DSO6000 series black screen repair. Is this going to be easy?- - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / repair

author: king.oslo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2012, 01:59:37 pm
content: Hello there,Recently, a DSO6054a went unsold on eBay. I was thinking of making him an offer. It's listed as parts/repair.What he is telling me is that it sounds like the scope is running, but the screen is black. He writes just like a retard, and consequently i dont feel like it would be possible to ask him to check things. He keep on saying: "not cheap equipment will need repair it powers but do not show anything on screen"Just want to ask you how hard you think it would be to fix. I obviously don't want to spend thousands of $ on the repair.Thanks.M

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2012, 02:23:21 pm
content: Depends a lot on price & how lucky you feel. Could just be the backlight - maybe worth a punt, especially considering the trial license potential. Agilent repair is by board swap and probably not worth it if it's anything more serious.Even if it's the TFT it would be useable with an external monitor - internal one is a small 1kx768 so may be hard to find a replacement.If you can get him to try plugging a monitor into the VGA port that would be good confirmation.

author: king.oslo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2012, 04:48:22 pm
content: Thanks for that. I did what you suggested. Turns out he isn't retarded after all. He is FrenchHe is saying that when he powers it up, the LCD lights up for a brief moment then goes black, and the front panel LEDs cycle from bottom to the top in an infinite loop.What do you think?Plugging in a VGA monitor results in the same, LCD lights up for a sec, then goes black, and led switches keep on cycling forever.What do you think?Kind regards,Marius

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2012, 04:56:14 pm
content: Probably a power supply rail missing, or a firmware update bricked it. Will be worth fixing if you can fix the PSU and get it working. Offer low enough that it will not hurt if it turns out to be a similar experience to Dave's failed LeCroy.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2012, 08:58:08 pm
content: Hard to tell but if it's the same sequence repeating it could be it's resetting part way through boot, either due to a PSU dropout when it starts drawing more power (possibly caps ) or something more serious, e.g. something nasty when it starts talking to the expensive parts.One thing it does when the LEDs have finiashed sequencing is click all the relays - the extra power form this is something that could be tripping the PSU or causing a brownout reset.I'd think if it gets through all the LED sequence the firmware & RAM is probably OKLCD flashing at startup is normal.There are parts available - a new PSU is GBP85 (reasonable), TFT GBP776 (yikes) , mainboard (not clear if exchange) GBP 4631 (ouch!)Check that the serial number is not below MY44001000 as there is a known boot-fail issue for which a board swap is the fix.http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/DSO6054A-02.pdfThe service manual is here :http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/54684-97029.pdfbut not much info on meaning of boot LEDs.It's still down to 'do you feel lucky', but bear in mind it will still have some ebay resale value if you can't fix it.With these things it's very useful to know some history - where has it come from, and very important, has anyone else had a go before you - a particular problem with test gear as most owners will have a go.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 30, 2012, 09:04:21 pm
content: If it's going through the boot LED sequence then it at least has power good enough to do that.But if it's resetting part way through then that could indicate either the firmware has detected a fault and is ding that deliberately?, or the PSU is crapping out at that point (but the same point every time?, higher load at some point?). It would be normal not to turn on the screen until after power up and O/S load.Dave.

author: peter.mitchell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 31, 2012, 06:09:31 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on December 30, 2012, 09:04:21 pmWell, do ya?