Simple Transistor Curve Tracer for Oscilloscopes.

[@Neverforget71324]

Going to college in Belgium, I used to buy the Elektuur magazine at a newspaper stand in the train station and then read it on the train home. I'd try to figure out how the circuits worked BEFORE reading the article. It used to be quite a challenge, but these magazines taught me so much about electronics, way before all this information became readily available on the internet. Good times. Great memories.

[@EdEditz]

LOL, then we're neighbours. I also bought the Elektuur when I was at school. I always cycled past a book shop and I'd look at the months issue and if it had something in it I liked then I bought the magazine. I have quite a few binders full of Elektuur schematics from those days.

[@Neverforget71324]

@@EdEditz I went to university in Ghent, but I have lived in the US since 1990.

[@EdEditz]

@@Neverforget71324 Oh cool!

[@vladnickul]

Old magazines are the best.lots of diy projects in them usefull ones too! Today they are mostly commercial platforms tones of commercials, and the projects are around this line Lts build this! 1 need to have a dev kit form X amimed at students costs 1k€ .... I had once a collection of electronics magazines from Russia, they had projects like a 100Mhz analog scope, transcivers,computer clones+ misc like memory upgrades stereo audio cards , TV stuff audio transceivers and so much more. One can find super nice projects in the magazines from the '90 and back.

[@EdEditz]

That's correct. You can still find the old magazines on Archive.org.

[@MB-st7be]

I found this circuit 20 years ago and it fascinated me, I finally found it again today and your video, amazing!

[@EdEditz]

That is so cool! It's still a useful circuit :)

[@RJHElias]

Thank for sharing with us. I am very happy with this 👍

[@EdEditz]

Thank you! I'm glad you find it so helpful.

[@pentachronic]

This is a very clever circuit. The ramp generator is just beautifully elegant.

[@elletronicca5933]

Nice circuit. Simple and efficient. Thanks sharing.

[@EdEditz]

Your welcome :)

[@drtidrow]

Neat, gonna have to play with this. Analog scopes generally work better for x/y mode... which is why I have both types. :-)

[@EdEditz]

Yes they do. It should work great! :)

[@Todestelzer]

Average mode should do the trick I think. But I will slow down the measurement.

[@warrencurry874]

EdEditz, this is an excellent presentation for a fully functional curve tracer. Been wanting to build one of these for a long time. Many thanks. WA9KZY

[@EdEditz]

Thank you very much! I'm glad this video helped you out :)

[@cremvustila]

This is great! Thanks for sharing!

[@EdEditz]

No problem. Glad you like it!

[@esnam6557]

Very helpful and neat. Thank you

[@EdEditz]

Thank you! Glad you liked it! :)

[@Jdvc-yd5tx]

Wonderful curves - for the silicon transistor. 😊 The germanium looks like a mess though, no wonder they are preferred in electric guitar pedals, look at all the distortion and non linearity! ⚛

[@EdEditz]

Yes that was a PNP transistor but at the time of recording this video I didn't know that. I hadn't experimented with PNP's yet. This circuit only works with NPN's.

[@coxsj]

Neat! thanks for sharing!

[@ohmedarick1]

Thank you Very useful.

[@EdEditz]

Thank you! I'm glad you found it useful. :)

[@elraymaker]

Gracias !!!

[@alexharijanto9137]

excellent ...thank you

[@ulisesaguilar4392]

very nice information ED I will get back letter

[@ItStartsWithAStep]

I'll be honest ed this went over my head but it looks pretty cool what's it actually used for? Felt very relaxed watching this for some reason thumbs up x

[@EdEditz]

Haha well as long as you liked it :) It shows how a transistor reacts if you put different amounts of current through it. For electronics nerds like myself, this is useful information if you're building circuits with transistors but if you're not into electronics you should just skip this video ^____^

[@ulisesaguilar4392]

thks a lot , I will give a try

[@robertw1871]

Would most likely be better on a cheap cathode ray analog scope, nice simple implementation that most could build in an afternoon to make something useful.

[@EdEditz]

Absolutely. That would be perfect for this curve tracer.

[@Lutzki140]

JFETS kan het niet uitlezen, geldt dat ook voor V-Fets? Heb je ook een onderdelenlijst? Is wel leuk om na te bouwen!

[@EdEditz]

Nee hij doet alleen bi-polar transistors. De gewone NPN PNP dingen. Ik heb er een komplete blogpost over geschreven met het originele artikel erin die je zo kunt downloaden. Dit staat op mijn persoonlijke website hier: www.eddybergman.com/2017/06/

[@nutsnproud6932]

I found the whole magazine PDF in English after a search for "elektor 301 circuits pdf"

[@EdEditz]

Oh I see the original link I posted isn't working anymore. Can you post the one you found?

[@EdEditz]

Nevermind, I already found the article myself. I made an image of it and posted it underneath the article for everyone to download.

[@2626sylver2626]

I've downloaded 3 times and the quality of the image on pdf is veeeeery poor I will try to search this diagram on internet

[@EdEditz]

I've added a link to the original text and schematics in English on Archive.org. The link is in the description. The file from Mediafire is in very high resolution (I checked it again today) so if you get it in low resolution there's something wrong on your side. I've had no complaints about it in all the time this video has been up.

[@ulisesaguilar4392]

Im getting only like 3 tracers

[@ronwade2206]

We did this in old marantz and sylvania stuff, realized there was no saving these things and went mp3.

[@EdEditz]

Very wise :)

[@VoteBikety]

good work but how to make PNPs version ??

[@EdEditz]

Yes, that was what I was wondering too. The text said just swap the NPN's for PNP's and vise versa but that didn't work for me. I don't know the answer.

[@pentachronic]

FYI, I believe I have both an NPN and a PNP version of this circuit working in LTSPICE. You have to swap around the bases of T6 and TUT as well as move R8 to T6. In essence the step is now driving the top transistor and the ramp is driving the bottom transistor (TUT). TUT.c connects to GND. I will share the LTSPICE files if anyone has a place to upload. I have alos added a blanking circuit for XYZ oscilloscope option.

[@Inkreptile]

@@pentachronic did you upload it anywhere in the end ? I have a xyz capable scope and that would be very usefull :) as for hosting files google drive can do that just have to make it public so you don't have to give consent to every person who requests to load the link hope this helps

[@sado2364]

Hello can you share the circuit

[@EdEditz]

Link is in the description to the complete article with circuit schematics

[@ulisesaguilar4392]

good after noon Sir a question , where do conect the scope grown

[@EdEditz]

The scope ground is under the 330 Ohm resistor. That black upsidedown "T" symbol is the ground. Or you could say the Collector of the Transisitor Under Test (TUT) is the ground

[@whatever3041]

Hi, I have a question, why do the lines get shorter as we move up the trace?

[@EdEditz]

That's a good one! I have no idea. :)

[@MoonDragn77]

My college days were about 30 years ago so I can't be 100% sure but I think the shorter curve is related to your peak wattage of the transistor. Because you are increasing both the current and voltage, the trace gets shorter.

[@KissAnalog]

Amazing circuit - very cool!

[@EdEditz]

Thank you! I thought so too :)

[@basstard13]

Sorry for the noob question but can you use this for JFET curve tracing? Thank you in advance

[@EdEditz]

You know, I'm not sure. I'll give it a try and let you know.

[@EdEditz]

I tried it but no, it doesn't work with JFETs. It seems the step generator in the circuit won't work with JFETs.

[@basstard13]

@@EdEditz Thanks a lot!

[@EdEditz]

@@basstard13 No problem :)

[@whatever3041]

JFET's need a triangular input signal for curve tracing.