Demise of favourie test gear. whats your story? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: wemme
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2015, 02:44:38 am
content: My HP4077B (26.5GHz) spectrum analyzer at work was looking a little suspect the other week, so sent it away for test and calibrate.I had a phone call today say it is F@#(ed over 3GHz and the LO is also on the piss with a repair cost of about $25K.Needless to say work will shit can it(at least retire it) for a Rigol (not that they are bad) but I seemed to have formed an attachment to it from all the EMC and RF battles waged with it. i don't think we will look at repairing it ourselves but who knows.Surely i am not the only one who has been annoyed when something has died.Whats your story?

author: niflheimer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2015, 06:49:35 am
content: Raman + mass flow spectrometer using a Ti:Sapphire , 1w pump laser. 150.000$ equipment bought used and refurbished. Amazing piece of kit that can quantify even concentrations in the 1 ppt. I spent a year refurbishing it and calibrating. I've even gold-platted parts of the case ( That's what happens when you give a nut access to a large sputtering chamber and too much free time )This particular unit was designed to work with a flow gas - typically argon to dilute the gas sample we were studying.One coworker confused the colors on the gas bottles - and replaced the empty bottle of argon with an oxygen bottle. The gas sample was tritium-contaminated deuterium.Aparently D2 - O2 mix explodes just as well as your usual rocket grade h2- o2 - and the pump laser is powerfull enough to ignite it.Took 5 months and 35.000 $ to repair it.

author: smjcuk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2015, 08:34:44 am
content: Yes it does annoy, terribly.My recent Tek 453 experience. Got one that the triggering didn't work on. Lovely scope. Traced it to a duff FET, ordered one from the US, waited 2 weeks, turned up and stuffed it in. Triggering working - happy happy joy joy. 10 mins later ... hmm burning smell, sudden pop and bye bye power supply. Took out a secondary winding on the transformer and half the power supply transistors and melted a couple of caps. Initial inspection photo - I didn't take any more unfortunately:Yummy boiled cap. That annoyed the hell out of me.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2015, 12:07:10 pm
content: Quote from: wemme on May 14, 2015, 02:44:38 amIs that "4077B" correct? Google and ebay fail.You should offer it for sale very cheaply here.Or ship it to me.While googling that, this turned up:http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5952-0292.pdf"HP app note 150 - Spectrum Analysis basics"What's interesting is that I have an original HP App note 150, from April 1974, and the topic is the same but it's completely different. The new 'App note 150' is a total rewrite.That seems quite off to me. Why reuse the old app number, instead of giving it a new one in line with the later series' numbers?My saddest instrument loss was quite small. The cheap multimeter I was given as a small child - the first instrument I ever owned. It survived many years but eventually I blew it up, in stages. The usual; ohms range connected to voltage, low volts range onto much higher voltage, current to an electrons firehose.There's a pic of the same model here:http://everist.org/NobLog/20140324_HP_relics.htm2nd pic from top.They are still available, amazingly. I keep meaning to buy one as a sentimentality.

author: niflheimer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2015, 12:13:13 pm
content: I tend not to get attached to multimeters - I've blown way too many already.Worst one was when my voltage transformer arced primary to secondary . It shoved 35 kV through a 10$ multimeter - I believe there are still pieces of it stuck in the lab light fixtures.

author: Towger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2015, 12:34:09 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on May 14, 2015, 12:07:10 pmA 4407B maybe. Just send it to Dr Shahriarhttp://thesignalpath.com/blogs/, he (and the cat) will fix it, create a great video in the process and add it to his equipment collection. Then your management can watch the video and wonder how their analyser with a $25k repair quote got fixed with a $2 transistor from Digikey.Knowledge is worth the extra $24,998.