Value of broken E3610A

[echen1024]

How much should I expect to  pay for a broken Agilent E3610A? The dumbass seller INSISTS on selling it for $65, and I purchased a WORKING one for $69.99.

[nctnico]

Well, point him to sold listings on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-E3610A-DC-Power-Supply-/271257044399

[uoficowboy]

How much should I expect to  pay for a broken Agilent E3610A? The dumbass seller INSISTS on selling it for $65, and I purchased a WORKING one for $69.99.

I recall somebody saying the display driver IC was unobtanium. So if it's a display issue I wouldn't pay anything.

Otherwise I'd pay $40 shipped for most other issues. You should be able to get them shipped and functional for $75 or less.

[sync]

The display drivers are ordinary TC7107 (ICL7107). No problem getting them.

[uoficowboy]

The display drivers are ordinary TC7107 (ICL7107). No problem getting them.

Oh, oops. Must be thinking of some other power supply then!

On a side note - I recently contacted a seller on Ebay who had about 50 E3610As. I contacted him off of Ebay, so that he'd avoid Ebay fees. I was looking to purchase 10-20 E3610As. He quoted me $110 each for them (plus shipping). I mentioned they typically go for $75ish (shipped) in single quantities (and then minus Ebay fees) and he was so kind as to drop the price to $100 each. Plus shipping.

Some people...

[philpem]

On a side note - I recently contacted a seller on Ebay who had about 50 E3610As. I contacted him off of Ebay, so that he'd avoid Ebay fees. I was looking to purchase 10-20 E3610As. He quoted me $110 each for them (plus shipping). I mentioned they typically go for $75ish (shipped) in single quantities (and then minus Ebay fees) and he was so kind as to drop the price to $100 each. Plus shipping.

Some people...

Sounds like you were dealing with one of the UK T&M dealers. I'd love to know what some of them have been drinking... and where to get some.

Some of the gems I've seen --

£900 for a Racal 1992 frequency counter.
£5k for a HP DSO mainframe with no acq modules installed
£675 for a really old (early 1990s at the latest) 2MHz Thurlby Thandar function generator

I'm sure someone pays these prices, but I have no idea who...

MCS, ABEX and Telford are pretty bad for this -- one of the first two even had the audacity to state "all ebay prices exclude VAT" on their listings despite this being a direct violation of Ebay terms of service (not that Ebay appear to care). Stewart of Reading are the least bad as far as pricing goes, but I haven't seen anything in their price list I wanted/needed for a long while...

[grumpydoc]

I wonder whether they get any sales.

Ebay is an odd place though and I really don't understand why (some) items "For Parts or Not Working" go for so much money. I came across a HP8648C last week, listed at £555 and described as dead but even before it died  the output level was off. These things have SMPSes in and while "dead" might be very simple Dave's recent videos on the HP35670A show that the other end of the scale is "the SMPS died and fried half the stuff in the box".

I offered £100 based on the fact that it might be a £100 box of dead parts - the seller's counteroffer was only just a little off his original list price. His justification was that they were originally a high priced item and so it should be worth more.

I checked - there are some listed at quite high prices (over £1000) but the last two which sold went for £435 and 800USD (which is just over £500)  respectively, making £555 a bit on the high side even if the thing were working.

BUT a couple of days ago I notice he'd sold it - so someone was prepared to offer pretty close to his original asking price. Either that or he climbed down a lot (but I doubt that from the exchange of messages).

I don't understand this - or am I just too tight?

[philpem]

I wonder whether they get any sales.

Ebay is an odd place though and I really don't understand why (some) items "For Parts or Not Working" go for so much money. I came across a HP8648C last week, listed at £555 and described as dead but even before it died  the output level was off. These things have SMPSes in and while "dead" might be very simple Dave's recent videos on the HP35670A show that the other end of the scale is "the SMPS died and fried half the stuff in the box".

I offered £100 based on the fact that it might be a £100 box of dead parts - the seller's counteroffer was only just a little off his original list price. His justification was that they were originally a high priced item and so it should be worth more.

Been there, seen that. There seem to be a few Israeli sellers who excel at this sort of thing. Equipment that looks like it was dragged out of the rubble of a building, completely wrecked (there was a Keithley DMM with a smashed front panel and VFD on there not long ago) selling for near the new RRP.

Everyone seems to think that test equipment doesn't depreciate... market speculation or something of that ilk?

I checked - there are some listed at quite high prices (over £1000) but the last two which sold went for £435 and 800USD (which is just over £500)  respectively, making £555 a bit on the high side even if the thing were working.

BUT a couple of days ago I notice he'd sold it - so someone was prepared to offer pretty close to his original asking price. Either that or he climbed down a lot (but I doubt that from the exchange of messages).

I don't understand this - or am I just too tight?

If you're tight, I'm... I don't know how tight that makes me, actually. Think a gnat's (ahem) might be a touch less tight 

The last good deal I got was my Advantest spec-an -- just shy of £1k, 2.6GHz, tracking generator installed and soft-options for EMC Quasipeak and Multimarker enabled. That thing's going off for calibration tomorrow... will be interesting to see how badly it's drifted over time. Last cal date sticker is the one from the UK distributor!

I sometimes wonder what OTC think of all this old kit I send in for cal... last time it was a pair of Solartron 7150Plus DMMs. They're going in again, one for a one-year cal (just to see how much it's drifted) and the second for a full calibration now I've rebuilt the broken keypad and analog input stage.

[grumpydoc]

Been there, seen that. There seem to be a few Israeli sellers who excel at this sort of thing. Equipment that looks like it was dragged out of the rubble of a building, completely wrecked (there was a Keithley DMM with a smashed front panel and VFD on there not long ago) selling for near the new RRP.

Ah, yes - surplustechmart or whatever they're called. Actually I was surprised to see that quite a bit of the stuff they currently have listed merely looks "well used" not "dragged out of a war zone and run over by a tank".

Oh while on ludicrous prices (sorry, can't post ebay links at work) I note that someone has two Lecroy 9384 cases, just the case, front panel (admittedly with the rotary encoders) and CRT (hopefully with the CRT electronics at least) but wants £600 each for them 

I have two working 9354's - paid less than half of that for the two of them!

[PaulAm]

I offered £100 based on the fact that it might be a £100 box of dead parts - the seller's counteroffer was only just a little off his original list price. His justification was that they were originally a high priced item and so it should be worth more.

I had a similar experience lately.  I've been looking for an hp 4262a LCR meter which don't come up very often.  Some guy had a dead one listed at 249 US.  Based on the selling prices I offered him $150 which I thought was pretty generous.  He declined and countered around $200.  A week later I bought one for $100 that was working perfectly (and is dead-on), albeit with a broken button, although the actual switch works fine.  Kind of weird, these are really nice meters, even if they do take up some bench space, and I was the only bidder.

[bdivi]

one reminder out of Dave's video on E3610A - these cannot be modified on mains side. If it is from US then is it more or less useless in Europe , also the opposite.