Huuuuge lot of test gear, should I nab it?

[Bored@Work]

A tremendous amount of my job is actually R&D in its most pure form, wherein I basically spend a ton of time doing ultra obscure kinds of tests and learning things like crazy until I stumble across some gem I can use for future development or to fix a major problem in our product lifecycles.

Let me guess, you are in some free energy, overunit, Schumann healing wave R&D business? If yes, that equipment is absolutely for you. Go for it.

[joshhunsaker]

So this is for your company in a pro R&D lab?
In that case I'd give it a complete miss. Go buy what you specifically need, either new or 2nd hand if really needed.

Well, I wouldn't say it's quite a "pro" operation  .  I've put together a sort of "rag-tag" assortment of the best gear options I knew of at the time and the company would allow budgeting for.  I've had to kind of prove every step at the way that every purchase was explicitly worth it for a while (yes, some of the experience has been quite draining in a way).  But it's forced me to get very creative and learn how to repair things and extend my knowledge to areas that I had zero experience with.  I mean, at the end of the day I've been able to piece together a lot of really cool toys like a Solidoodle 3d printer, Earthworks M50 & 1021, lots of B&K gear, Rigol DS1102E, Goldstar 1ghz counter, Vichy VC8145 dmm and boatloads of good audio interfaces, which I've been happy about.

In a way, part of buying this kind of lot would be more for the effort of learning how everything works and expanding the limits of my understanding of digital and analog circuits required for any types of repairs that might be needed.  The compliment of parts would be extremely useful for some of the test jigs and automation systems I'm working on as well.  So, yes it's for the R&D but the R&D lab is kind of there for and because of me to being with.  The company benefits by anything I figure out.

Everyone here speaking against it I think is winning me out though.  I'm going to pass on it at this point.

Let me guess, you are in some free energy, overunit, Schumann healing wave R&D business? If yes, that equipment is absolutely for you. Go for it.

No, not in the slightest.  I oversee a number of consumer electronics product lines.  I'm not ignorant of the laws of thermodynamics lol.

[SL4P]

Offer $1000-$1500 - no negotiation.
His decision 48 hours no more chances.
Take it away. Win win situation.
You will incur costs - transport and storage & selling.
He obviously want out of it.
Or spend on newer gear without the stress.

[saturation]

He could consider calling SkyCraft, they specialize in this stuff and they are fairly close by.

http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/webuysurplus.aspx

One gem I see there is a Tek 284 Pulse Generator.  That is a rare bird.  Its a 1GHz 70 ps pulse generator that uses a tunnel diode, and it took me some time to find one.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TEKTRONIX-Type-284-Pulse-Generator-/321441980732?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item4ad76f613c

There's more about the 284 in the eevblog archives.

[aroby]

He could consider calling SkyCraft, they specialize in this stuff and they are fairly close by.

http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/webuysurplus.aspx

They're on the other side of the country!

[saturation]

My bad, I thought it was Jacksonville, Fl! 

He could consider calling SkyCraft, they specialize in this stuff and they are fairly close by.

http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/webuysurplus.aspx

They're on the other side of the country!

[vk6zgo]

Josh,

At one time, perhaps up until about 10 years ago, about the golden age for buyers at internet auctions, for a lower price, this would be the start of a nice lab setup. However, today, you can take that $2900 and put together a very capable, very nice lab setup that will have exactly what you want in it, and will take up much no more space than you need.

I do love those Tek mainframe scopes--they are superbly engineered.  They are also obsolete.  I have two, and keep them in running condition, only out of love.  They take up too much space, and I never use them.  For those who argue that analog scopes are somehow less tricky or reveal more information than digital scopes, I would say that if you don't know how to look at the signal on a digital scope, then you probably aren't fit to interpret one on an analog scope either. 

I say don't do it.

Dave

I've been using Oscilloscopes for over 40 years,& DSOs are definitely very different to analog 'scopes.
Analogs don't have aliasing problems,which still dog all but the best DSOs.
The big advantage of DSOs is their storage capability,but they give up a lot to give you that.

The only situation where a DSO was any more useful to me  than an analog was chasing signals in & out of my car's ECU------after the Mechanics had given up.

The  DSO was better,not because it was Digital,but that it  was portable!
It was an early Tek TH series ---old & all,I'd pick one of those up in a heartbeat,if they were cheap enough!

Why can't the OP get a group together, buy the stuff & share it out?

[MadTux]

The goodies are the Tek 7000 Plugins,7904 mainframe, the Tek 284, Tek AM 503 current probe and all the TM 5000 stuff and the HP8640B. That stuff alone is probably worth 2500$ on ebay.

BTW, what is that HP instrument on top in pic3? LCR meter?

BTW if anyone takes it and isn't interested in the Tek7000 calibration fixture and samplers, I'd take them for 50-70$ ea.

[G0HZU]

The whole advert is worded to butter up the gullible.
A lot of it isn't even guaranteed to exist...

At best you will be buying the decaying carcass of a failed business consisting of unsaleable or faulty crap that wouldn't be cost effective to sell any other way than to advertise it in a job lot.

At worst you may end up needing to do two trips because the clues are there...  There could be an awful lot of undocumented junk to remove as part of the 'contract of sale'

[TerraHertz]

Offer $1000-$1500 - no negotiation.
His decision 48 hours no more chances.
Take it away. Win win situation.
You will incur costs - transport and storage & selling.
He obviously want out of it.
Or spend on newer gear without the stress.

This.
There are some nice things there, but also a mountain of work and trouble. I like this sort of old gear, but even I wouldn't blow nearly $3K on carting away his junkyard, not even if I lived 10 minutes away.

If you wanted something to do in your retirement years and can't think of anything better, this might be attractive. Just going through that lot and cataloging what works, what can be fixed (and is worth fixing), and what is irreparable junk would take a year. At least.

You could point out to him that if he wants the stuff removed, ultimately it's possible he may have to pay someone to haul it away. Much as it will pain him to face that reality.

Though damn, I do need a flexible Tek 7000 extender...

[KedasProbe]

Looks more an offer for a business man than an equipment user, reselling all parts on ebay.
And taking the gamble that he will get return on investment, only a few very good devices could tip it over to a profit action.

So no for a user.

[cpuerror]

Maybe if I had a business that was specializing in repair of older military gear or special industrial applications I would consider it for a handful of test equipment and the old IC's that are otherwise unobtainable. The rest of it would just need to be dumped - the time in testing, selling, packing/shipping is not worth the price it would sell for.

Otherwise I wouldn't touch this thing with 10-ft HV probe.

[Wuerstchenhund]

The big advantage of DSOs is their storage capability

No. The big advantage of DSOs, aside from their storage capabilities, is their capability to analyze and process signal parameters.

With an analog scope, all you get is what you see. For many complex signals this simply isn't good enough.

[vk6zgo]

The big advantage of DSOs is their storage capability

No. The big advantage of DSOs, aside from their storage capabilities, is their capability to analyze and process signal parameters.

With an analog scope, all you get is what you see. For many complex signals this simply isn't good enough.

Ever try to look at an analog video field signal with any inexpensive DSO?
Many people use Oscilloscopes to track faults in equipment,where "processing of signal parameters"is not of high priority.
Being able to determine the electrical integrity of the signal is the important thing in that case.

[free_electron]

The big advantage of DSOs is their storage capability

No. The big advantage of DSOs, aside from their storage capabilities, is their capability to analyze and process signal parameters.

With an analog scope, all you get is what you see. For many complex signals this simply isn't good enough.

Ever try to look at an analog video field signal with any inexpensive DSO?
Many people use Oscilloscopes to track faults in equipment,where "processing of signal parameters"is not of high priority.
Being able to determine the electrical integrity of the signal is the important thing in that case.

An old 54645d or anyone of the megazooms can do that perfectly fine. You select pal or ntsc and can even dial in the exact line you want to see... Try that with analog junk. And these digital machines are 25 years old ! The screen refresh and acquisition refresh of these machines is fast enough they can update at the video framerate.

[HighVoltage]

These days, I have to proof Six-Sigma capabilities on almost all measurements that go to a customer.
To do this manually it can takes days.

With a new Agilent DSOX or MSOX it is done automatically within minutes!
Literately minutes!
And the reports are just awesome and the customer is happy.

These new generation scopes have given me so many new opportunities and time savings, sometimes
I can not even believe it.

So, I would not get in to the old stuff anymore

[joshhunsaker]

I tried calling the owner of the company to see if I could get him to jump on it as a business expense.  Hasn't gotten back to me.

Maybe if I had more in savings stashed away, it'd be fun to do just to get my hands on so much stuff.  I'm young and have puhlenty of time to dick around with obscure stuff like learning how to make use of all the obscure/unobtanium ICs in that pile. 

I've never been one who's worried much about space.  8 years ago I had a couple 40 unit racks crammed with pro-audio goodies and a mic locker of dozens of good mics.  It was positively obscene but I used every piece and loved every minute of it.  I've always been a bit of a gear whore I suppose.  I've probably owned 100 different pro-audio and consumer amplifiers alone in my life.  I got good enough at flipping audio gear while I lived in Reno to pay rent from it many months.  Medford's thrift scene is useless on the other hand.

[edavid]

Hager is a character, and I'm sure you'd enjoy meeting him, but I doubt this deal would end up making economic sense.  How much would a truck and fuel cost you?  Will you have to rent storage?  How good are you at selling things on eBay?

Are you in Medford?  In that case you should check it out in person.  I don't think there's a rush, he's been trying to get rid of this stuff for years.

[joshhunsaker]

Are you in Medford?  In that case you should check it out in person.  I don't think there's a rush, he's being trying to get rid of this stuff for years.

Yeah, I'm in Medford.  I may give him a call and mention that I can't immediately jump on this kind of deal but that could change if the owner of the company wants to spring for it.

[georges80]

Looks like 99% junk that the fellow has realised is beyond his ability (mentally or physically) to discard. The local landfill would charge him too much $$ to dump, so he's looking for someone else to clear it all out for him

I'm not a 'young' engineer - and can't think of any time in my many engineering years where I would get excited to spend some serious $$ loading a BIG truck full up with all that 'stuff' and then have to deal with sorting/selling/tossing 99% of it.

Reminds me of some of those Discovery shows with the 'pickers' visiting places out in the boonies for "treasures" and some of the pack rats they meet.

Rather than a truck to take the stuff away, the guy going there needs a D10 to create a big hole to push it all into

OP: if your 'boss' isn't excited in buying that 'treasure', it would seem to me he's very smart...

cheers,
george.

[joshhunsaker]

Well, I totally understand why a lot of experienced people here would absolutely advise against it.  I do.  But on the other hand there's plenty of respected engineers that I've polled on other forums that have advised to go for it.  I can see both the value and hassle in it as a package.  The parts that don't bother me at all (moving/storage/time spent) I can see would bother other people greatly.

I'm still new enough to this stuff that getting a bunch of equipment like this would be huge impetus to spend weekends upon weekends experimenting and familiarizing myself with stuff I'd otherwise never get to tangibly handle.  It might take someone else who gets upset just at the idea of having to sort through and test such a huge amount of equipment a number of months to sort through it all, but I can guarantee that I'd probably spend just a single 16 hour day non-stop testing everything very quickly.

There's also something about a room full or hardware that completely floors me.   I'm not minimalist by any means. 

[G0HZU]

But on the other hand there's plenty of respected engineers that I've polled on other forums that have advised to go for it.

Are you sure about that? They don't have my respect if they told you to buy it.
For a start they don't know how much stuff there is. There could be a huge pile of really useless junk included and it will become all yours. There's a thermometer that is described as 'working' and the rest is untested/faulty/may not exist.

Most of the stuff there is obsolete and a waste of space even if it's working. You'd have a better/easier/simpler future if you simply flushed the $2900 down the toilet and stayed away from this sale.

[joshhunsaker]

Most of the stuff there is obsolete and a waste of space even if it's working. You'd have a better/easier/simpler future if you simply flushed the $2900 down the toilet and stayed away from this sale.

My B&K 2215 meter certainly isn't "obsolete".  Neither is my 4230 pistonphone, 4366 accelerometer or ZR 0020 integrator.  On the contrary, those pieces saved me a few thousand dollars vs. new equipment and work fantastically.

I'm a little wary of anyone who touts the inestimable advantage of any "new" piece of equipment vs. an old piece of equipment just by virtue of the "obsolete" argument.  I know for a fact when comparing prices and value that's certainly not how it works with acoustical measurement gear (Orfield labs for instance still uses a 12 year old B&K front-end, doesn't seem to be a problem for them).  Show me a quality logic analyzer that offers as many channels of 100mhz analysis as my HP 1650A that doesn't suck for under $100 (how much I paid total for the HP) and i'll admit I've put my foot in my mouth.  Just the high-quality probe clips that came with it were worth the price.

You're forgetting the parts themselves.  I'm not sure how you can dictate that anything in that pile would be useless to me.  How do you know I won't end up building a rf anechoic chamber and making use of the massive antennas for immunity testing?  You're making a ton of assumptions.  If you had told me 5 years ago that I'd be working on the projects I'm currently working on I'd have looked at you blankly and told you you're insane.  But, here I am.

[PaulAm]

Hard to say, it might be worth it.  There's not a lot of money in equipment of that era, although it still has a following. I'd certainly bargain him down since all the work is on you.  It also would be useful to actually see what he has.  You don't want to bite on a few useable pieces on top of a load of trash.

If you're in business or a professional where time is money, you're likely to avoid older equipment if only because if it malfunctions when you need it, you're out $$$.  But for others, it can be a cost effective alternative.

I had a local guy on Craigslist offering a bunch of Tek spares (at least that's what he claimed, although the pics didn't quite support that).  When he claimed they were worth "thousands", I dropped it.  Maybe for $100 it might have been worth sorting through everything and cataloging it

[nctnico]

Most of the stuff there is obsolete and a waste of space even if it's working. You'd have a better/easier/simpler future if you simply flushed the $2900 down the toilet and stayed away from this sale.

My B&K 2215 meter certainly isn't "obsolete".  Neither is my 4230 pistonphone, 4366 accelerometer or ZR 0020 integrator.  On the contrary, those pieces saved me a few thousand dollars vs. new equipment and work fantastically.

I hear you... BUT... test equipment does age. Switches wear out, electrolytics go bad and many pieces of equipment use exotic parts as well. I got burned a few times with equipment which was impossible to repair.  Last year I bought a couple of HP power supplies from the early 80's. These needed all the electrolytics and front potmeters replaced. Good power supplies but they ended up costing twice as much because of the replacement parts. Not to mention the time spend.

As a rule of thumb I don't buy equipment which is over 15 years old (the HP supplies looked newer to me but I forgot how old I have become).