Tektronix TDS5034B, TDS5054B, and TDS5104B. Any Good?

[RCHRDM]

I may be able to buy a TDS5104B for under $1,000.  Does anyone have experience with this scope (or the TDS5000 family)?

[Someone]

This comes up frequently, the search function and google both return results.

[RCHRDM]

Thanks.  I have searched this forum and the Internet already and looked at what is said.  There are a couple of threads on this forum.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I may be able to buy a TDS5104B for under $1,000.  Does anyone have experience with this scope (or the TDS5000 family)?

Yes, one of our labs had them when they were new, and even back then they weren't something to write home about. The positives are the large screen and the decent UI (much better than the UI on Agilent's Infiniium 54800 Series scopes), however like most Tek DSOs they were very slow in general, and much more so when trying to do anything demanding, a point at which they tend to lock up. They were also pretty crash-prone when under heavy load.

Spec-wise the TDS5k Series OK (low sample rates for this class of scopes, which goes down from 5GSa/s in single channel to merely 1.25GSa/s in 4ch mode), aside from the price (which was Tek typcial on the upper end of the spectrum).

These scopes also have a mode called 'Fast-Acq' which increases the waveform rate, however measurements and analysis tools don't work in this mode which makes it of little use, als the claimed 100k wfms/s in that mode are reached by other scopes without the measurement/analysis limitations.

Also, if I remember correctly, they also only ever ran Windows 2000, not XP, even at a time when all competitors had their instruments solidly on XP. Unlike other Windows scopes the TDS5k uses a proprietary mainboard format, and some of these boards suffered from leaking caps.

These days I wouldn't buy them. They were mediocre back then and are poor scopes today. Tek made the best analog scopes, but in terms of DSOs they pretty much only had poor to mediocre products, and the TDS5k is no exception. Plus they have been obsolete for a long time, and seriously, for the money a TDS5k often sells for (i.e. >$2k for a TDS5054B and >$3k for a TDS5104B) you can get much better scopes on the 2nd hand market.

So unless you get a really good price (i.e. less than $1k for a fully working TDS5054B) or you're specifically into Tek gear for some reason then you're better off with a different scope from other brands.

[Jwalling]

Also, if I remember correctly, they also only ever ran Windows 2000, not XP, even at a time when all competitors had their instruments solidly on XP. Unlike other Windows scopes the TDS5k uses a proprietary mainboard format, and some of these boards suffered from leaking caps.

The TDS5000 series did not have a proprietary MB. You may be thinking of the TDS6K 7K and 8K which used NLX motherboards.

Jay

[nctnico]

So unless you get a really good price (i.e. less than $1k for a fully working TDS5054B) or you're specifically into Tek gear for some reason then you're better off with a different scope from other brands.

Less than $1k for a 1GHz DSO with a TFT screen in good working order is a good deal IMHO.

[EEVblog]

Last one that sold on ebay went for over AUD$4k
But it, it's a bargain.
If oyu don't like it you can flip it for a couple of grand profit.

[Wuerstchenhund]

The TDS5000 series did not have a proprietary MB. You may be thinking of the TDS6K 7K and 8K which used NLX motherboards.

I guess you're right. It's been a long time since I've seen a TDS5k.

Last one that sold on ebay went for over AUD$4k
But it, it's a bargain.
If oyu don't like it you can flip it for a couple of grand profit.

That's probably the best option, provided the scope is OK. Buy it cheap, sell it on to some Tek punters, and use the profit to buy a better scope for yourself 

[rsjsouza]

The price seems reasonable for the paper specifications and is much more interesting if you know and trust the person that is selling this to you. I haven't used this particular model, but using other Tektronix oscilloscopes at work give me a bit of idea.

A few practical aspects that tend to influence my own experience in buying oscilloscopes:
- Overall size of the "beast": in my case I have limited workbench space and therefore this is a limitation. Since the TDS5104B uses a LCD screen, it does not use as much workbench space as used comparable oscilloscopes of the same 1GHz price range, such as Lecroy's LC564/584 or Tektronix' TDS684/784. At my work lab there is a TDS7104 that would be absolutely impractical to have at my home lab - not so much the height or the weight, but the footprint area.
- Power up speed: I don't leave the oscilloscope turned on all the time, therefore this is not a deal breaker but a nuisance factor. The older windows-based oscilloscopes may be a tad slower to boot, especially if running pre-XP. The aforementioned TDS7104 (windows-based) is not as annoying as the oscilloscope stays turned on for longer periods, but at my cubicle I use a TDS3034 (non-windows) that boots pretty quickly.
- Connectivity: I have the need to transfer data in/out of the oscilloscope with some regularity, thus the ability to quickly copy data to a standard media is a plus for me. Some older windows-based oscilloscopes frequently had Ethernet only as an option and may or may not have USB ports. This forces you to use the floppy disk interface in the front, which may or may not be a nuisance. The TDS7104 can transfer data to a single USB port in the back, but I have to use an external hub if I do not want to disconnect the mouse/keyboard at the same time. The TDS3034 only has the floppy option.
- Still on the connectivity side, if the oscilloscope has Ethernet, don't be tempted to connect it to the internet, as updates to these older operating systems may be insufficient to face the amount of modern viruses and trojans around the internet.
- If possible, try to play around with the oscilloscope before buying. Some oscilloscopes are terribly slow to operate and sometimes their screens start to fade as well. The TDS7104 is not the fastest oscilloscope I've used but I can somewhat get by, but the TDS3034 is much slower and the screen on it has a very poor contrast.

Anyways, these are just some practical aspects when deciding for something that was released to the market a number of years ago, and obviously all this gets thrown out of the window if you plan to resell it (these guys go for a lot more on eBay)

(edit: while I was typing the same suggestion above came along)

[nctnico]

A quick fix to speed up the boot process on any Windows based piece of test equipment is to install an mSata SSD in an mSata to IDE adapter.

IMHO buying the scope for a quick profit is likely not going to work. The person who spend $4k AUD already has an empty wallet and the seller may have had an advantage by being able to prove them to be trustworthy (and pay top dollar).

[Wuerstchenhund]

IMHO buying the scope for a quick profit is likely not going to work. The person who spend $4k AUD already has an empty wallet and the seller may have had an advantage by being able to prove them to be trustworthy (and pay top dollar).

AU$4k is probably extreme but I guess the OP could certainly get in excess of $2000 for it, maybe more. Not a bad profit for what is essentially moving on a piece of gear.

There are still many people for which the Tek brand name looks attractive.

[RCHRDM]

Thanks for all the replies.

[andy2000]

IMHO buying the scope for a quick profit is likely not going to work. The person who spend $4k AUD already has an empty wallet and the seller may have had an advantage by being able to prove them to be trustworthy (and pay top dollar).

AU$4k is probably extreme but I guess the OP could certainly get in excess of $2000 for it, maybe more. Not a bad profit for what is essentially moving on a piece of gear.

There are still many people for which the Tek brand name looks attractive.

I do recommend an SSD.  It's easy to miss, but the socket 478 board in the B version has two SATA ports.  I successfully copied the IDE hard drive to a SATA SSD on the TDS5054B I'm fixing up.  It does substantially improve boot speeds, and should be more reliable if you go with a good quality SSD.

[uccoskun]

If you are bold enough you can change the motherboard and load XP.  I did not find any successful report on windows 7 conversion yet.

my motherboard is Intel DQ77MK Motherboard.

[Jaak]

These scopes also have a mode called 'Fast-Acq' which increases the waveform rate, however measurements and analysis tools don't work in this mode which makes it of little use, als the claimed 100k wfms/s in that mode are reached by other scopes without the measurement/analysis limitations.

For that class of scope, at the time, I don't recall anything running the waveform capture rate as quick. 

Fast Acq in Tek Scopes allowed you to see transient events other scopes would likely miss or take forever to capture.   The key is you use Fast Acq to figure out what the issue is, then you set up your trigger system to nail it every time, especially with the segmented memory, you could overlay all the trigger events with the time stamps and see the repetition rate.   With competing scopes you could do much of that, if you ever managed to capture what the problem was in the first place...  Hence the power of the Fast Acquisition system.  If you can see it, you can set up a trigger to nail it every time.   Even Agilent's post processing at the time, still meant you have to capture waveforms first and do a software search, instead of actually triggering on it every time.

Like much of this stuff, once you understand how it works, you then know how to use it effectively.

[nicnac117]

Just a few questions ?
 Can a TDS5054B be "uprated "to a TDS5104B ?. Does the 5054 board have the 1 gig front end limited by ?are the boards the same ?Is it Firmware .

[calibrationfixture]

Hi,

Look and compare it with your own, then you know. I don't have a picture of a TDS5054B Acquisition Board.

Calibrationfixture

[nicnac117]

Thank you . Would appear its not on 

[calibrationfixture]

Hi again,

Another eevblog Thread:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/tektronix-tds5054b-acquisition-board-infohelp-needed/

And a picture of a TDS5104B Acquisition Board its back. End of your ambitions. Sorry. 

Calibrationfixture