Had a semi productive weekend over here in the land of the rising sun..
Got a few more busted transistors replaced in the Advantest R6144, just had to wait for some to be delivered but all done now as far as I can tell so far.
I'm
STILL getting the damned 'Error 05' on boot.. I swear.........
The only silicon I haven't replaced or tested is the expensive vref and opamp (which
shouldn't throw that error) or the GPIB stuff (2 chips not empirically tested) as I had thought may be an issue before, but was hoping wasn't the issue, as it
will throw the error..
Luckily I found a cheap-ish NOS GPIB chip locally, so that's on the way to try out. The other suspect chip I can get new, but it's 700 yen (US$5 or there abouts) so I'll wait on that one before I drop the yens.. Unfortunately, it's the only chip that my 'Retro Chip Tester' won't test (beyond the microprocessor and that other GPIB chip).
Next I won an auction for a HP 8116A 50MHz Pulse/Function Generator. Got it cheap for parts to fix the 8112A 50MHz Pulse Gen, but if it ends up working I won't scrap it.. I'll just keep looking for parts for the 8112A... And endure the suffering of acquiring a new bit of test gear (I'll probably spit polish it, adjust it and flip it. One day I'll get my HP 8160A 50MHz Pulse Gen up and running...)
And finally, I pulled one of my 3478A's back off the shelf to finish the backlight mod I was working on. Just gotta work out a way to hold the LCD panel assembly in without fouling the chassis.
I had originally planned to flip the OEM bracket around to make things fit with some standoffs, but it hits the chassis, so I might have to fabricate a plate from some aluminium.
Once that's sorted, it's just a matter of getting a 7809 vreg to run the LED's and it should be good to button back up and test. Fingers crossed there's no other faults in the unit (as my luck would have it....).
Oh, I also ran through the adjustment procedure for my Yokogawa 2554 DC voltage/current standard too, just for fun.
And finally burnt some meat on the barbeque to keep the families stomachs happy.