Restoration of 1970s EPR | Ashley S. Dale

The history of the physics department is deeply entwined with a 1970’s era Bruker EPR like this one from the University of Oregon

Image from [University of Oregon](https://camcor.uoregon.edu/equipment/bruker-elexsys-e-500-a-epr-spectrometer/)

complete with a nearly identical console for controlling the system. Unfortunately, the CRT display in our system died about half-way through my Ph.D. studies. As the console is still our only way of accessing the EPR, this meant the entire system became nonfunctional.

(LEFT) Front of the CRT display in its housing. Nothing fancy. (RIGHT) Back of the CRT display in its housing. Still nothing fancy.

(LEFT) The exposed CRT. (RIGHT) Back without the housing.

Since I needed an extra project to think about, I added resuscitaing the system to my list of projects. Spoiler: I have not yet been successful. But in the spirit of academic transparency here is a list of things we have tried that have not worked so far.