) for the most current information)

With the Manhattan style modification to try it out, and the long flying leads to the transformer, I can't see the benefits in the FFT, but my hope is that it will, once everything is on a proper PCB. 

I can even reduce the size of the heatsinks you see above, the regulators are not getting hot.

As soon as the ordered filter capacitors come in, I can try the 1000uF versions and see if they are adequate.

In the mean-time, I'm working on the new layout for the power supply.

The layout has provisions for the VPP36-560 transformer (11,62 Euro's at DigiKey) the one I already have and will use, and the smaller VPP36-280 (8,62 Euro's at DigiKey) which should be sufficient.

I also measured the supply with the 2x1000uF/63V and also the 2x 2200uF/63V for the main filter capacitors C6 and C7. The ripple voltage measured across C7 with the 1000uF was 320mV and with the 2200uF 200mV. Both values are adequate but the PCB will support both types.

Happy with these results, I uploaded the updated power supply V4 and the updated front panel Gerber files to PCBWay for production under our sponsoring arrangement. (even though I screwed-up twice, nice of them)

It will usually take about a week for them to arrive.

Final results

The boards from PCBWay arrived in the usual very good quality and I build-up one of them. Check them out for your own projects: https://www.pcbway.com/

Everything worked flawlessly, so I adjusted the output to 42.00V and connected the generator board. After a few minutes, while calibrating the voltages, the power dropped to zero. It turned out that I used a 100mA PTC for F2, and that is getting too warm and cuts out. I'm now using a 200mA PTC that I planned to use earlier, and that works fine.

I calibrated the output voltage again but now measuring the Vreg on the generator board, to account for a few 100mV power losses, and then proceeded to calibrate the +17V and the -17V. 

I could not adjust the +17, it stopped at about 16.4V, however, the -17V worked fine. This is due to a Vreg that is a little too low for the balancing to work, so I raised the Vreg voltage to 43V and all was well. To add a little bit more headroom, I'm now setting Vreg to 44.00V.

The heat sink I selected for the main voltage regulator (U2) is a tad too small, because the device gets a little warmer that I hoped for. I can still touch the tab without burning my finger so there is no real issue, but still. The U1 pre-regulator is only warm to the touch so fine.

Below is the now completed enclosure for the power supply.

The front panel is the back panel from the SG502 that I'm using here as the front panel.

And below is the setup of my instrument bench. 

The top shelf has the actual instruments. From left to right: the DC Dynamic Load, the SG505, my frequency counter, and the GPSDO on top of the master clock, the rest is out of sight) BTW, these are all instruments that are listed on my Blog. Below that shelf is room for the supporting stuff, like the power supplies.

This concludes this project for the time being.

Here is the overall project Github with all the design files: 
https://github.com/paulvee/DIY-Rebuild-of-the-SG505

Here is the Shared Project listing on the PCBWay website:
Shared Project DIY SG505 Power Supply

DIY rebuild of the Tek SG505 Part 3 (final)

This Blog post will detail the third stage of my project to rebuild the Tektronix SG505 instrument.

Here is the link to the post describing the second version of the design: 

https://www.paulvdiyblogs.net/2025/08/diy-rebuild-of-tek-sg505-instrument.html

Here is the first post about this project:

https://www.paulvdiyblogs.net/2025/03/diy-build-of-tek-sg505.html

The reason for the third revision

After the investigations of the second version, I wanted to separate the Power Supply from the Generator in the same enclosure. I also wanted to put the Generator circuits into a full metal enclosure to make the output of the generator as clean as possible and as a minimum, remove the mains hum.

After a very long search, this is the only enclosure I could find that has the required height and width for the front panel layout. It is a ProMa 130 0044 and is also available from Amazon. The outside dimensions are 165x110x80. I would have liked a black enclosure, but alas I couldn't find one. There is one available from ProMa though, with part number 130 0045. I can always spray paint it black myself if I develop the urge. The current Front Panel design will need some modifications and will replace the aluminum panel. The generator PCB will slide in a slot close to the bottom. Unfortunately, the dimensions are a little different so I can't use the current PCB in this enclosure, not even to try it out. 

This all means a new PCB for the Generator, for the Power Supply and for the Front Panel.

Splitting the Power Supply

There will be a separation of the noisy mains related parts of the circuit, that need to go outside of the enclosure for the generator. In essence, it means that the transformer, the bridge rectifier, the main capacitor reservoirs and the 40V regulator need to be on a separate PCB that will be housed outside of the generator.

This part of the project will be described in a dedicated post here:
https://www.paulvdiyblogs.net/2025/11/the-diy-sg505-mains-power-supply.html

The shunt supplies for the +/-16V rails can move to the main generator, and also the 12V supply can move to the main board. They are quiet and will have no negative effect on the generator. I hope. It also makes the interface from the Power Supply enclosure simple, because I will only need to use two wires for the 40V supply that feeds the other three rails.

The circuit after the transformer and the bridge will get some more filtering to avoid mains related noise getting into the generator.

The Power Rails on the Generator PCB

These three rails are very quiet by themselves and can now move to the generator PCB.

(this is not the final version, have a look at the Github site (link below) for the most current information)

No major changes from the previous design, I just added a few extra capacitors and ferrite beads to the power input lines. This may still change a little based on the new layout.

Just when I was about to order the PCB from PCBWay, I decided to skip the idea of using a heat sink for the LM317, because it will still get too hot and raise the temperature in the box. It will now be mounted isolated to the side of the aluminum enclosure.

The Generator circuits

The other circuits stay the same, will just get a revised layout and incorporate the three power rails and needs to fit in the new enclosure.

I finished the new version of the generator PCB, now with the power rails on it.

This is what is ordered. On the bottom part you can see that the LM317 is now flipped around and moved closer to the edge of the board. It will be mounted isolated on the side of the enclosure to remove a considerable heat source.

The Front Panel

This is the updated front panel fitting the new enclosure.

The golden rings around the holes connect the front ground fill to the back ground fill to add an EMI shield to the inside circuits. 

The rings on the back are larger so will connect to the metal parts of the switches, connecting them to the shield. The 4 mounting holes in the corners also have exposed holes on the back and will connect the shield to the aluminum enclosure. 

The enclosure itself is not connected to earth ground but floating. I have created the possibility to connect the GND of the PCB circuits close to the output BNC to an exposed pad on the front panel. In that case, the circuit GND will be connected to earth GND when the BNC is connected to a DSO.

Building up the boards

I received the shipment with the three PCB's and I have built up the power supply by transferring most of the parts from the old board, added the additional parts and tested it. No problems.

The next step was to add the solder paste droplets to the main generator board and transfer the parts one by one from the old board. I used my heat gun to remove them and put them on the new board. When that was done, I reflow soldered the board. Because I used smaller solder paste droplets this time, the reflow process went a lot better, with only a few tiny solder ball bearings and a lot less of the flux gue. I did not clean the board just yet, I wanted to test the functionality first.

Discovering issues

Bad Solder joint

At first I wanted to check the voltage levels of the three power rails. The +16 was only about 9V and then dropped to 3V, the negative 16V was about 30V, the 12V was OK. Although nothing got warm, I quickly shut it off. After connecting the switches and potmeters to the connectors such that the generator could function, I applied power again and saw a welcoming sinewave, albeit with some distortion at the top half. Hmmm, partial good news. When I checked the 16V rails, I still noticed a large unbalance, and that explained the distortion. The good news is that the most complicated circuit seemed to work OK, but the most simple circuit did not, but why?

The hunt for the shunt supply imbalance turned out to become more and more strange. To a point where I started to remove the parts from the shunt supplies one by one, but without any improvement. Using my Lab Supply instead to first power the +16.5V and the -16.5V everything worked, I then supplied the 40V supply, further up-stream and that also showed the correct currents and the system worked fine. Now really puzzled, I used another one of the spare generator boards and started to add the minimum amount of the same parts I just took from the board for the shunt regulator to make it function, which it did flawlessly. Even powering the generator from the second board showed the correct balanced voltages. I was flabbergasted. After thoroughly cleaning the board and resoldering the components back to the board in pairs, everything worked. Bad solder joint!

Wimpy transformer

I also discovered that the mains power supply had a wimpy transformer, so that also needed attention. Details are in the other post: 
https://www.paulvdiyblogs.net/2025/11/the-diy-sg505-mains-power-supply.html

Mistake on the front panel

When putting everything together, I first mounted the construction for the main potmeter and the reduction unit. It fitted perfectly, unlike with the first front panel. So, happy with that result, I added all the other switches and potmeters and proceeded to slide the board into position, when I hit a barrier.

Turns out that I made a serious measurement mistake with the position of the rotary switch for the multiplier. It was bumping to the board and also bumping to the reduction unit. Moving the hole up and left solved that issue, but it will mean another turn of the front panel.

This is how it looks now, so close...

This is the inside view of the now fully working instrument:

Mains related hum

When I did the first FFT tests, I still saw some 50Hz hum and some harmonics. When touching the metal parts of the front panel, it got sometimes worse, sometimes better. I did not have the main potmeter knob mounted, and when I touched the metal axel, the hum got worse. Connecting the Earth GND from the output BNC to the metal parts of the main potmeter and reduction unit with a wire did not do anything, but connecting it to the common GND of the main board reduced the hum dramatically.

It turned out that the mounting holes for the main potmeter support and the reduction unit did not connect the metal parts to the common ground of the PCB. I used star washers on each support to improve that. I also added a blank ring to the layout around one more hole of the contraption to improve that going forward.

Connecting earth GND to common GND?

I intentionally connected the front panel shielding to the metal enclosure to create a Faraday cage, but I separated it from the common GND of the board.  

In my current setup, with the USB connected EMU0202, however, that produced too much unwanted mains related hum. 

I already added a solder tab on the back of the front panel as an option to make the connection possible. When I soldered a wire to it, and connected the other end to a solder lug I added to one of the supports for the main potmeter to connect the two GND's together, it solved the hum issue completely. But now the instrument is earth grounded through the EMU to the laptop, which by the USB-C cable to the power supply is connected to earth GND.

The other possible connection for the instrument to get earth GND connected is through a BNC cable to a CRT or DSO and that will connect it to earth GND as well.

The original SG505 has a switch to connect the common GND to earth GND. If you also want to have the option to separate or connect the enclosure from earth GND, you could add a toggle switch to the back of the unit, or a sliding switch on the side. I'm undecided at this moment, but it's easy to add afterwards.

Result after the fixes

After all these mishaps and corrections, I wanted to share the first FFT from the generator, hot of the press. Note that I was able to quickly trim the second Harmonic visually into oblivion (0.00002%).

Result, no hum, no noise. 

Unfortunately, with H2 visually gone, H3 is now sticking out, but the rest of the harmonics are virtually invisible. 

During my testing with the updated power supply and mounting everything on the front panel a few times while fixing things, I noticed that I could no longer adjust the H2 harmonic as low as it was above. There is now also some hum visible, so when the new supply arrives, I will look at it again in more detail. 

Just for reference, my DIY version of the generator seems a bit better than the original one. Albeit using different measurement tools.

I'm almost there...

Building the final version

Happy with all these results, I uploaded the updated power supply V4 and the updated front panel to PCBWay for production. They gracefully continue to sponsor my activities, despite my screw-ups.😇

It will usually take about a week for the shipment to arrive.

I got the front panel, but made a mistake ordering the power supply board, so that will come in another week. See the dedicated Blog post for that part of the project here. 

In the meantime, I started working on the various BOM's, including an off-board one for the front panel parts. They, and all other information will be on my Github site that I will publish when I'm done. 

I have been using a lot of parts I already had, but needed to find parts that I could put on the BOM so others can order them. Here are some details for the off-board parts.

Output signal potmeter

One of the challenges was to find a potmeter for the output volume with a switch, that is activated at the end of the rotation. Most of the ones I found switch at the beginning, at 50 degrees according to the specifications.

I put one together with parts I had from a previous life, and that looks like this:

These potmeters come in separate segments you can take apart so you can create stereo versions, or use two different resistor values, and optionally also add a switch segment. I was able to turn the switch segment around to get the right action. To have the switching indent at the end of the range is more natural, because the switch fixes the generator output by a resistor divider just below the maximum output. This is also how the original SG505 has it. I put a potmeter in the BOM with a SPDT switch, but it will be activated in the beginning of the rotation. If you are able to find a potmeter with the switch activated at the end of the rotation, let me know in a PM so I can share it with others.

Mounting the main board

You can add all the components on the main board, but do not solder the 12V regulator in position yet. The height of the regulator to the board needs to be determined first. 

It's now time to mount the main potmeter and the reduction unit using metal brackets to fix the position of the axel in the middle of the hole of the front panel. Add a solder lug on the screw that fixes the reduction unit with the screw hole that has an exposed ring on the bottom of the PCB. The is the one closest to output on/off switch connector. Lightly tighten the screws and nuts and try the position of the whole contraption with the hole in the front panel. When you're happy, see if you can tighten the nuts while the PCB is still on position. If not, you need to carefully slide the PCB a few cm out of the enclosure slots such that you have access to the screws on the bottom. Fix everything and try it again.

When that is done, you should have the main board flush to the front panel, with the potmeter axel in the middle of the hole. 

To mount and fix the 12V regulator, we need to drill a 3.5mm hole in the side of the enclosure to give it a good heat sink. Position a sticker on the inside of the enclosure about in the position where the regulator will be. My hole was drilled in the middle of the third rib from the bottom. The hole should be drilled the middle of that cooling rib, because the head of the screw need to be in the center between the ribs. Position the main PCB in position, such that it will be flush with the front panel. Put the LM317 in position after you have clipped a few mm from the legs so they don't connect to the bottom. With the regulator inserted in the PCB, note the position of the hole and mark it on the sticker. Use a caliper to measure the distance from the front edge of the enclosure to where you marked the center of the hole of the LM317. Transfer that measurement to the outside and mark the position in the middle of the rib. Remove the main board and drill a 3.5mm hole in the enclosure. Grate the hole on the inside so there is no burr. Slide the main board in position again, and maneuver the hole of the LM317 to align with the hole in the enclosure. use a screw and nut to position the LM317 and solder one or all of the pins to the regulator when it is in the correct position. Remove the screw and carefully slide the main board out of the enclosure. You can now permanently solder all three pins to the main board. 

Important! When you will fully mount the regulator later, (not now) you have to use an isolation pad (mica or silicon) and a plastic isolation ring to make sure the metal pad of the LM317 is fully isolated from the enclosure, or you will have a dead short of the supply rails.

Fixing the OLED display to the front panel

Do not mount any of the other parts to the front panel yet. It allows you to handle it and the fragile display easier. 

I first used a black permanent marker to color the inside of the rectangle in the panel pitch black. Do that from the inside so you don't smear ink on the face side. 

Make sure you can power the display from the main board while positioning it so you can see where the text is, relative to the viewing area. It will be virtually impossible to position it correctly otherwise. If your main generator board is not inside the enclosure with the 12V regulator cooled by it, you have to use an external heat sink, because the regulator will get too hot otherwise.

Using glue

You can try to glue the OLED display in position to the new front panel. You need to add some glue (not instant glue) sparingly(!) so it does not flow into the visible area when you gently(!) press the two together. Add the glue on the front panel backside. Power the display so you can see what needs to be visible and position it horizontally, put it in position, and keep it there until the glue is dry enough.  I first tried that, but abandoned it.

What not to do

In my earlier glue attempt, I used a washing cloth clamp to secure the OLED display in position when letting the glue harden. We'll that seemed to have destroyed the display because it turned black. I first thought that the clamp must have pressed too hard and damaged the flexible cable connection between the glass and the PCB. I had no spares so needed to order a new display. 

Well, after the new display's arrived, none of them worked. Tongue in cheek and red faced I have to admit that it wasn't the display. While trouble shooting, I measured the SDA and CLK signals with my DSO and I measured 5V on the display PCB with my DMM, so I started on a rat race trying to find the issue. After a while searching, it turned out that the crimping of the GND wire on one side of the interconnect cable was bad and must have disconnected while I was clamping to let the glue dry. Although visually the crimping looked OK and I did not look further, but searched for other causes. Long story short, what I did wrong was that I connected the GND of my DMM to a GND pin on the main PCB, in effect bypassing the bad GND wire connection when measuring the 5V. I did the same with my DSO, but that still showed the presence of signals so I did not look further. I replaced the GND wire in the extension cable and did a better job crimping the connecter and all is well again.

In hindsight, it's probably safer to use some normal Scotch tape to keep the OLED display in position while the glue is drying. Or, don't use the glue method at all. 

Using Scotch tape

I ended up using Scotch tape to secure the display, I used electrical tape earlier but that's too flexible and the display sagged down a bit. 

In the picture below, I used another PCB on top of the front panel so I could position the OLED board better. In my case, the distance between the top of the OLED board and the top of the front panel was 20.78mm. You can easily check the horizontal adjustment that way by sliding the display horizontally into position. Because I used clamps to press the two boards together, I could rather easily adjust the vertical and horizontal position of the OLED display within the rectangle opening. To do that you have to power the OLED display from the main board so you can see where the text is.

After positioning the display with one piece of tape while positioning it, I used some more Scotch tape to finally secure it in position. Do not cover the onboard regulator with tape. I used a piece of double sided foam tape to bridge the distance to the front panel en the OLED display where the connector is. It should help with the stress put on the rather flimsy OLED board sandwich with the glass display when you plug the connector in.

It does not look very pretty, but does the job and is not permanent.

Assembling the front panel

Do not fasten the front panel to the enclosure just yet. First mount the switches with their cable harnesses already in place, with the solder ends shrink-wrapped for sturdiness. Ask me why. Mount the Vernier potmeter and the volume potmeter. Solder an about 8-10cm thick ground wire to the solder pad on the back of the front panel, with the wire going upwards. 

Mount the rotary switch into position with the connected wires on the top side, away from the main board.

Get the front panel roughly in position to the enclosure with the main board already in place. Solder the other side of the ground wire to a solder lug you should have installed on one of the mounting screws of the potmeter delay unit.  Take one of the screws that have a ground ring on the bottom so there is a solid ground connection. Check with an Ohm meter for only a few Ohms max. between the front panel exposed holes to one of the GND test pins on the main board and the outer ring of the BNC connector.

You can now connect the wire harnesses from the 0/-10dB switch to their locations. The wiggling room is very tight which is why it should be clear by now that you should not have fully mounted the front panel yet.  Then connect the output on/off switch connector. At this point, make sure the switch operation is correct, because you can still turn them 180 degrees to fix that. The other connections are not critical, so you can now mount the front panel into position with the two screws going into the bottom half of the enclosure.

You can now add the ring and nut for the BNC connector and tighten it lightly such that the main board is flush against the front panel. You should have tried this position already when you mounted the voltage regulator to the side of the enclosure such that you don't put too much force on the leads of the LM317. With the front panel mounted, you can now also mount the LM317 into position. Remember to not forget the isolation! Double check again that the metal tab is indeed isolated from the enclosure.

You can now connect all the other wire harness connectors and add the knobs into position.

Calibration procedure

Now it's time to add power and check all controls and that the switches are in the correct working position.

By now, you should have a sinewave output and the counter should show the frequency. If all the controls work correctly, it's time to let the unit warm-up for at least 15 minutes. After that, it's time to finely adjust the 44V main rail, while measuring the voltage on the main board using the +Vreg and -Vreg test points. Adjust the rail voltage with the trimmer on the main power supply board.

With that done, you can now verify the voltages of the +17V and -17V rails. They should be within 0.5V of each other and 17V +/- 100mV. If not, you can change the resistors that are setting the voltage for the TL431's. If you installed the optional trimmers, you can set both rails as close as you can to +/-17V and equal to each other.

To adjust the 2nd harmonic adjustment, you need to use an FFT to see the effect. With the unit now sufficiently warmed-up and the rails adjusted, you can trim the 2nd H trimmer for a minimum height or dB value. You probably have to use some averaging of the measurement to see it well.

Now we can calibrate the 0dB output level. Select the 0dB output level with the switch. Select the Cal position switch setting on the output potmeter. Connect the output of the generator through a 600 Ohm in-line terminator to a DMM in the AC mode. Select the 1KHz frequency on the generator, because the DMM will most likely be precise at this frequency. Adjust RV2, the 0dBm adj. trimmer for a reading of 0.77459Vrms or 0dB.

Verify that the -10dB output switch setting results in about 0.24494Vrms or -10dB. 

Change the output value potmeter out of the calibration setting, and verify that you can adjust the output from just over 1.0Vrms down to 300mVrms.

With a 1.000KHz frequency output in the X1K range, and the Freq Vernier in the middle, verify that the Freq Vernier setting has a range of at least +/- 10Hz from the set frequency or 20Hz in total.

Verify that switching to the X100 range shows a frequency of 100Hz +/- 5%. Switch to the X10 range and verify that the frequency is 10Hz +/- 5%. Switch to the X1K setting and verify that the frequency is 100KHz +/- 5%. If not in that range, you can change the value of C19 and C26, but make sure they are matched in value.

That concludes the calibration and verification of the unit.

Final steps

In the meantime, the new power supply boards arrived and I built one up. The details can be found here.

I now have a fully functioning setup and will show some more measurements soon.

Final results

After a complete calibration and verification, below is the final result. The cover is on, and there is no difference with the frequency counter on or off.

H2 is 0.000048%.
H3 is 0.00031%
H5 is 0.000025%
H6 is 0.000024%

Total THD is 0.00033%, THD+N is 0.0024%
No mains related hum.

I think this is not bad at all, and using my tools, it seems even better than the original.

It took a while, but in the end, I'm very happy with the result.

I added this project to the Shared Project on the PCBWay website so others can easily participate:
Shared Project DIY SG505
Shared Project DIY SG505 Power Supply

Because I think this is an interesting instrument to have on your bench, I also added it to the yearly PCBWay contest that will give it some more visibility.

Here is the setup on my instrument bench:

The top shelf has the actual instruments. From left to right: the DC Dynamic Load, the SG505, my frequency counter, and the GPSDO on top of the master clock, the rest is out of sight) BTW, these are all instruments that are listed on my Blog. Below that shelf is room for the supporting stuff, like the power supplies.


There is a Github project with all the information you need to build this instrument.

https://github.com/paulvee/DIY-Rebuild-of-the-SG505

Enjoy!