Badly Photocopied Manuals! - UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum

Chris55000 · 26th May 2017, 7:33 pm

Hi!

In these days when most libraries have got excellent copiers for public use and even home scanners are quite capable of scanning data to at least readable quality, why have we ended up with so much atrocious photocopies of vintage data?

The worst and most notorious example I have seen of this is the one Keysight offer for their 1715a 'scope, the circuit diagrams were totally unreadable!!!

Unfortunately Mauritron are also one of the chief offenders of unreadable data, it got to the point where they refused to take any more orders from me because I constantly sent back parcels of black smudges, and their custom of rubber-stamping every page, sometimes obscuring vital PCB layout or circuit-diagram details didn't endear them to me either!!

What I'd like to know is, where and how were they copied to all end up in this state? - were the originals all shipped away to China, etc., or it it likely they simply bought a cheap copier when they began their esplanade and never serviced it?

Can anyone comment?

Fortunately now consumer products aren't serviced by high-street and independent repairers anymore it's getting a bit easier to get hold of originals or quality photocopies!

It's always been my belief that nasty faults are found much easier with an original manual to work from!

Chris Williams

Nickthedentist · 26th May 2017, 7:42 pm

I have to say that Paul Stenning's DVD of diagrams is amazingly well done when you take into account the age and condition of some of the original paperwork. Incredible value for money too.

Chris55000 · 26th May 2017, 7:46 pm

PS!

Do the provisions of the "Sale Of Goods Act 1975" that state "Goods sold new must be fit for the purpose for which they are sold" apply to purchased technical data?

Certainly if I paid £50 for an oscilloscope service manual and got back the usual disgusting photocopy that's all dense black smudges and blotches everywhere I'd say it isn't fit for the purpose it was sold!

Chris Williams

McMurdo · 26th May 2017, 7:48 pm

quite possibly copies of copies.....any copy being preferrable to none at all! In the days before PDFs there was nothing more exciting than getting those brown envelopes which you hoped would magically relieve you of your frustration at a difficult fault! I suppose there's also the probability that a pdf has been scanned off a well-thumbed paper copy or maybe even off a fax. I do remember one manufacturer (maybe Sanyo UK) sending me faxes of the relevant diagrams with a note that the full manual would be chargeable but that single pages could be sent free....but before he went to the fax machine 'have I just checked C34?' or some other golden tip.

It's a mixed blessing. I remember fondly the old days where SEME might say 'sorry the original manual is obsolete but we can photostat our copy if that would help?' but then again we didn't have the gift of the downloadable PDFs as supplied by this forum. These, BTW, are a snip, given you could easily pay £30 for a colour TV manual back in the day.

Chris55000 · 26th May 2017, 7:49 pm

Hi!

I'm certainly not casting aspersions on quality products like Paul's dvds - these are an outstanding example of what can be achieved when the proper care is taken with original documents!

On a side note, this is why I find my SPlan software so good - it can be used just as easily and quickly to draw out a thermionic-valve circuit to post on this forum as a transistorised/IC-based one - I have a project in hand to provide some Robuk diagrams, for which the original data is hard to come by - (a colleague has a copy of Paul's dvds and he said he didn't see Robuk on there!)

Chris Williams

stevehertz · 26th May 2017, 7:53 pm

I share your frustration Chris

. My present passion is late 70s/early 80s hifi receivers

. Most of the service manuals available for such are frustratingly unreadable when you want to actually read the value of a cap or a resistor

. I don't know what the answer is. It beggars belief that those who created the scans from the original documents chose to use low resolution for them - or to use copies of copies..

. Too many times I find myself referring to circuit diagrams that are unreadable down to component level.

Actually, doesn't this situation create a commercial opening for an enterprising individual? to create a database of GUARANTEED READABLE, useable, service documents, where every document is guaranteed readable down to component level, where unreadable or even vaguely unreadable documents are not kept. That'd do it for me. Nothing worse than finding a source for a much needed service document only to find that it is unreadable, effectively useless.

.

TonyDuell · 26th May 2017, 8:20 pm

Well obviously I'd rather have a clear, readable manual than an unreadable one. But given the choice between an unreadable (in this sense) manual and none at all, I'll take the former.

OK, so you can't read the component values. But you know there is a capacitor (say) between ground and pin 17 of that IC. So find it on the board, and see what the value is. If it has blown up that's more of a problem, but even then having an idea of the basic circuit design is surely better than nothing?

As an aside, I personally prefer paper manuals. I find them easier to read and easier to use on the bench. But given the choice between an electronic copy and no manual at all, I of course pick the electronic copy.

G8HQP Dave · 26th May 2017, 9:09 pm

It may be that when asked to produce a 'fresh' copy, some admin staff just find it quicker and easier to use the photocopier rather than the computer printer. Hence you end up with 9th generation copies. This doesn't just apply to technical manuals: GP surgeries around here ask new patients to fill in a multi-page form which was clearly last printed fresh from a computer in the 1980s. As most photocopy generations were probably done on the same machine it is not only faint and smudged but also geometrically challenged.

G6Tanuki · 26th May 2017, 9:30 pm

Those who are complaining: I guess you've never had to work from a tenth-generation planfile-sized "Diazo" copy of a draughtsman's 1880s work [the original having been lost sometime during World War 1] ...

If several different-generation instances of the same diagram can be sourced, with modern software it's not that hard to reconstitute a remarkably-good composite - if you have the necessary software and really understand how to drive it. This is being done all the time for old movies. Problem is it takes time, and time's money. Would you be prepared to pay for an hour of a skilled photoreconstruction-tech's time [ say £100 +VAT ] to scan/rescale/overlay/merge/de-alias/despeckle a single circuit-diagram??

The Philpott · 26th May 2017, 11:38 pm

Chris, i can definitely sympathise.

An awful lot of images have been microfiched over the years then reconstituted onto paper...and some of them have gone through this process more than once.

Lost and found episodes of 'Hancock's Half Hour' have been cheerfully distributed despite the fact that only 4 out of every 10 syllables are audible. But that's my own hobby horse.

crackle · 27th May 2017, 8:05 am

Hi Chris
You obviously have not scanned a torn stained and faded service manual from the early half of the 1900's. A lot of work is needed to clean the images and present them in a clear form. Or at least there is with the basic software I use for the service manuals I have put on my KB Museum site.
If everybody interested in vintage radio took the effort to scan the service manuals they are hoarding, there may be some better quality ones available.
Mike

Maarten · 27th May 2017, 10:52 am

Still, some people think that achieving an optimal scan is done by setting the software to 1 bit, 150 dpi and pressing start (the modern equivalent of badly photocopied manuals). Even for those who don't know how to edit or don't want to invest the hours, better results can be achieved by using a higher resolution and grey tones.

ukcol · 27th May 2017, 10:54 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by crackle

If everybody interested in vintage radio took the effort to scan the service manuals they are hoarding, there may be some better quality ones available.

Agreed.

I cleaned up a copy of the manufacturers manual (kindly supllied by Merlinmaxwell) for the HMV 650 & 655 which came out at a 3.74MB file! Someone more experienced than me could probably get its size down without losing definition. Perhaps Paul Stenning may be interested for a future version of the data DVD?

G8HQP Dave · 27th May 2017, 10:57 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

Problem is it takes time, and time's money. Would you be prepared to pay for an hour of a skilled photoreconstruction-tech's time [ say £100 +VAT ] to scan/rescale/overlay/merge/de-alias/despeckle a single circuit-diagram??

Amateurs do it for free. See JR500S.html and JR500Scircuit.gif. It took a lot more than an hour.

Station X · 27th May 2017, 11:06 am

This puts me in a dilemma.

I have a Westminster set, no service data is available from VRSD and there's a poor copy of the circuit on The Radio Museum website.

Stuck to the inside of the set is an original printed copy of the circuit. However it's stained (damp), charred (close to hot components) and torn. Attempting to remove it would undoubtedly damage it, so all I can do is photograph it in situ.

So do I upload what I have to this site and/or The Radio Museum and risk getting comments about the poor quality, or do I wait until I have time to redraw it using a drawing package which I'd have to learn to use? If the latter I'll probably never find the time, so it'll never appear.

ms660 · 27th May 2017, 11:10 am

Take a photo and post it up on this forum, nothing to lose.

Lawrence.

ThePillenwerfer · 27th May 2017, 11:25 am

I think the complaints are justified if the documents in question and being SOLD with no prior warning as to the quality. Things that are available free are a different matter.

Station X · 27th May 2017, 11:48 am

Here it is:-

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/s...369#post947369

Station X · 27th May 2017, 1:39 pm

Some posts moved to this thread:-

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/s...d.php?t=136905

MotorBikeLes · 29th May 2017, 10:34 am

About 35 years ago, I had loads of out of print manuals, mostly scopes, and I used to photocopy and sell them.
I asked Philips (Cambridge) for an obsolete manual for a scope I had, and they leant me their workshop manual. They explained if they loaned or supplied obsolete manuals, customers would expect service to be available. I suggested if customers asked, they could say sorry, but they know a company which may be able to help. They agreed, and would send me the manual, I would copy it, and return the original. In fact I would retain that copy as my "master" from which to do further copies. I used to take great care, nothing annoys me more than buying a copy where all the pages are askew because the operator was too lazy to square them up first.
How easy it is today. My current Epson scanner can do magic! PDFs complete the magic, or I can use my ancient HP printers (A3 and A4, the latter with duplex facilities) for a convenient printed version.
Les.

26th May 2017, 7:33 pm	#1
Chris55000 Nonode Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Walsall Wood, Aldridge, Walsall, UK. Posts: 2,874	Badly Photocopied Manuals! Hi! In these days when most libraries have got excellent copiers for public use and even home scanners are quite capable of scanning data to at least readable quality, why have we ended up with so much atrocious photocopies of vintage data? The worst and most notorious example I have seen of this is the one Keysight offer for their 1715a 'scope, the circuit diagrams were totally unreadable!!! Unfortunately Mauritron are also one of the chief offenders of unreadable data, it got to the point where they refused to take any more orders from me because I constantly sent back parcels of black smudges, and their custom of rubber-stamping every page, sometimes obscuring vital PCB layout or circuit-diagram details didn't endear them to me either!! What I'd like to know is, where and how were they copied to all end up in this state? - were the originals all shipped away to China, etc., or it it likely they simply bought a cheap copier when they began their esplanade and never serviced it? Can anyone comment? Fortunately now consumer products aren't serviced by high-street and independent repairers anymore it's getting a bit easier to get hold of originals or quality photocopies! It's always been my belief that nasty faults are found much easier with an original manual to work from! Chris Williams __________________ It's an enigma, that's what it is! This thing's not fixed because it doesn't want to be fixed!

26th May 2017, 7:42 pm	#2
Nickthedentist Dekatron Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Oxford, UK. Posts: 17,864	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! I have to say that Paul Stenning's DVD of diagrams is amazingly well done when you take into account the age and condition of some of the original paperwork. Incredible value for money too.

26th May 2017, 7:46 pm	#3
Chris55000 Nonode Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Walsall Wood, Aldridge, Walsall, UK. Posts: 2,874	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! PS! Do the provisions of the "Sale Of Goods Act 1975" that state "Goods sold new must be fit for the purpose for which they are sold" apply to purchased technical data? Certainly if I paid £50 for an oscilloscope service manual and got back the usual disgusting photocopy that's all dense black smudges and blotches everywhere I'd say it isn't fit for the purpose it was sold! Chris Williams __________________ It's an enigma, that's what it is! This thing's not fixed because it doesn't want to be fixed!

26th May 2017, 7:48 pm	#4
McMurdo Dekatron Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Staffordshire Moorlands, UK. Posts: 5,273	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! quite possibly copies of copies.....any copy being preferrable to none at all! In the days before PDFs there was nothing more exciting than getting those brown envelopes which you hoped would magically relieve you of your frustration at a difficult fault! I suppose there's also the probability that a pdf has been scanned off a well-thumbed paper copy or maybe even off a fax. I do remember one manufacturer (maybe Sanyo UK) sending me faxes of the relevant diagrams with a note that the full manual would be chargeable but that single pages could be sent free....but before he went to the fax machine 'have I just checked C34?' or some other golden tip. It's a mixed blessing. I remember fondly the old days where SEME might say 'sorry the original manual is obsolete but we can photostat our copy if that would help?' but then again we didn't have the gift of the downloadable PDFs as supplied by this forum. These, BTW, are a snip, given you could easily pay £30 for a colour TV manual back in the day. __________________ Kevin

26th May 2017, 7:49 pm	#5
Chris55000 Nonode Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Walsall Wood, Aldridge, Walsall, UK. Posts: 2,874	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! Hi! I'm certainly not casting aspersions on quality products like Paul's dvds - these are an outstanding example of what can be achieved when the proper care is taken with original documents! On a side note, this is why I find my SPlan software so good - it can be used just as easily and quickly to draw out a thermionic-valve circuit to post on this forum as a transistorised/IC-based one - I have a project in hand to provide some Robuk diagrams, for which the original data is hard to come by - (a colleague has a copy of Paul's dvds and he said he didn't see Robuk on there!) Chris Williams __________________ It's an enigma, that's what it is! This thing's not fixed because it doesn't want to be fixed! Last edited by Chris55000; 26th May 2017 at 8:08 pm.

26th May 2017, 7:53 pm	#6
stevehertz Dekatron Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: Rugeley, Staffordshire, UK. Posts: 8,834	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! I share your frustration Chris . My present passion is late 70s/early 80s hifi receivers . Most of the service manuals available for such are frustratingly unreadable when you want to actually read the value of a cap or a resistor . I don't know what the answer is. It beggars belief that those who created the scans from the original documents chose to use low resolution for them - or to use copies of copies.. . Too many times I find myself referring to circuit diagrams that are unreadable down to component level. Actually, doesn't this situation create a commercial opening for an enterprising individual? to create a database of GUARANTEED READABLE, useable, service documents, where every document is guaranteed readable down to component level, where unreadable or even vaguely unreadable documents are not kept. That'd do it for me. Nothing worse than finding a source for a much needed service document only to find that it is unreadable, effectively useless. . __________________ A digital radio is the latest thing, but a vintage wireless is forever..

26th May 2017, 8:20 pm	#7
TonyDuell Dekatron Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Biggin Hill, London, UK. Posts: 5,219	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! Well obviously I'd rather have a clear, readable manual than an unreadable one. But given the choice between an unreadable (in this sense) manual and none at all, I'll take the former. OK, so you can't read the component values. But you know there is a capacitor (say) between ground and pin 17 of that IC. So find it on the board, and see what the value is. If it has blown up that's more of a problem, but even then having an idea of the basic circuit design is surely better than nothing? As an aside, I personally prefer paper manuals. I find them easier to read and easier to use on the bench. But given the choice between an electronic copy and no manual at all, I of course pick the electronic copy.

26th May 2017, 9:09 pm	#8
G8HQP Dave Rest in Peace Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Solihull, West Midlands, UK. Posts: 4,872	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! It may be that when asked to produce a 'fresh' copy, some admin staff just find it quicker and easier to use the photocopier rather than the computer printer. Hence you end up with 9th generation copies. This doesn't just apply to technical manuals: GP surgeries around here ask new patients to fill in a multi-page form which was clearly last printed fresh from a computer in the 1980s. As most photocopy generations were probably done on the same machine it is not only faint and smudged but also geometrically challenged.

26th May 2017, 9:30 pm	#9
G6Tanuki Dekatron Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Wiltshire, UK. Posts: 14,007	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! Those who are complaining: I guess you've never had to work from a tenth-generation planfile-sized "Diazo" copy of a draughtsman's 1880s work [the original having been lost sometime during World War 1] ... If several different-generation instances of the same diagram can be sourced, with modern software it's not that hard to reconstitute a remarkably-good composite - if you have the necessary software and really understand how to drive it. This is being done all the time for old movies. Problem is it takes time, and time's money. Would you be prepared to pay for an hour of a skilled photoreconstruction-tech's time [ say £100 +VAT ] to scan/rescale/overlay/merge/de-alias/despeckle a single circuit-diagram??

26th May 2017, 11:38 pm	#10
The Philpott Dekatron Join Date: Aug 2016 Location: Colchester, Essex, UK. Posts: 4,108	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! Chris, i can definitely sympathise. An awful lot of images have been microfiched over the years then reconstituted onto paper...and some of them have gone through this process more than once. Lost and found episodes of 'Hancock's Half Hour' have been cheerfully distributed despite the fact that only 4 out of every 10 syllables are audible. But that's my own hobby horse.

27th May 2017, 8:05 am	#11
crackle Rest in Peace Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Basildon, Essex, UK. Posts: 4,100	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! Hi Chris You obviously have not scanned a torn stained and faded service manual from the early half of the 1900's. A lot of work is needed to clean the images and present them in a clear form. Or at least there is with the basic software I use for the service manuals I have put on my KB Museum site. If everybody interested in vintage radio took the effort to scan the service manuals they are hoarding, there may be some better quality ones available. Mike Last edited by crackle; 27th May 2017 at 8:11 am.

27th May 2017, 10:52 am	#12
Maarten Dekatron Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Haarlem, Netherlands Posts: 4,203	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! Still, some people think that achieving an optimal scan is done by setting the software to 1 bit, 150 dpi and pressing start (the modern equivalent of badly photocopied manuals). Even for those who don't know how to edit or don't want to invest the hours, better results can be achieved by using a higher resolution and grey tones.

27th May 2017, 11:06 am	#15
Station X Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Ipswich, Suffolk, IP4, UK. Posts: 21,289	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! This puts me in a dilemma. I have a Westminster set, no service data is available from VRSD and there's a poor copy of the circuit on The Radio Museum website. Stuck to the inside of the set is an original printed copy of the circuit. However it's stained (damp), charred (close to hot components) and torn. Attempting to remove it would undoubtedly damage it, so all I can do is photograph it in situ. So do I upload what I have to this site and/or The Radio Museum and risk getting comments about the poor quality, or do I wait until I have time to redraw it using a drawing package which I'd have to learn to use? If the latter I'll probably never find the time, so it'll never appear. __________________ Graham. Forum Moderator Reach for your meter before you reach for your soldering iron.

27th May 2017, 11:10 am	#16
ms660 Dekatron Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Cornwall, UK. Posts: 13,454	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! Take a photo and post it up on this forum, nothing to lose. Lawrence.

27th May 2017, 11:25 am	#17
ThePillenwerfer Octode Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK. Posts: 1,453	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! I think the complaints are justified if the documents in question and being SOLD with no prior warning as to the quality. Things that are available free are a different matter. __________________ "Experts are only good at one thing: explaining why something will not work!"

27th May 2017, 11:48 am	#18
Station X Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Ipswich, Suffolk, IP4, UK. Posts: 21,289	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! Here it is:- http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/s...369#post947369 __________________ Graham. Forum Moderator Reach for your meter before you reach for your soldering iron.

27th May 2017, 1:39 pm	#19
Station X Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Ipswich, Suffolk, IP4, UK. Posts: 21,289	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! Some posts moved to this thread:- http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/s...d.php?t=136905 __________________ Graham. Forum Moderator Reach for your meter before you reach for your soldering iron.

29th May 2017, 10:34 am	#20
MotorBikeLes Nonode Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Kirk Michael, Isle of Man Posts: 2,350	Re: Badly Photocopied Manuals! About 35 years ago, I had loads of out of print manuals, mostly scopes, and I used to photocopy and sell them. I asked Philips (Cambridge) for an obsolete manual for a scope I had, and they leant me their workshop manual. They explained if they loaned or supplied obsolete manuals, customers would expect service to be available. I suggested if customers asked, they could say sorry, but they know a company which may be able to help. They agreed, and would send me the manual, I would copy it, and return the original. In fact I would retain that copy as my "master" from which to do further copies. I used to take great care, nothing annoys me more than buying a copy where all the pages are askew because the operator was too lazy to square them up first. How easy it is today. My current Epson scanner can do magic! PDFs complete the magic, or I can use my ancient HP printers (A3 and A4, the latter with duplex facilities) for a convenient printed version. Les.