I have an HP54502A which has been my daily driver for years. Unfortunately that ceased to function one day, and I had to go and find another scope to fix it. (gnarly power supply issue) Now, I happened to have an HP16500A around the place, and by luck I found a 1GHz scope card for it, so after much shenanigans involving buying a small Dell computer with a floppy drive, installing FreeDOS on it so I could use LIFUTIL to write diskettes from images, I got the 16500A working. Then I got the HP54502A working - the one-shot capability of the 16500A to spot what was going on at power on was instrumental in the fixing (after replacing all of the big caps of course - YMMV but I'd also vote for just doing a cap job on the power supply of your fine machine)
The HP16500A is the superior beast technically as a scope, but it makes too much noise to be the replacement daily driver, so I reverted back to the HP54502A - which is also more like a 'real' scope in terms of the user interface. However, I still have an old analog 20MHz Hameg HM203 which was given to me, just because it's silent in operation, for some things a pure analog scope works better - and it takes up very little bench room. On Friday, 21 April 2023 at 06:39:49 UTC+1 J Forbes wrote: > that 2236 is so much nicer than my 2215, you really ought to fix it.... > :) > > > On Thursday, April 20, 2023 at 9:04:16 PM UTC-7 gregebert wrote: > >> I'm really happy with my HP16500A, and they are reasonably priced if you >> shop around. About 10 years ago I got mine with two dual-channel cards >> (100Mhz/200msps) and two logic analyzer cards (OK, dont laugh....50Mhz / 80 >> channels) and probes, pods, and manuals, for about 250 USD including >> shipping. It seems like a weird scope because it only has 1 knob, and uses >> a touchscreen. I remember when it first came out around 1989, and it was >> THE scope to have. >> >> Digital scopes are a must-have so you can trigger/capture single events. >> There are better versions (16500B, 16500C) that have hard drives and allow >> you to login via Xwindows. >> >> None of my designs run faster than 50Mhz, so the scope/logic analyzer >> works fine for me. I bought a second unit as a spare, but found enough good >> cards at low cost to have a second 4-channel scope + logic analyzer. >> >> For nixie work, and especially CRT/NIMO work, get a set of 100x probes. >> >> That said, your Tek scope probably just has a dried-out electrolytic cap >> in the power supply. >> >> On Thursday, April 20, 2023 at 8:44:50 PM UTC-7 martin martin wrote: >> >>> My Tek 2236 is nearly 30 moons old and no longer stays on for more than >>> a few minutes. I am sure it's fixable, but on the other hand maybe time >>> for a new digital! >>> >>> What do you guys suggest for general use and of course clock fixing? >>> >>> >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/edeba8bf-b953-43a9-b15d-eb3b994f4a9bn%40googlegroups.com.
