And now on to ..the story to my Frankenstein-Agilent 8110A:
All began when I found a used but still intact and offered completely working two-channel/PLL-board-equipped HP 8110A with dim display on ebay for ~$400 plus shipping over the pond (don't ask...
).
Bought the unit, asked for a sturdy padding and.. -it was delivered with smashed front plate but still working.
I was lucky and got full refund for it and could keep it.
Now I had an "injured" unit that I needed parts for.
Luckily a single-channel/PLL-board-equipped Agilent 8110A with reasonable bright and readable display claimed fully working was offered on ebay some month later.
I bought it for around $350 plus shipping (I had the money left from my first buy-refund action).
I also asked the seller for good and sturdy padding.
You guess it: padding was poor, the unit was delivered with smashed front plate but still working -got full refund for it and could keep it. The signal generator board was faulty btw.
After that my motivation having a working 8110A lowered somehow.
But in a true TEA moment I began browsing ebay for a 8110A parts unit for replacing the mechanical parts that got smashed and bent and found a single-channel/PLL-board-equipped HP 8110A without front plate as a parts unit!
I instantly went for it. Of course I wrote to the seller that I needed the mechanical parts and because of that he should extraordinarily pad the unit.
He didn't and -you guess it- it was delivered with some cuffs and bent parts of the metal body but the signal generator board was still working without errors! Got full refund for it though and could keep it.
I could re-bend most of the damaged parts though..
There I was with three 8110A main frame bodies, two front plates, one display dim and hard to read, one display in reasonable shape and three signal generator boards (one makes up one channel).
I put them all on to my TEA stack because my excitement for them had suffered significantly with all that bad luck resulting in damaged parts.
But one day I was lucky stepping over the plastic part of a NOS 8110A front plate!
As a change this part was delivered undamaged (seller was a professional company).
The last thing I missed for building a newold 8110A was the plate sticker to finish the front plate.
I was struck by the idea that I won the lottery when my ebay-search revealed a NOS Agilent-labeled plate sticker for a 8110A!
I bought it right away for ~$40 plus the same amount for shipping and waited happily for its delivery.
You all know what comes next:
I waited.
And waited.
Opened a case. And waited.
And finally was fully refunded by ebay.
But without any plate sticker.
It was lost and is lost to the day.
Last weekend I thought about reusing the Agilent plate sticker that I already had -sticked to the broken face plate of my second unit.
With the help of my hair dryer I was able to gently pull it off without loosing too much of the adhesive layer and stick it onto my NOS front plate.
That was the begin of it all re-building following:
The metal body of my first unit was too beaten up for any further use.
I re-bent the damaged parts of the second and third unit, swapped the intact memory-card-inlet from the first unit to the second unit and was able to join the plastic mounts of the front plate of my first unit by welding it using a soldering iron with SMD-tip at 260°C.
I swapped the original Papst fans of the second unit into the third unit and put Maglev fans into the second unit.
Then the big swap of boards took place and in the end the first unit had become the scrap unit with one signal generator board with faults in it and no front plate.
The Agilent unit got a new front plate under its reused plate sticker and the signal generation boards of the first (HP) unit.
The third (also HP) unit got the Agilent units Papst fans and kept its one signal generation board and got the re-welded front plate with dim display of the first unit.
After all it was fun to build at least two working 8110As from parts of three 8110As.
I might sell the one-channel unit to get money for future TEA projects.
At the moment I enjoy having not one but two 8110A pulse gens.
-That I don't really need.
Pure TEA.