Comment by tverbeure
11 hours ago
Nice, so I'll get even more entertainment out of it!
The equipment that's bought and sold at the electronics flea market typically isn't used as a means to an end, it is the end. There's disappointment when you buy something there and it just works. There's no fun in that.
I don't really have a use for a R&S AMIQ, but replacing all the PC motherboard caps taught me a lot about good desoldering practices. https://tomverbeure.github.io/2026/06/28/Rohde-Schwarz-AMIQ-...
Yeah agreed. I’ve fixed more Tek equipment than most people out there. In the order of hundreds of units.
These are just exceptionally bad.
i thought maybe it was just something regionally here or the way people stored em, but i was in a position to refab many a few years ago and totally agree. tek had 100% repart rate and seemed like anything else (brand wise) was always in better condition internally even when way older.
I’ve seen rust in a newish (Danaher era) one.
I'm blanking on the exact models I used; I'm fairly certain they were tds700s or tds71xx, but a lab I ran had about a dozen units and we had nothing "fry" in the 4 years I worked there. What applications would result in these catastrophic failures?
Over the years, I've had 5 TDSxxx series scopes, and I still have a few. The common issues are:
NuColor CRT displays going bad. Bad capacitors. Dallas NVRAM units battery running out of juice
Fried electronics are pretty rare.
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