A serious bargain in boat anchors

On a sunny day (Sun, 20 Jul 2014 12:49:11 -0400) it happened Phil Hobbs wrote in :

Looks delicious! How I wish...

Only a month's beer budget. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I click here from rec.boats, I thought I didn't. Mikek

These are fabulous instruments, especially if you can score an SD-24 TDR head, too.

The SD-14, 3 GHz hi-Z sampling probes, are great and seem to be cheap and plentiful.

You must drink expensive beer! :^) I'm not sure I'm allowed to fly that 'scope with my low bandwidth licence. (I wish I had a reason.)

George H.

I'm actually more of a gin-and-tonic guy--I drink beer about once every six months.

For that price, who needs a reason?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

For those of us not having your spaceous digs SWMBO will need to hear some compelling reasons.

I am seriously tapped out when it comes to shelf space. Also bench space. It's so bad that I'll be in the garage part of today to make a contraption that allows me to mount one client's test bed vertically onto the side of a bench. A couple of years ago I was tempted to sell my network analyzer and the impedance analyzer because they are so huge and I don't need them as much as in the old days anymore. Sure enough, shortly afterwards I needed both. But some day it'll have to happen.

Build a barn!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

That is what an antique radio afficionado in this area a long time ago did. No kidding. AFAIR the barn was huge and had a built-in lift. It seems money was not a concern with that project.

But, I am trying to become more minimalistic. The spectrum analyzer and its separate tracking generator are the size of three cigarette packs each and slide under my equipment rack. USB-driven, so the PC is their user interface.

Regarding samplers those could easily be done USB-style as well. I just designed one and it fits in less than a cigarette pack. Ok, single-diode but that was because it had to be very cheap and is not meant for the electronics lab.

I picked this up, and have been doing some maintenance on it. I've backed up the firmware ROM's, so if anyone wants copies let me know. Versions are (11801B):

Executive Processor 4.04 Display 4.00 Timbase/Controller 4.03 AcQ#1 9.02 AcQ#2 9.02

Things tend to rust when left in the barn. (and it's darn cold in there in the winter.)

George H.

When the time comes to replace the two NVRAM chips on the timebase board, here is the Mouser part number:

The existing rams are battery backed sockets with the power management control chip (Dallas device). You can remove the ram chip to see the date code on the 8 pin dip to get an idea when it will fail.they usually last around 10 years.

The Mouser chip has the battery and controller built in and should give 20+ years of service. Install the two NVRAMS and power cycle several times to clear CS faults.

Your firmware for the two Acq boards is the latest 9.02. I think some of the other roms are up to ver 10.9 and there are copies on KO4BB.com if you feel ambitious.

Regards, tm

I don't trust the ROM's on K04BB - there are differences between ROM's I've dumped myself and similar version numbers on that site.

Rust isn't as much of a problem in Joerg's neck of the woods, I don't think. Besides, it only rusts when it isn't turned on. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs