ebay versus craigslist example

On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Mar 2014 23:57:07 -0700) it happened miso wrote in :

Some thing are cheaper here in the local shop than on ebay, but many are not, or unobtainable, here.

There are more dealers on eBay these days, it's true. On the other hand, patience still pays off--I got a nice HP8566B with a good display for $950 some months ago, about 20-25% of what the dealers wanted at that point.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I recall that deal, though I think you had to fix something.

I got a HP LCR years ago with one bad LED. Loose contact. Same with a HP DVM. Bad stuff can happen during shipping.

Incidentally I found this same so-called spectrum analyzer at an internet dealer for about $6600.

Yeah, it needed a display memory board that I just happened to have a spare of. Dumb luck. Of course I have three of those displays at this point, but I wouldn't want to cannibalize the one from the 8568 if I can help it.

No kidding. I had some moron ship me an HP 3456A 6-1/2 digit DMM in a thin box with about half an inch of bubble wrap around the outside. It arrived with a quarter-inch-deep dent in the bottom panel, and every single one of the plastic retainers for the PCBs was broken and the boards had all come loose.

Because it was an HP, once I plugged all the boards back in, it still worked.

Sounds like an arbitrage opportunity. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Buy low, sell high. How can you possibly loose? :)

There are companies making LCD or TFT replacement screens for some of the HP boat anchors. I think that's how Signalhound started their business, where I bought my USB spectrum analyzer.

I suggested to a client to buy a HP3585 because it's the mother of all baseband analyzers. Some sent it wrapped in carton with zero (!) padding. The machine arrived as if it had been in a major head-on collision with a Mack truck, every bone was broken, a total loss. That could bring a grown man to tears. My client was made whole for this but since there is a finite supply of these wonderful machines it's like with Hammond organs, once they are gone they are gone.

Assuming they're all single-gun raster scan, it ought to be possible to digitize it in situ with a two-axis Hall sensor looking at the deflection field and a wire to the control grid.

I have one that's been on the sick list for a year because I've been pleasantly busy. What are they like to fix?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

We have a bunch of products that used a 16-segment, 8-character VF display. And Noritake quit making it. So rather than revving the code on a zillion boxes, we designed a board, with an AVR, that looks at the serial VF segment scan and drives an LCD. It's a drop-in for the old VFD board.

Doesn't look as good, of course. VFs are beautiful.

Shipping!

What's wrong with it? Will it run the self test routine? I've only fixed one, which was due to some failing/failed electrolytics. Found by looking for leaking electrolyte damage, and with an ESR meter.

Looking at the diagnostic LED's will usually point to the general area. In the above repair, I still had a problem after the CRT came alive. So, I tried the troubleshooting flow chart in the manuals, and became totally confused. Using the LED's, I found that either the owner or I had interchanged two SMB cables.

There's quite a bit on repairing HP3585 boxes in:

There are currently several HP3585 spectrum analyzers on eBay for $1000 plus shipping. I'm practicing resisting temptation.