Hosted by David L. Jones
And presented in Dave's unique non-scripted overly enthusiastic style!
-
EEVblog #147 – $12000 Smoke
Posted on February 21st, 2011 42 commentsWhat does $12000 magic smoke smell like?
Murphy ensures that Dave always gets the outliers on the production bell curve for review!OFFICIAL RESPONSE FROM AGILENT AFTER INVESTIGATION:
We have determined that a short on our LAN/VGA module is what caused the EEVblog unit to stop working. The short caused a resister on the acquisition board to fail, bringing down our 3.3V supply path and causing the unit to no longer boot. After further investigation, it was determined that a small run of early production LAN/VGA modules were susceptible to this short. Although the issue is relegated to this small initial run of LAN/VGA modules, we are replacing all LAN/VGA modules in customer hands and have implemented additional testing procedures on our LAN/VGA manufacturing line to eliminate this issue from happening again.
Thanks to everyone at Agilent for taking this issue very seriously, investigating ASAP, taking preventative correction measures, and getting back to us! That’s what sets good companies apart!
41 responses to “EEVblog #147 – $12000 Smoke”
-
As a sanity check, was this before or after tear-down? Nerveless, I loved your review of the 2000.
-
Hi!
I’m a French Fan of your excellent blog !Good continuation and in the pleasure to read to you !
Davy
-
MaxHeadroom February 21st, 2011 at 20:06
Dave lets out $12000 of magic smoke, in Agilent tear down. lol
-
Right… And you, stripping the scope down to the last screw, has nothing to do with it.
Oh well, nice review though.
-
tinman February 21st, 2011 at 21:56
It is of course nice to see that the ARM is probably displaying all the menus and the actually acq. picture is coming from ASIC.
-
firewalker February 22nd, 2011 at 02:07
While you where sniffing the scope there were lights flashing. Some kind of safe mode?
-
Haha, i thought a first that you were gonna blow it up with thousands of volts. It would have been tremendous.
-
Anatol February 22nd, 2011 at 04:11
The blog is just amazing, however this video where David blames manufacturer seems to be a compromise of his professionalism!
Actually failing osc after teardown is not a surprise, a did not see him wearing any antistatic bracelets the same I can say about class of cleanroom David performed teardown in.
-
davez5 February 22nd, 2011 at 09:00
I’ll be big bucks that the pad on his table is an ESD pad. We use those at work instead of the bracelets.
-
You should be using both, you cant always maintain contact with the pad.
-
-
If I watch the teardown video’s more closely, I see him wearing an ESD armband and the blue supposedly is an anti ESD mat as well.
I guess he could have broken it with the teardown, it also goes to show how sensitive these devices really are (from the inside). I hope Dave will hear what the reason of malfunctioning was, or maybe it was a random failure.
-
Hans, believe your eyes. There is no armband and I know Dave’s garage floor is not static dissipative.
I doubt it was ESD damage, but we will never find out now that the relevant components blew up.
-
arnoldpi February 22nd, 2011 at 20:13
Um look at 2:09 on the teardown video, it’s on his bicep. It does not appear he had it on when the shielding was in place but it certainly was at some point. I reckon Dave has the experience to know better than to not wear one.
It could be Dave’s fault due to the teardown, could be faulty manufacturing, speculating at this point is wasted effort. Wait for the autopsy that is hopefully forthcoming by Dave or Agilent.
-
-
-
Sydney weather is quite humid this time of year, so ESD damage is unlikely. The PCB’s don’t look like they are conformally coated – a speck of metal released from a screw thread could have shorted something. I’ve seen it happen.
-
-
I also think the teardown might also at least be partially responsible..
btw, I thought this thing was only $1200, not $12000? was that a typo, or is this a 3000 series not the 2000 series?
-
Its the high end scope of the 3000 family with all the add-ons. $12,000
-
-
davez5 February 22nd, 2011 at 08:28
This video is of the 3000 series that is broken. He took apart the 2000 series.
-
As Dave would say
“Sniff.. sniff.. sniff.. I smell BULLSH*T!”At the end of the smoke video Dave says he could try to see what failed, but he won’t it’ll go right back into the box with a big FAIL sticker.
But here, he now says that he tore it down AFTER it blew.
Which is it?
I highly doubt, that he would do a complete teardown without every so much as a single mention of the the smoke and failure that supposedly had just occurred.
Dave’s always been known for calling it as it is.. but not now.
FESS UP like a man, you opened it, it blew. It may or may not have anything to do with it, but rewriting history to avoid embarrassment ruins your credibility.
-
It is possible to give Dave the benefit of the doubt; he may have decided not to include the blowup in his formal review, but then tossed it up as an aside. He can probably see now how that has confused people, but if he was truly trying to misdirect responsibility he could easily have reshot his teardown as a diagnostic session rather than as a review. Occam’s razor should apply.
-
I had no idea the loony imaginations would run riot.
But yes, I can now see how it could possibly have confused some people.
Hang on, I just realised the outside temp is displayed in the teardown video. The nutters can probably go look up the temp records and time/date and compare to my tweets. Go for it. Gotta be some evidence to catch me out there, surely!
-
-
-
Having read some hardware review sites over the years, it’s not all that uncommon for there to be issues. Infact there has been accusations of companies using reviewers as free test/QA. They sent the thing knowing it’ll be taken apart and any issues could be made public so IMO it doesn’t really matter if it blew before or after teardown.
Also I suspect the biggest cost is in the logistics rather than the fix given it’s a new product and they’re setup to quickly deal with possible issues not just from one reviewer. Of course publishing this “smoke story” could cost something to the company image if the product has shipped to more than just reviewers so it might’ve been more fair to determine the cause first and ask what the company is doing about this rather than leave an information vacuum.
-
Hmm, this site has become nothing more than a product review site, and littered with ads.
-
Dave, keep doing what you’re doing. Understand that these people so quick to take a stab at your credibility are simply a vocal minority.
As a side-note, I recently completed a BSEE and have been looking for work in the states for the last two months, it’s been more difficult than I expected. I love the advice on job-hunting/career-building.
Anyways Dave, forget ‘the nutters’. Kudos on the PCB design guide and your blog in general.
-
XynxNet February 25th, 2011 at 00:45
I believe you Dave. Such things happen.
Thanks for not putting it directly back in the box.
The teardown was interesting and i would not want to have missed it due to some warranty-sticker-shit. -
Quite clearly all the negative comments have missed the point completely. Dave could have simply said nothing and waited for the replacement unit. But he choose to share the experience instead. Now if something was not right don’t you think he would have just not mentioned it?.
As you said Dave, don’t give a shit. -
Your trouble, Dave, is with the success of your blog you’re attracting more internet know-it-alls than before. 18 year old Guys sitting in their mom’s basement passing judgement over the opinions of those much older & (sometimes!) wiser.
So people, I think that anyone who has seen a lot of Dave’s video blog entries would have to admit that if he’d stuffed up he’d almost certainly have confessed to it and had a bit of a laugh at his own expense. Companies like Agilent send stuff to guys like Dave to see if it *does* break. Why the hell WOULD he cover it up?
1 Trackbacks / Pingbacks
-
Tweets that mention EEVblog #147 – $12000 Smoke @ EEVblog – The Electronics Engineering Video Blog -- Topsy.com February 21st, 2011 at 18:57
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Luke Weston and John Boxall, Dave Jones. Dave Jones said: EEVblog #147 – $12000 Smoke http://goo.gl/fb/DugWZ [...]
Leave a reply
-
Follow the EEVblog
The EEVblog goes full time!
Support the EEVblog Sponsors
Jaspel February 21st, 2011 at 17:47