-
LeCroy AP031 Differential Probe
While setting up my lab, I’ve been reading about safety when making measurements using oscilloscopes. At first I was planning on wiring up my bench with a few isolated outlets (via an isolation transformer). Or using a GFCI to try and protect me from toasting myself when poking around off line regulators. I kept reading, […]
-
Leica GZ6 Stereozoom Microscope
Been repairing quite a bit of discarded equipment recently – it’s yielded some good finds. Pulled a broken Leica GZ6 outta the trash- with cracked plastic gears (apparently like every other GZ6). It was super easy to disassemble and remove the gears – which I tried to super glue back together and use. The glue […]
-
Vaisala RS80 Radiosonde Teardown
An interesting piece of gear passed across my desk, a Viasala RS80 Radiosonde. The RS80 radiosondes is a small electronic payload which is typically lofted into the upper atmosphere by a helium filled balloon. During its journey, it relays to the ground (or records) environmental information, such as barometric pressure, temperature, and humidity. Its location […]
-
Star Point Grounding
I was poking around inside a D-Link DES-1228P fast ethernet managed power over ethernet (POE) switch. I’m looking into building a few pieces of equipment that are POE and curious how the “big boys” do it. Opening the device reveals a large main board with several large Marvell ASICs. The large TQFP in the upper […]
-
Keithley 2000 DMM Repair
I’ve been shopping around for a nice bench DMM for a while now, so I bought a busted Keithley 2000 off Ebay thinking that it would be an easy repair. I assumed that all the input protection in a modern DMM should fail first to protect anything important, and all I would need to do […]
-
HP 5257A Detail
I received a question from Ary Lems about the HP 5257A Transfer Oscillator I tore down a few months ago. He writes, About this one I do have a question. On one of the pictures there is a pc board with nr 05257-60211. On this pc board is an plastic srew and washer placed on […]
-
NI USB-6009
So I was handed a National Instruments USB-6009 and I had to tear it down. It’s a fairly nice four layer design, with only a few major components. The board is marked USB-600X and there is an un-populated header – can a USB-6008 be easily upgraded to a USB-6009? On the right, we see a […]
-
Instek GDS-820C Teardown
Teardown of the Instek GDS-820C oscilloscope on a lazy Friday afternoon. It’s a fairly interesting design, two layer boards, no parts are leadless. The finest pitch components are the Altera FPGA and the Freescale CPU. Definitely “older” technology than a modern Tek or Agilent scope. Looks like a prototype I might build. It’s a good […]
-
HP 5257A Transfer Oscillator
First teardown under my new documentation rig, a HP 5257A Transfer Oscillator. The 5257A is really a remarkable piece of equipment, a magnificent example of Hewlett Packard’s mastery of both mechanical and electrical engineering. Despite performance to 18GHz, the insides of the transfer oscillator are just as familiar to watchmakers as electrical engineers. The closeups […]