TDS3000/TDS3000B series scopes calibration experience

[benj38]

Hi guys,

Does anybody know how tedious (or not) it is to manually calibrate a TDS3000B series scope?

According to the service manual, one needs a DC voltage source, a leveled sine-wave generator, and a fast-rise generator. One then enters the calibration process and keeps feeding the desired inputs from one of these generators to the scope, following the on-screen instructions.

While I do not have the generators recommended by the service manual, I do have equipment that I can persuade to generate signals within the same specs (e.g., as a DC voltage source, I can use a lab power supply and a very accurate voltmeter). This, however, can become very tedious if the process calls for hundreds of different inputs. 

If anybody has experience with this please advise.

Thanks in advance!

[phenol]

I went through the calibration routine of my tds scope as it had channel-to-channel skew issues. I am not entirely sure if it was there in the first place or came as a result of me hacking it to from 3034 to 3064 as described elsewhere on the forum.
There are 56 steps, most of which ask you to apply various DC voltages from 200mv to 70V in either polarity on all channels simultaneously.
Towards the end it prompts you to feed 80MHz 400mV p-p and 55kHz 200mV pp signals to each channel individually.
For the last step you’ll need a negative voltage steep rise/fall time pulse generator going from 0 to -2.2V feeding all 4 channels simultaneously with equal lengths of coax.
I had to roll my own generator. it’s that last step i was interested in and it did fix the skew, but it seems you can’t just skip calibration steps and pick any random one you want to execute.

[dj9ss]

Hi,
I successfully performed factory calibration multiple times on my TDS3032B, after extending it to four channels   

The fast rise time signal was provided by the negative fast rise output of a PG506, so I didn't have to roll anything myself 
All required DC voltages were delivered by Fluke 5101B calibrator. For the 80MHz I could use a E4437 signal generator.
For the remaining 55kHz I initially used a function generator, but later I switched to using the output of the I/Q modulator ARB in the E4437.

In general the procedure is not critical, however, I observed the software occasionally proceeded to the next step without me pressing any key, causing the step to fail. Fortunately you can easily repeat failed steps.
All in all you can perform factory calibration in less than one hour, provided you have everything prepared before starting.

Regards