Nice HP scope going cheap

But get some floppies with it as well. Not sure if these still have to be formatted in the old LIF format.

I wonder why they charge us Californians a flat 9% tax where in rural areas it is 7.5%. Who pockets the difference?

Nah, even my TDS scopes read and write FAT floppies.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I'd guess it's the government of the county in which the company's business office is located.

Nice. If I didn't already have 5 of the damn things, and wasn't just a hobbyist and I actually lived within the delivery zone, I'd snap that up.

Man, what a complicated sales/use tax system California has.

--sp

This one looks even more attractive until you see the cost of delivery

- 200 dollars for "economy" shipping!!

I note the seller was located in Compton, CA., so the scope was probably robbed off someone and sold to fund a serious drugs habit.

Well, I have 8 now. $410 and $39 shipping with 30-day returns, from a vendor with 7000 feedback. That may be my best scope bargain of all time. I'll send my somewhat dim TDS 744A into an honourable retirement.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I never thought it would sell for $410.00. About the same as the 50Mhz Rigol! Mikek

So your the ONE that out bid me ;(

Cheers

I paid $950 for a TDS 744A with similar specs, so if you only bid $405 you have only yourself to blame. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

(If I'd kept my mouth shut, I might have gotten it for $249.)

It is. Sometimes every village has its own rate. The neighbor town fell for some liberal plot and voted for an increase to 8%. We pay 7.5% and it's just 10 miles. Got 10 miles in the other direction and it's 8% there as well. Weird.

Most of it lands in fat pension checks for bureaucrats :-(

It looks fine, and has a 30-day right of return.

Thanks

Phil Hobbs

Hope the screen is good.. I've seen a few of those auctioned off with bad screens.

Jamie

I'm almost sorry I took a look- did I read right that it's possible a hospital in a given district might have a use/sales tax rate that's different from a building beside it? ("special").

The hidden cost of compliance is also a problem with this sort of thing.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

How dare someone vote for a tax increase. This is small D democracy! We can't have that.

Bureaucrats! They are as bad as CEOS!

And it is straight outta Compton, so it must be a scope with attitude.

FYI Phil: If it ever stops booting, the fault will likely be the lithium battery on the processor board. When it goes dead it won't boot anymore unless you press and hold down one of the rubber buttons on the front panel where it will ask if you want to do a firmware upgrade. After replacing you just need to go through a self calibration which is easy to do. The battery is a bitch to replace as you have to pull the entire acquisition board out the back, so I just cut the dead battery out and mount a replacement on the rear frame, then wire it to the ACQ board.

These do have a history of the LCD flaking out; when they do, there is a small flex cable that runs between two points on the LCD itself. cleaning the cable and contacts usually brings it back.

Your TDS744A could get some new life if you want to replace it with an LCD. There's a guy on Ebay who sells them for about $72. It takes a bit of schlocking to fit the panel (I use epoxy to bond it to the aluminum frame where the menu buttons are), but well worth the effort.

If you buy it, make sure to ask for a special firmware called CARTV128.BIN as the standard firmware won't quite line up at the edges. You'll need to fit a 3 terminal 12VDC regulator inside the scope and tap off the 24V that currently goes to the HV module, then use the rear VGA output to drive the LCD controller. As a plus, you'll lose about 8 pounds off the weight of the scope as you can toss the CRT and HV assembly. I'd even give you $75 for the HV assembly thus paying for your LCD. :)

Consider selling and reselling such used equipment, after re-cycling what? ten times the sales tax can become MORE than the total value. Interesting.