Author Topic: Things don't sound good at Tektronix  (Read 30947 times)

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Offline Smokey

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #75 on: April 17, 2015, 07:40:37 pm »
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My service job many years ago had a CRO as a standard piece of test gear, not so now. Either service industries have dried up or the equipment is now digital with little or no scope requirement for adjustments.
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The gear I work on now has no application for scope measurements, it self calibrates or is locked down. If it fails to meet spec, there is no adjustment, modules are swapped or binned.
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While I'm not sure this is a direct reflection on scope sales and use, it is certainly true that with the more integrated systems there really aren't a lot of things a tech can repair in the field. 
 

Offline pickle9000

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #76 on: April 18, 2015, 01:16:57 am »
...
My service job many years ago had a CRO as a standard piece of test gear, not so now. Either service industries have dried up or the equipment is now digital with little or no scope requirement for adjustments.
...
The gear I work on now has no application for scope measurements, it self calibrates or is locked down. If it fails to meet spec, there is no adjustment, modules are swapped or binned.
...

While I'm not sure this is a direct reflection on scope sales and use, it is certainly true that with the more integrated systems there really aren't a lot of things a tech can repair in the field.

Equipment repair was a such a big industry. Are there places in the world that do still repair things on a large scale? Maybe a better question is will the recycling industry do this, or perhaps a country and then resell the goods?
 

Offline Smokey

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #77 on: April 18, 2015, 01:51:14 am »
It's probably cheaper to keep desoldering and reselling the chips and stripping all the gold out of the PCBs like they are doing now.  If you've ever spent any significant amount of time trying to troubleshoot and fix random failures (not all the same failure) in any piece of electronics (even the ones you have all the schematics for) that is incredibly time consuming and not economical.  Not much return there.
There probably aren't many chips in modern high end scopes that you could even salvage since a lot of the work is in custom silicon.
 

Offline pickle9000

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #78 on: April 18, 2015, 06:31:15 pm »
It's probably cheaper to keep desoldering and reselling the chips and stripping all the gold out of the PCBs like they are doing now.  If you've ever spent any significant amount of time trying to troubleshoot and fix random failures (not all the same failure) in any piece of electronics (even the ones you have all the schematics for) that is incredibly time consuming and not economical.  Not much return there.
There probably aren't many chips in modern high end scopes that you could even salvage since a lot of the work is in custom silicon.

I was referring to a general repair industry. In countries where repair is a viable alternative to buying new. It used to be common for a local repair shop to do everything from a toaster to a TV. Those things not paid for where just sold. Many (most) repairs for modern equipment relate to power supply issues a problem that's easy to sold without a schematic. A small shop dealing with equipment like this has use for a basic scope. I guess the real issue is will this come to be. The repair of consumer equipment rarely happens and when it does it's a board swap. I think in a place like Brazil (for example) this could or may actually be a part of the normal economy. 
 

Offline Hydrawerk

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #79 on: April 18, 2015, 07:29:08 pm »
Well, Tek produces much non-oscilloscope stuff. They might be good at it.
http://www.tek.com/power-analyzer/pa4000
Amazing machines. https://www.youtube.com/user/denha (It is not me...)
 

Offline Hydrawerk

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #80 on: April 18, 2015, 07:59:45 pm »
Please, when compared to Rigol, Owon looks like a child's toy.
Amazing machines. https://www.youtube.com/user/denha (It is not me...)
 

Offline rdl

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #81 on: April 18, 2015, 09:46:23 pm »
Actually, judging by the DP832 and DS1054Z, I believe Rigol's current design trend is to make things that look more like they belong on a shelf at Toys"R"Us rather than on a lab bench.
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #82 on: April 18, 2015, 11:16:15 pm »
Perhaps but TFT screens offer a whole new range of possibilities to shown what a piece of equipment is doing. I recently acquired some older Agilent gear with a VFD display. That is quite a step back.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline aargee

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #83 on: April 20, 2015, 12:32:35 pm »
Actually, judging by the DP832 and DS1054Z, I believe Rigol's current design trend is to make things that look more like they belong on a shelf at Toys"R"Us rather than on a lab bench.

In what respect?

Googling up a whole lot of Agilent/Keysight DSO device images and comparing them with  the DS1054 images, there aren't a lot of stand out differences there. They look as pretty and as colourful as each other.
Not easy, not hard, just need to be incentivised.
 

Offline Galenbo

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #84 on: April 21, 2015, 07:45:53 am »
Actually, judging by the DP832 and DS1054Z, I believe Rigol's current design trend is to make things that look more like they belong on a shelf at Toys"R"Us rather than on a lab bench.

I think I found a gap in the market. Let's develop a whole series of front covers like the nokia 5110.
And sell other backgrounds and color themes for the display :-)
If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat.
 

Offline ve7xen

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #85 on: April 21, 2015, 08:48:30 am »
Actually, judging by the DP832 and DS1054Z, I believe Rigol's current design trend is to make things that look more like they belong on a shelf at Toys"R"Us rather than on a lab bench.

I think I found a gap in the market. Let's develop a whole series of front covers like the nokia 5110.
And sell other backgrounds and color themes for the display :-)
Agilent's got this market covered for multimeters - but nobody's done scopes yet!
73 de VE7XEN
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Offline embeddedbob

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Re: Things don't sound good at Tektronix
« Reply #86 on: April 21, 2015, 01:13:46 pm »
Actually, judging by the DP832 and DS1054Z, I believe Rigol's current design trend is to make things that look more like they belong on a shelf at Toys"R"Us rather than on a lab bench.

In what respect?

Googling up a whole lot of Agilent/Keysight DSO device images and comparing them with  the DS1054 images, there aren't a lot of stand out differences there. They look as pretty and as colourful as each other.

I agree with rdl on this. To be specific its the curves and edges on the case (and graphics); Keysight are way ahead on this (as you would expect).
 


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