Tektronix DPO2000b teardown

[Drirr]

Do you want to see whats inside?
https://picasaweb.google.com/104378593109746079667/DPO2002B?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIH3roH_-ImCcw&feat=directlink

By the way, do anyone know how to extend bandwidth?

[Hydrawerk]

Thanks for the photos. Why is there that 7 segment LED display?? https://plus.google.com/photos/104378593109746079667/albums/5860030731124964769/5860037961727779858?banner=pwa&authkey=CIH3roH_-ImCcw

[c4757p]

Why is there that 7 segment LED display?? https://plus.google.com/photos/104378593109746079667/albums/5860030731124964769/5860037961727779858?banner=pwa&authkey=CIH3roH_-ImCcw

Cheap error code readout?

[nctnico]

Perhaps but many older Tektronix scopes have a similar error code readout. I think most of the software on Tektronix' non Windows oscilloscopes is basically the same because they all have about the same user interface.

Its a pity it has a fan. I might need to buy one of these scopes for a project and was hoping it had no fan.

[Hydrawerk]

Note the TO220 part (transistor maybe) fixed to the heat sink by an adhesive tape. Quite weird idea, IMHO. https://plus.google.com/photos/104378593109746079667/albums/5860030731124964769/5860030819327466930?banner=pwa&authkey=CIH3roH_-ImCcw
But this was even in the TDS2000, that Dave tore down. http://youtu.be/3K04bHJJQQA?t=8m10s

[nctnico]

3M has a whole range of thermal conductive adhesive tapes to save screws and clamps:
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/AdhesivesForElectronics/Home/Products/ThermalSolutions/ThermallyConductiveAdhesiveTransferTapes/

[Hydrawerk]

When compared with Agilent DSOX2000 series, the Tek DPO2000 has more ICs, so less integration...

[Hydrawerk]

I like more the power supply of Agilent DSOX2000 or DSOX3000. All the diodes and transistors in TO-220 are easy accesible and easy to replace. No one-time usable adhesive tape there. As seen at Dave's Flickr... http://www.flickr.com/photos/eevblog/sets/72157626631250619/

[Hydrawerk]

Next photos. It must be difficult to repair the Tektronix power supply, on the other hand, it might hardly ever break down, I believe it can run for 50 000 hours...

[nctnico]

These arguments are pretty moot.

[Hydrawerk]

Well, not many producers actually use the adhesive tape for heatsinks, but I am not sure, whether it is good or not. 

[nctnico]

Maybe the device doesn't really need heatsinking. Maybe it just needs to stay in place. Its hard to judge without knowing all the facts. At Tektronix they build their products to survive some rough handling.

[casinada]

Some airplane parts are glued and not screwed or riveted. If is probably done, there is no problem. If you need to repair it on the other hand.....

[nctnico]

I just had the pleasure to play a bit with a DPO2014B (4 channels 100MHz) and a TCP0030 current probe. I got this set for a customer to use for certifying certain equipment.

The scope works much like the older TDS500/700 scopes I have. Ofcourse it has many user interface improvements over the older scopes. The best improvement IMHO is the variable filter (which Tektronix calls Filtervu). It allows to apply a low pass filter to the signal so all kind of high frequency grud is filtered out. On the older TDS500/700 you'd have to play with the 25 possible combinations of acquisition and display methods. Another neat feature is the vertical zoom knob and dual display where the you can see the entire waveform (small) and the enlarged waveform.

The big disadvantage is the small screen resolution. The display is only 400*240 which is too small for real lab work and I wouldn't dare imagine using the MSO version. When measurements and/or the cursors are enabled they clutter the screen making the area which displays the waveform even smaller. This scope would have been so much better with an 800x480 screen...

[Hydrawerk]

This scope would have been so much better with an 800x480 screen...

You have to buy the expensive Tek DPO3012.  It has 9 in. (229 mm) WVGA Widescreen Color Display.

[Hydrawerk]

I found a new teardown of MSO2024B.

[Lukas]

Out of curiosity, I downloaded the firmware upgrade and pulled it apart, let's call it 'firmware teardown time'

It contains a file called firmware.img which is an image of a ext2 filesystem, inside that is a bunch of stuff related to updating the firmware and the actual firmware 'filesystem.img' which is a tarball of the root filesystem. As you may have noticed so far, this thing runs linux. In particular a rather old version:

Code: [Select]

$ file kernel.img
kernel.img: u-boot legacy uImage, Linux-2.4.20_mvl31-885ads, Linux/PowerPC, Multi-File Image (gzip), 1278107 bytes, Tue Apr 26 23:48:14 2011, Load Address: 0x00000000, Entry Point: 0x00000000, Header CRC: 0xD3039EC6, Data CRC: 0x6FAE0CDF
We also see that it's using a PowerPC CPU rather than an ARM compared to the MDO3000 or so. IIRC the older Tek scopes used power PC as well.

We also find the main app blob, but this one turns to be out rather boring, there's one more interesting bit, the kernel driver for the hardware, named "tek.o".
Some interesting strings from it:
author=Tim Sauerwein, Tektronix, Inc.
ADG420 delay value, ADG420 --  seems to be some frontend thing (http://www.afc-ingenieros.com/uploads/Afc/Productos/Tektronix/Manuales/Osciloscopios%20TPS2000/TPS2000%20Service%20Manual%20-%20077-0306-00.pdf)
ADC08D1020 delay value -- so it looks like the ADCs are rebadged COTS

With the knowledge of the ADG420 frontend, I took a look at the main app again, close the occurence of ADG420, there's this: BW_18MHZ,BW_20MHZ,BW_23MHZ,BW_26MHZ,BW_39MHZ,BW_45MHZ,BW_51MHZ,BW_61MHZ,BW_60MHZ,BW_73MHZ,BW_89MHZ,BW_122MHZ,BW_200MHZ,BW_240MHZ,BW_260MHZ,BW_NONE
So you should probably look at the two ICs on the frontend board when trying to upgrade the bandwidth.