Building a bench 10MHz reference: part 2
This is a quick follow-up of the first part of this series.
I've received a few parts from digikey, including a couple of 22µH Sumida CLS62 inductors (I bought two of them in case I f**k up one of them trying to solder it with my Weller WS50 iron …
Quick overview of the HP5334A Universal Counter
The HP5334A is a decent universal counter. It has a two 100MHz channels. Some models come with an optional third channel (1.3GHz), an optinal DVM, and an optional oven controlled oscillator. Unfortunately, my meter has no option at all.
There is a nice quick instruction set printed on the …
HP8904A Multifunction Synthetizer Repair: 10MHz output
After having fixed the PSU of one of my HP8904A signal generator, I discovered that the other unit had its 10MHz reference output dead flat.
I've disassembled the main logic board, but unfortunately, the schematic of this later A2 board (as it is referenced in the servce manual) is notavailable …
HP8904A Multifunction Synthetizer Restoration
What Is This About
I have a couple of HP8904A multifunction synthetizers for years (bought them on ebay around 2007 IIRC). One of them is working properly, but the second one had very inaccurate output levels, generating a non-symmetric signal when output level was set above 5V or something like …
Building a bench 10MHz reference: part 1
Many electronics test equipment need an accurate time base. Most often, it's build on a 10MHz base.
For quite a while now, I have a used rubidium frequency and time reference (Efratom Model LPRO-101) waiting for a nice enclosure. I also have a small Extron Electronics video signal amplifier I …
Tektronics 2445 scope PSU repair: part 1
I've recently took my good old Tek 2445 scope from the cellar (along with my {tag}HP8904A signal generator), and it showed signs of tired PSU: unstable display, noise, then the typical noise of a capacitor failure.
Here is the beast:
And some pictures of its womb:
The PSU consists …
Updating the Prologix USB-GPIB firmware on Linux
Prologix sell several low cost GPIB controllers. I have one their old deprecated dongle "GPIB-USB Controller 4.2" and had fun with it with my pygpibtoolkit project.
It's a very simple dongle consisting in an Atmel ATMega164P microcontroller and a FTDI FT245FL chip for the USB<->RS232 convertion.
Unfortunately, it's …