Category: Availability

  • New Oddball Arrivals!

    We love to re-use, upcycle, recycle, restore, re-invigorate!

    We scour the planet, rescuing unique-looking cathode-ray tube based devices from certain destruction. We have oodles of oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, capacitor testers, audio monitors, medical instruments, television broadcast equipment, engine analyzers, and so much more!

    Check out these newly arrived devices, just waiting to become Oscilloclocks:

    Fukuda CS-1A Cardio-Scope

    A bed-side heart rate monitor, used in hospitals of yester-yore.

    By default fitted with a long-persistence 5″ CRT and amber filter.

    A colourful addition to any bedroom!

    HP 8414A Polar Display

    This early 1970’s Hewlett Packard green-screened device will take your living room straight back to the Space Age! The display is rack-mounted by default, serving up a full NASA look-and-feel.

    And removed from the rack, the 8414A is as cute as a button! It’s the perfect size for your desk, coffee table, or display case.

    And for the truly serious NASA enthusiast, we might rack-mount the display next to a blue-phosphor HP 8412A Phase-Magnitude display. A dual-display visual virtuoso!

    Cleaning, restoration, and modifications

    These devices are original and deliciously dirty! We’ll do our best to clean, polish, wax, and otherwise restore every surface as much as practical.

    If you really want, we’ll re-paint, re-plate, re-finish, or re-anything – to get you the right look & feel.

    We can modify with cast acrylic side panels, custom-turned wooden knobs, or brass bezels. We can do anything, in theory. Warning: diamond-studded escutcheons do tend to be rather expensive.

    Minimal invasion vs. Full conversion

    Our default recommendation is to bypass all the existing circuitry with a full set of Oscilloclock boards that drive the CRT directly. This ‘full conversion’ approach gives best performance, maximum reliability, and allows us to offer a full 3-year warranty on all components (except the CRT).

    But some devices are, miraculously, in partial or even full working condition when discovered! If the device can be electrically restored, we can apply a ‘minimal invasion, maximum re-use’ policy – keeping the existing circuitry alive, and installing only what’s needed to control the display. While reliability and performance suffer, this allows us to keep the original controls mostly functional, for the ultimate in twiddling pleasure!

    Stripping and weight reduction

    Many vintage devices are heavy! For owners who are less fastidious about maintaining internal originality, we can strip out unnecessary components and circuitry to lighten up the final product significantly.

    Some owners take this option, but additionally request that we retain every wire, board, and screw in a separate box for them to admire. We applaud their fascination in their device’s history and its engineering culture!


    If you like the look of these new-found beauties, let us know. If you don’t, let us know. If you have your own beloved device to convert, let us know.

    Heck, just let us know!

  • [Update April 2023]

    Hi! The Oscilloclock Lab is still on a pandemic-induced hiatus, for all the good reasons explained in last year’s announcement. For now the Contact form remains closed and we can only take enquiries from existing clients.

    But good news – the constraints are being resolved, one by one, and Oscillolife will resume – eventually. We have oodles of backlogged ideas, heaps of ambition, and of course a nice stock of gorgeous CRTs and vintage scopes to make use of.

    So stay tuned, and read on!

  • Recent worldly events have taken a huge toll on the crafts and maker community globally. Sadly, the Oscilloclock Lab has not been immune.

    It is with a heavy heart that I announce that Oscilloclock will be on official hiatus until further notice, at very least until the end of 2022. We won’t be accepting any further orders or enquiries, but any repair work for existing Oscilloclock patrons will continue to be handled with great passion and gusto.

    This was a painful decision to make, but we are battling a perfect storm: extreme parts shortages, high shipping costs and long delays, a suddenly weakened yen (we are Japan-based), and an immediate need for your devoted cathode-ray engineer to focus on his day job and skills training as he reorganizes to go “back to office”.

    I’m hopeful that in the coming 6-12 months, many of these factors will go back to ‘normal’, and we can formally resume our beloved cathode-ray activities! Stay subscribed to the site for future updates.

    All the best from the entire Oscillofamily!

  • Tek 520A VectorClock!

    Television broadcasting has switched from analog to digital – and if you’ve got a nice HD TV, you’ll be loving it!

    But with that transition came the death of an entire breed of equipment – the Vectorscope.

    Tektronix 1420 Vectorscope

    Just to be clear, these are not monitors for playing ancient video games using vector graphics!!  No, the Vectorscope is (was) used to give a delightful view of the ‘vectors’ inside an NTSC or PAL video signal, describing the color components of the signal.

    If you were lucky enough to be a TV broadcast technician, you’d use your Vectorscope all the time to check your vectors’ amplitudes and phase. You would even give your vectors names like ‘Jack’ and ‘Jill’, and check up on their relationships daily, just as any responsible guardian would!

    But above all, you would marvel every single day at the beautiful hardware you were using, and the complex circuitry involved. Take a look at my Tektronix 526 Vectorscope, which has oodles of delicious tubes to heat my shop on a nice winter’s day:

    Tektronix 526 Vectorscope

    Well, it all went digital and there is no longer any need for analog color signal analysis. But dry your tears… There is something even better:

    Announcing the Tek 520A VectorClock

    This lovely Oscilloclock reincarnation of a Tektronix 520A, sold at Maker Faire Tokyo 2013, allows its new owner to forever relive the magic of NTSC, PAL and SECAM analog color.

    Tektronix 520A VectorClock - brilliant blend of the old and new!
    Tektronix 520A VectorClock – brilliant blend of the old and new!
    See more related videos on my YouTube channel

    The Tektronix 520A has a stunning built-in array of lights for illuminating the CRT graticules. By simply removing the bezel and external graticule, the Tek 520A morphs into a deliciously moody timepiece!

    Tek 520A VectorClock - Glorious Glow

    Normally, I shun CRTs with built-in graticules. Their lines detract dreadfully from an Oscilloclock image. But here! The Tek 520A’s internal vectorscope graticule is round! What better way to accentuate a Circle Graphics driven display?

    Silky smooth Circle Graphics on steroids!
    Silky smooth Circle Graphics on steroids!

    Under the Cover…

    The Tek 520A is solid-state. It can be left on 24 hours a day and not fail for many years. This makes it a perfect match for my Maximum Re-use + Minimum Invasion policy: nearly all existing circuits – HV power supply, deflection amplifiers, blanking – are put to use, with just a few (reversible) tweaks.

    Tek 520A VectorClock - Maximum re-use, Minimum invasion

    The Oscilloclock Power Board is mounted neatly next to its own dedicated low voltage supply. A small relay board can be seen below, for controlling the Tek’s main power unit. All cabling is HV-tolerant and neatly fastened with high-temperature cable ties.

    Tek 520A VectorClock - Control Board mount and cabling

    Of the more interesting reversible ‘tweaks’ needed for this retrofit, here we see a delightful little trimpot pretending to be a transistor. Quite an act, I would say!

    Tek 520A VectorClock - an unorthodox transistor replacement

    Like what you see?

    If you love big, looming Vectorscopes and need to have one put to good use in your living room, Contact me. And be sure to subscribe from the front page, to track all the other exotic experiments and unique timepieces targeted for 2014!


    Credits to [Quinn] in Canada, for providing the initial inspiration for the Tek 520A VectorClock project!

  • Luxury 2013 edition Model 1-S!

    This 2013 edition hand-crafted scope clock exudes sophistication and elegance, to match the most refined interior – be it the boardroom or the bedroom. The 1-S boasts solid brass fittings custom-turned in Japan, ultra-transparent cast acrylic housings, and a decadent harness with chrome connectors and gold-plated pins from France. The brand-new old stock CRT was selected especially for its gentle white-blue trace and extremely long persistence, to provide a relaxing and refreshing viewing experience.

    2013 luxury edition Model 1-S scope clock from Oscilloclock.com

    This particular unit went on display at Maker Faire Tokyo 2013, and was sold within several hours. Enquire via the Contact page for pricing and availability of the Model 1-S and other exclusive Oscilloclocks.

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