Salvaging scope analog stage

[Marsupilami]

Hi All,

I’m in possession of 3 high bandwidth, high sample rate (>1GHz, >2.5Gsps) digitizer boards, but all of them are 50Ohm “line” level.
I know I could build stuff with sweat and blood, but I was wondering if I could find an easy to gut oscilloscope, throw out the digitizer section and use the analog part to condition the input. Maybe one that has the input section on a separate panel with simple IO to control the paths.

Ideas?

Thanks!

[nctnico]

A Tektronix TDS500 / TDS700 series attenuator / amplifier section comes to mind. Good to 1GHz with switchable 50 / 1MHz inputs. AFAIK: In the TDS744A this is a seperate module which could be easely used as an input module for your project. Look for Tektronix part number 119-4092-02 or 119-4092-03 . There are several for sale on Ebay.

[Marsupilami]

A Tektronix TDS500 / TDS700 series attenuator / amplifier section comes to mind. Good to 1GHz with switchable 50 / 1MHz inputs. AFAIK: In the TDS744A this is a seperate module which could be easely used as an input module for your project. Look for Tektronix part number 119-4092-02 or 119-4092-03 . There are several for sale on Ebay.

Oh that looks awesome. I wish there were schematics in the service manual or out in the wild. I don't know how difficult the control scheme is to reverse engineer it.

[nctnico]

A Tektronix TDS500 / TDS700 series attenuator / amplifier section comes to mind. Good to 1GHz with switchable 50 / 1MHz inputs. AFAIK: In the TDS744A this is a seperate module which could be easely used as an input module for your project. Look for Tektronix part number 119-4092-02 or 119-4092-03 . There are several for sale on Ebay.

Oh that looks awesome. I wish there were schematics in the service manual or out in the wild. I don't know how difficult the control scheme is to reverse engineer it.

There are component service manuals with schematic for some of these models. You can find these here http://www.ko4bb.com/getsimple/index.php?id=manuals. The TDS544A has a seperate attenuator module; the schematics should give some clues about how to control it. The TDS520B has the attenuators on the acquisition board and shows the inner working of the attenuators in the schematics. You'll have to mix & match a bit to get all the info.