TNP #12 - Teardown, Repair & Experiments with the Fluke 345 Digital Power Quality Clamp Meter
19.9K views
February 6, 2022 5:45 PM
In this episode Shahriar repairs a Fluke 345 Digital Power Quality Clamp Meter. The Fluke 345 is more than an electric power meter. Combining the functions of a clamp meter, oscilloscope, data logger and digital power meter into one handy device, the Fluke 345 is ideal for working with variable frequency motor drives, high efficiency lighting and other loads using switching electronics.
Although the repair ends up being fairly simple, we get some insight into some of the user interface circuitry as well as some experiments showing the capabilities of the unit.
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TSP #203 - Teardown, Upgrade & Experiments with an Agilent 3400B High Dynamic-Range RMS Voltmeter
30.6K views
January 29, 2022 11:19 PM
In this video Shahriar upgrades an Agilent 3400B RMS meter to add an LCD-based GUI interface and USB digitization capabilities. This excellent instruments offers high RMS frequency range of 10Hz – 20MHz and can reliably measure 100uV RMS – 300V RMS! The instrument uses purely analog techniques to accomplish this.
The theory of operation of the instrument is presented in details along with the challenges of adding digital circuits among such a sensitive analog domain. The upgrades use two modules which communicate through a serial interface and use an ADC to digitize the measured analog RMS value. A new GUI interface is developed to display a wide range of useful information simultaneously as well as historical data trend line. The instrument is used to perform several measurements including measuring the output noise of a DC/DC converter module.
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TSP #202 - A Uniquely Complicated Nixie Tube Clock: HP 5245L Electronic Counter & ERA EasySynth++
42.1K views
December 12, 2021 12:24 AM
In this episode Shahriar repairs and analyzes two instruments. An HP 5245L Electronic Counter which uses 1960’s technology to achieve some incredible performance. The HP unit uses eight beautiful nixie tubes as its main numeric display. The instrument requires repair, calibration and some upgrades to prepare it for use as a nixie tube clock! The source of the clock is an ERA Instruments EasySynth++ which is a high performance, open-source synthesizer up to 20GHz:
https://erainstruments.com/
The architecture and teardown of the EasySynth++ is also presented. The two instruments are combined with some custom scripts to create the world’s (?) most complicated nixie tube clock.
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TNP #11 - Teardown & Analysis of a 75-110GHz (W-Band) Waveguide mm-Wave Balanced Mixer Module
24.7K views
November 13, 2021 11:03 PM
In this episode Shahriar investigates the mysteries of a W-Band fundamental LO balanced mixer module based on GaAs Schottky Barrier Diodes. The mixer offers a very high IF bandwidth of 35GHz and LO driver requirements of 13dBm between 75-110GHz.
The teardown reveals the waveguide to coaxial transitions as well as the interface to the pair of Schottky diodes. High resolution microscope analysis provides a detailed view of the precise machined waveguide ports.
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TSP #201 - Rohde & Schwarz NGU401 500kS/s Source Measure Unit Review, Teardown & Experiments
21.9K views
November 7, 2021 10:23 PM
In this episode Shahriar reviews the latest edition to the R&S SMU family, the NGU401.
https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/products/test-and-measurement/dc-power-supplies/rs-ngu-source-measure-units_63493-1005128.html
This instrument offer four-quadrant operation, 60W total output power, 6.5 digit resolution as well as 500kS/s digitizers on both voltage and current readbacks. The instrument also offers a verity of output control and arbitrary waveform generation. This review is organized as follows:
00:00 – Introductions
00:50 – Front & back panels, interfaces, design
02:40 – Detailed teardown & architectural analysis
08:36 – Pooch!
08:45 – USB Power Bank experiment, NGU GUI design, primary capabilities
13:20 – Multi-quadrant operation, sink/source conditions
15:49 – High-speed sampling, auto-ranging and transient detection
18:29 – Deep-sleep battery drain detection of Fluke 233, graphical viewer, fast logging
22:35 – Characterizing a DC/DC converter, transient output current
27:19 – High output capacitance mode, oscillation detection
29:45 – Current/voltage priority modes
30:40 – Fast arbitrary waveform generation,
34:20 – Additional functions, OVP, OCP, OPP, Modulation Input, trigger IOs, slew control, fast transient
36:18 – Concluding remarks
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