HP 54100A usability question - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: Maruku
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2023, 04:03:09 pm
content: Hi,I recently got a free HP 54100A scope that just needed a bit of cleanup after a Rifa disaster. Seems to work well, initially I thought I woul pass it on as I have a tek 7104 and a DSOX1102 which should suffice with the work I do.What is nice that it does measurements and readout and can go up to 1GHz, but has 40Msps as I remember so not really that great for a digital scope. Have three 54002 plugins there, 50 ohm inputs. Can't find much information from any users on the net so it seems to be somewhat less popular or not desirable?Because I paid nothing for it I could keep it if it has some use, for example I like doing RF projects nowadays, but I have the higher frequency covered with the 7104 and higher input voltages too.Wonder what benefit could it have over a pure analogue 7104, let's say from cal perspective.Any info about the unit greatly appreciated, if it's a waste of rack space then I will just sell it.Cheers

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2023, 11:32:04 pm
content: A friend of mine runs a surplus business and had about six of those sitting on the shelf FOR YEARS. I went down there about 5 years ago and and took a neighborhood kid that was interested in electronics and he bought one. The owner gave him a second one for a spare and then gave him a third one for spares for the spare! The guy brought them home and found that they ALL worked with the except of some dirty attenuator switches. He tried to disassemble and clean one of the attenuators and dropped the TINY leaf spring and never saw it again so he had to take one out of one of the other units. That was several years ago and the last that I heard, it's still using the one that he fixed up. The things are huge and heavy as hell but they work WELL. I think the ones that he got were color versions.They're so huge and heavy that I bought that you could get any money for it but if you have the room for one, they're very useful scopes.

author: wn1fju
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2023, 01:16:41 pm
content: I have the closely related HP 54112D scope. Although it works well (after I repaired it), these units are representative of HP's first plunge into digital scopes. The user interface, in particular, can be quite annoying. Rather than having dedicated knobs for often used functions like vertical V/div and horizontal time/div, everything is push a button, spin the dial. These units are big, heavy, somewhat limited by their equivalent time sampling, very low update rates, 7-bit digitizer, small memory, etc.I view using these scopes as a rite of passage. Sort of like in a calculus class, they make you find the derivative of y = x^n the long way using just the definition of derivative, before teaching you to appreciate the simple formula: dy/dx = n x^(n-1). Everybody has to do it once and everybody should use a scope like the 541xx series once so that you can appreciate how much better a modern digital scope can be. If I recall, the specifications are nothing special (for example, 2-3% vertical accuracy) and aren't going to beat a modern scope in my opinion.But since you got the 54100A at a price that's hard to beat, have some fun with it. It is not an easy piece to work on, so hopefully it will stay working.