Author Topic: Teledyne LeCroy WaveRunner 64xi, morphed to differential probes... (Read 56506 times)

joeqsmith · « **Reply #50 on:** May 13, 2015, 10:56:12 am »

More surprised that the seller would advertise a Hantek T3100 and ship some other part. I did get a response from Amazon.

"... I checked and found that you order was placed with "BEST.CHOICES", a seller on our website, because "BEST.CHOICES's" inventory is constantly changing, we can't replace items sold by them that are fulfilled by Amazon.... "

They will allow me to return them free of charge but I may just try one out for fun. Looking for the real Hantek T3100, it seems that most places show it out of stock. Can't see any point in placing another order just to get some random probes.

Still even with that little curve ball, I am very happy with the Hantek 10X probes I did receive. They seem to work fine with the LeCroy 64Xi.

My video comparing the 100MHz Hantek PP150 with a 350 MHz LeCroy PP002 and a 300MHz Probe Master PM 4906A

joeqsmith · « **Reply #51 on:** May 14, 2015, 04:28:47 am »

Decided to go ahead and run a few tests on the P4100. If you ever wondered what one looks like inside, I'll put up a video in a day or so.

Wrote Hantek to see if they have a distributor with the T3100 in stock.

Somewhere in the mess is the 64Xi.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #52 on:** May 14, 2015, 04:35:23 pm »

In this video I evaluate the no name P4100 high voltage probe with the LeCroy 64Xi.

tautech · « **Reply #53 on:** May 14, 2015, 07:30:47 pm »

All the P**** probes are YPioneer brand.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #54 on:** May 17, 2015, 02:34:27 am »

Low voltage testing on the Reynolds Wrap probe.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #55 on:** May 20, 2015, 02:46:43 am »

Making two this time based on all of my prototypes. The cases are made from spent shell cases. Trimmed and drilled them the lathe and just soldered together. I plan to stay with the EC pogo for a tip. Much smaller parts this time around to get the over all size down. Plan to use a Teflon core this time.

tautech · « **Reply #56 on:** May 20, 2015, 03:41:34 am »

Quote from: joeqsmith on May 20, 2015, 02:46:43 am

Making two this time based on all of my prototypes. The cases are made from spent shell cases. Trimmed and drilled them the lathe and just soldered together. I plan to stay with the EC pogo for a tip. Much smaller parts this time around to get the over all size down. Plan to use a Teflon core this time.

Nice, will the calibre matter?

Rupunzell · « **Reply #57 on:** May 20, 2015, 07:39:44 am »

The Tek P6015 probe innards. The 100Meg resistor is about 75-100mm long x 8mm diameter. Note the tapered capacitor with two different sized rings on the resistor ends to allow higher break down voltage by increasing the effective gap. The gold plated connection becomes the probe tip. The red plastic ring is a freon level float.

Those puny resistor inside the China made HV probe is very telling about the probe design, construction, users and expectations of what these probes are. That probe IMO is not worth the $ spent and resources used to produce them.

Bernice

joeqsmith · « **Reply #58 on:** May 20, 2015, 10:57:36 am »

That P6015 picture is very helpful. It confirms what I am doing with the copper foil.

Cases are 223, 35 Remington, 25-06.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #59 on:** May 22, 2015, 04:50:51 am »

Made some Teflon inserts for the tip. EC pogo pins.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #60 on:** May 24, 2015, 05:50:35 am »

It's now been 2 months since installing the 1G RAM and Transcend SSD into the 64Xi. The DSO has been ran pretty much every day and I have not seen any problems with it. Even channel 3 continues to work fine. I should mention that on this system, I did not make any changes to the system settings for the SSD. I just mirrored the drive, installed it and used it. It may shorten the life of the drive, but so far everything works great. It just needs the protective cover.

The video shows the end result of attempting to make my own 2KV 100MHz probes. The attached picture shows them next to a few other home made probes to give you an idea on their size.

Wuerstchenhund · « **Reply #61 on:** May 24, 2015, 01:04:46 pm »

Quote from: joeqsmith on May 24, 2015, 05:50:35 am

It's now been 2 months since installing the 1G RAM and Transcend SSD into the 64Xi. The DSO has been ran pretty much every day and I have not seen any problems with it. Even channel 3 continues to work fine. I should mention that on this system, I did not make any changes to the system settings for the SSD. I just mirrored the drive, installed it and used it. It may shorten the life of the drive, but so far everything works great. It just needs the protective cover.

What model of Transcend SSD did you use? It seems Transcend has replaced the PSD320 (which was one of the drives that was suffering from corruption in the WRXi) with the PSD330, and according to the Transcend representative I talked to the PSD330 has improved firmware which handles PIO and UDMA33 modes much better.

Also, the WRXi wasn't the only case where the older 320s ran into problems.

I also wouldn't worry about SSD lifetime. Just leave some space unpartitioned (overprovisioning), and disable auto defrag in XP, and the SSD should work fine for many years to come.

nctnico · « **Reply #62 on:** May 24, 2015, 03:05:24 pm »

I would not be so sure about the lifetime of an SSD. The guaranteed data rentention time of many SSDs is 3 months when powered down. No this is not a typo or a bad joke; it is actually in the specs! I got a big

moment when I found out. From what I understand the cells are refreshed every now and then so it is better to leave an SSD on permanently.

Muxr · « **Reply #63 on:** May 24, 2015, 04:10:21 pm »

Quote from: nctnico on May 24, 2015, 03:05:24 pm

I would not be so sure about the lifetime of an SSD. The guaranteed data retention time of many SSDs is 3 months when powered down. No this is not a typo or a bad joke; it is actually in the specs! I got a big moment when I found out. From what I understand the cells are refreshed every now and then so it is better to leave an SSD on permanently.

There was also a lot of fear mongering about SSD data retention by the media for a short while. Data retention depends heavily on the temperature. Basically the higher the temperature while the SSD is on, and the lower the temperature while it's off the longer the data lasts.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-retention

In your normal conditions it is at least a year, for a full drive, less than full drives can retain data longer.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #64 on:** May 24, 2015, 05:57:17 pm »

Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 24, 2015, 01:04:46 pm

Quote from: joeqsmith on May 24, 2015, 05:50:35 am
It's now been 2 months since installing the 1G RAM and Transcend SSD into the 64Xi. The DSO has been ran pretty much every day and I have not seen any problems with it. Even channel 3 continues to work fine. I should mention that on this system, I did not make any changes to the system settings for the SSD. I just mirrored the drive, installed it and used it. It may shorten the life of the drive, but so far everything works great. It just needs the protective cover.

What model of Transcend SSD did you use? It seems Transcend has replaced the PSD320 (which was one of the drives that was suffering from corruption in the WRXi) with the PSD330, and according to the Transcend representative I talked to the PSD330 has improved firmware which handles PIO and UDMA33 modes much better.

Also, the WRXi wasn't the only case where the older 320s ran into problems.

I also wouldn't worry about SSD lifetime. Just leave some space unpartitioned (overprovisioning), and disable auto defrag in XP, and the SSD should work fine for many years to come.

This is the TS64GPSD330. Like the one in my 8500A, it also has built in wear leveling. I have left defrag enabled and partitioned the entire drive. Really, just mirrored it over and plugged it in.

I plan to keep the scope and will let you know when it starts to have problems. It was 2 months to the date when I posted, and I thought you would like to know how it was going as you had such a different experience.

On my 8500A, I also partitioned the entire drive but in that case I had made several setting changes to try and increase the drive's life.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #65 on:** June 27, 2015, 07:36:44 pm »

Month three, DSO in use daily still. Full drive was formatted, defrag active, no changes to the OS at all.

The 8500 has not had near the use but continues to work fine as well along with the G Ethernet interface installed.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #66 on:** July 23, 2015, 02:57:22 am »

If you watched my hand held meter testing, you know I took the home made shell case probes a little over 4KV before switching to my Tektronix P6013 probe. I am pleased with the results from the home made probes.

The P6013 is rated to 12KV and I ran it a little over 13KV when testing the Fluke 101 and 87V. This is the highest voltage probe I have at home. If I had the cash, I would pick up a Northstar but I think we paid around $3 for that last one. They are top quality products.

My plan is to attempt to construct a new probe for home use, similar to the shell case probes.

Looking at DC - 50MHz, 40KVDC/80KV (pulse at 50% duty) min with a max load of 200uA, 1000X, uses 1M input on DSO. I plan to stay with standard coax with no compensation at the DSO. With 80KV on the high end at 50% duty cycle, the life of the film resistors should be fairly long.

Quote from: joeqsmith on May 24, 2015, 05:50:35 am

The video shows the end result of attempting to make my own 2KV 100MHz probes. The attached picture shows them next to a few other home made probes to give you an idea on their size.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #67 on:** July 24, 2015, 01:55:18 am »

This probe will be a little harder to prototype. Bored the phenlic rod to accept the Super MOX parts. This will become the dielectric for the capacitor. The copper plates will solder to the brass end cap. There are a couple of Teflon inserts that I need to make and then can try out this part.

Hope to keep the size down to about the same as the 6013. May look a little strange...

joeqsmith · « **Reply #68 on:** July 25, 2015, 03:01:12 am »

Cleaned, soldered, doped and assembled the first parts. I was not sure about using the phenolic for a dielectric but I soldered some coax on it to try it out and it looks useable. I'll post some sort of video.

As shown, end to end is about 10".

Mark_O · « **Reply #69 on:** July 25, 2015, 04:45:50 am »

Joe, that's certainly some nice looking workmanship. I'll be interested in hearing how well it works, when you test it.

Mark_O · « **Reply #70 on:** July 25, 2015, 04:52:23 am »

Quote from: joeqsmith on July 23, 2015, 02:57:22 am

If I had the cash, I would pick up a Northstar but I think we paid around $3 for that last one. They are top quality products.

At 3 bucks a piece, I would have grabbed a bunch of them.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #71 on:** July 25, 2015, 05:30:50 am »

Quote from: Mark_O on July 25, 2015, 04:45:50 am

Joe, that's certainly some nice looking workmanship. I'll be interested in hearing how well it works, when you test it.

Thanks. Not holding my breath for this one.

Here is the video from today's initial tests.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #72 on:** July 26, 2015, 06:08:34 pm »

Pulled out the Reynolds Wrap, tape and cardboard to try some things out. Not planning to win a beauty contest with it....

joeqsmith · « **Reply #73 on:** July 27, 2015, 04:53:00 am »

Today is 4 months of the 64xi using the SSD with no problems. Flipped on the 8500A a few weeks ago and it would not boot. Not the SSD, but the CMOS battery. Should have changed it when I had it apart.

After playing with the cardboard and tape and getting some fair results with the home made probe, time to start working on the real parts.

Here you can see the Teflon insulator that will fit between the handle and main body. To the right is a ceramic tube that will replace the cardboard to form the shield.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #74 on:** July 27, 2015, 06:14:37 am »

The ceramic tube is wrapped in copper foil to form the shield. I mentioned I planned to insulate the shield. Last picture shows the cover. It's starting to look like something.


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Author Topic: Teledyne LeCroy WaveRunner 64xi, morphed to differential probes... (Read 56506 times)

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