Tag Archives: dual beam

British Beauties

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New stash!

These beautiful vintage British* CRTs have travelled the world over the last half century. And like homing pigeons, they have found their way at last to the Oscilloclock Lab!

From left: SE5F/P31, DHM9-11, E10-12GP, SE4DP31, SE5F/P7. Brands: Brimar, GEC, Valvo

Here, each piece of glorious glassware will receive the attention they have craved for years. They will be cleaned, rejuvenated, and start their latter-day lives performing retro electronic miracles for loving new owners from all over the world.
* In fact, one of these CRTs was not made by a British manufacturer. Can you spot which?

From Unloved to Loved

This SE4DP31 is brand new, complete with protective paper sticker that was attached at the factory to protect the front glass. It’s never been loved. Such a waste, and we will certainly rectify that, as we have done previously for similar CRTs:

Unloved…
Doubly loved!

Two is better than One

These bad boys are dual-beam CRTs. They have two electron guns and two sets of deflection plates, meaning they can display two completely independent figures at the same time.

Valvo E10-12GP
GEC DHM9-11

We used one of these in the custom Aftershock Clock, to overlay standard clock faces against a map hewn entirely from Lissajous figures. The intensity (brightness) and positioning of each beam can be independently adjusted to get the overlay effect just right!

But importantly – the innards look so cool!

Feeling Blue?

We’ve talked before about rare blue phosphor finds. The newly landed Brimar SE5F/P7 will one day boast both presence and persistence:

Presence. A strong physicality, tempered by a dappled blue light ambience
Persistence. A visual expression of impactful new, awash with memories and traces of old

With thanks…

We dedicate this post and the promise of seeing these CRTs reincarnated to [Atif]. Many thanks for helping these pigeons find their roost!

Are you in a state of cathode-ray rapture? Check out other CRT related posts, and see the Gallery to see examples of vintage glassware objects given new leases on life!

Quake News!

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Fake news – a common keyword these days. Fortunately, Oscilloclocks do not display fake news. But wouldn’t it be handy to see quake news on an exotic scope clock? This is the challenge [Atif] gave me – and one year and many grey hairs later, here is the result: The AfterShock Clock!

This custom-crafted Oscilloclock Core Duo assembly is a unique first in several ways:

  1. It’s the first scope clock ever that pulls in and displays real earthquake data!
  2. It’s the first scope clock ever that puts a dual-beam CRT to good use – one beam for the clock display, and the other for the earthquake and map overlay!

Earthquake display

The AfterShock Clock’s WiFi module connects at regular intervals to two public APIs (servers) to collect the latest earthquake events. It then feeds earthquakes to the clock’s quake gun controller, rotating quakes every 30 seconds. Cool!

(Note: flickering is due to camera effects and is not visible to the human eye)

Of course, there is the usual wide variety of standard clock screens to cycle through! The quake map’s beam is automatically dimmed for most of the screens, giving a soft ‘watermark’ effect.

Dual-beam CRT

The E10-12GH CRT used in this clock is certainly not mundane!

Beautiful spiral PDA lets you really see inside the cavity!

Nothing beats a dual-gun CRT for intricacy… (except a quad- or pentuple-gun CRT!)

Oscilloclock Core Duo

Atif wanted to create his own case, so he initially asked for an Oscilloclock Core. But currently a single Core set does not provide control, deflection, and blanking circuits to drive TWO electron guns… So he had two choices:

  1. Wait an eternity for me to redesign the boards to fully support dual beams.
  2. Get started now! Simply put two Core assemblies together, with some degree of inter-control and removing any redundant circuits.

Atif chose the latter – and the Oscilloclock Core Duo was born!

WiFi setup

Setting up the WiFi connection is easy – just connect a device to the clock’s administration SSID and pull up the admin page. (To foil any would-be hackers out there, the admin SSID is available only for the first 5 minutes after power is applied.)

Then, access the admin URL and configure the connection to your home router:

There are a million other advanced settings to tweak things such as quake polling interval, quake magnitude filters, maximum quake age before purge, and other geeky aspects….

Oh, I forgot to mention – the clock also synchronizes time against an NTP server, eliminating the need for a GPS module.

Like what you see?

Do you go for electron guns? idolize intricate electrode assemblies? Have a filament fetish? Or just want some quake news? This kind of clock might fit the bill. Let me know!