Repair of a Tektronix DPO4034 with faulty main board

[elektronchika]

Hello everyone,

I'm an electronics engineer, and I like to also do some staff at home. I'm offered to buy a Tektronix DPO4034 with faulty main board. The scope starts but cannot boot and reports a bus failure with one of the acquisition chips. The current owner says this is a main board problem. I wonder if someone else had a similar problem, how he solved it? Or what do you think about repairing this scope at home? I ask all you guys, before buying the scope for advise.

Best regards,
Lazar

[nctnico]

If you can get it for free go for it, otherwise just buy a Rigol 1000Z series.

[TiN]

Depends on price

[elektronchika]

It's not for free, it's still expensive - more than 3000 Euro. But I can try to reduce the price, once I think it's wordy.

[TiN]

Then it's worthless.

[nctnico]

I agree. With such a fault I wouldn't spend more than 200 euro on it just for the fun and learning (I have a lot of experience with hacking/repairing test gear).

[Orange]

The chances that you can repair it are pretty slim. Tek uses always custom chips and hybrids. Usually unobtainable stuff, unless you have a donor scope.
3000 euros for a defect Tek is absurd, even 200 euros is too much to take the risk.

[Wuerstchenhund]

It's not for free, it's still expensive - more than 3000 Euro. But I can try to reduce the price, once I think it's wordy.

I agree with the others, €3000 for a defective 300MHz DPO4k are pretty much excessive. There aren't many user-serviceable parts inside, so you'd probably have to send it to Tek for repair, which will be expensive.

I'd give it a shot if you can get it for €500 or less and send it for Tek for estimate/repair, and then the overall investment may be worth the effort. If it's more than €500 then better buy something else.

[lowimpedance]

 A number of years back work had a DPO4k fail and that cost $5000 to fix,(cost $15K new),  and all Tek did was change the main board and calibrate.
If it fails again it goes into the bin. Frankly if you have the cash to spend buy something new and don't touch this landfill.