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Nice, so I'll get even more entertainment out of it!

The equipment that's bought and sold at the electronics flea market typically isn't used as a means to an end, it is the end. There's disappointment when you buy something there and it just works. There's no fun in that.

I don't really have a use for a R&S AMIQ, but replacing all the PC motherboard caps taught me a lot about good desoldering practices. https://tomverbeure.github.io/2026/06/28/Rohde-Schwarz-AMIQ-...

by sdcfgy8 hours ago|

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Yeah agreed. I’ve fixed more Tek equipment than most people out there. In the order of hundreds of units.

These are just exceptionally bad.

by sitzkrieg2 hours ago|

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i thought maybe it was just something regionally here or the way people stored em, but i was in a position to refab many a few years ago and totally agree. tek had 100% repart rate and seemed like anything else (brand wise) was always in better condition internally even when way older.

by drzaiusx114 hours ago|

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I'm blanking on the exact models I used; I'm fairly certain they were tds700s or tds71xx, but a lab I ran had about a dozen units and we had nothing "fry" in the 4 years I worked there. What applications would result in these catastrophic failures?

by tverbeure3 hours ago|

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Over the years, I've had 5 TDSxxx series scopes, and I still have a few. The common issues are:

NuColor CRT displays going bad. Bad capacitors. Dallas NVRAM units battery running out of juice

Fried electronics are pretty rare.

by drzaiusx113 hours ago|

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We had some "ghosting" on the displays on a few now that you mentioned it, but they were still 100% usable. I guess my expectations were lower since I never had to foot the bill for the lot of em (which at 20k/unit I guess I'd be upset about when one was faulty)

by stmw7 hours ago|

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For a brief second, I thought this was about an original 7104.

Are there specific TDS models that you have found to be better, btw, reliability-wise?

by jhallenworld3 hours ago|

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>an original 7104

I've got one, they are very cool. I also have a 7834 (storage tube), cool in a different way. On the other hand, they are taking up a lot of space... I also have two 485s, one with a broken trigger.