Expectations This post is about a teardown of an DPO5000 oscilloscope (DPO5034). This is a 2011, mid-range, Windows-based Tektronix oscilloscope. List price is $12.000, but eBay has them - used - down to $5500 or so if you're lucky. This particular model is a 350MHz, 5Gs/s model without MSO functionality (adding 16 digital channels, a "poor man's logic analyzer" -even though it rather *makes* you poor when buying it, since it's pretty expensive).
Every now and then, I come across something on my scope that’s just beautiful. Being ecstatic on weird traces on your scope sure makes you a geek, but hey, don’t we love being geeks?
To make this more interesting, I’ll won’t describe this further and leave this to my readers. Can someone figure out what signal you can see here? Bonus points for those who understand what makes this data so unique, and a cookie for everyone who guesses what kind of breakthrough (not mine, unfortunately) you can see here.
The WhatsInside post from January was not an incidental post. It is actually snapshot of a much longer forensic investigation to find the ground truth behind some of the technology behind Tektronix’ scope accessories.
Pun aside - In October 2009, I’ve got a new scope, a Tektronix DPO4034. It’s a scope in the $8k range, so while not exactly low-cost, you don’t need a mortgage on your home to buy it.
From time to time, I’ll rip apart devices just because I want to know what’s inside. I mean, usually you know what’s inside - but sometimes, there’s more. Those are the happy days. Sometimes, it’s just a tiny PCB and a lot of weight. Those are the not so happy days.
I’ll start this series - which hopefully evolves a bit more than the last series I’ve started here (which I still intend to finish… some day) - with the Tektronix TPA-BNC.