Category Archives: Measurement Equipment

Crack open wall wart (power brick): hot air method (READ or risk more damages!)

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The power brick that came with my U1620A order has a rattling noise when I shook it. I suspected a piece of soldered cracked and was wandering inside so I chose not to power it on as it might short something. So I had to crack open the wall wart, which turns out many people have little luck open it up non-destructively.

Just prying it open by force with a screwdriver will ruin the plastics. I needed to somehow soften the glue first and work into it (like using a cutter) to dislodge/cut the glue. Rubbing alcohol doesn’t work that well. The glue is quite stuff so it’s not the easily dissolvable kind.

After some experimentation, I used my hot air station and set it to a temperature right below it melts the hard ABS plastic outside (143 deg C, max air flow), and carefully pried it after taking the heat away.

WARNING: Do not pry while the hot air is blowing as the ABS plastic might be slightly softened! The hot air might overshoot in its temperature feedback) so you might accidentally remold it. When working at the borderline temperature that barely soften the ABS plastic, the second you take the hot air away the plastic cools back (hardens) enough for you to pry.

Out of practicality, I heat up one edge at a time, then focus on 1/3 of the area at a time get an entry point prying one hook open at a time. It takes a lot of patience.

After I got all the 4 sides pried open for some reason I couldn’t release the case and it felt something was stuck in the middle. Turns out the wall wart I have happened to have a center screw hidden from plain sight under the label. The label quality was so good that just pressing it around with a pair of tweezers won’t find the screw hole (because of the tension). I used hot air (at the same 143 deg C) to probe with tweezers to locate the screw hole. I cut a hole in the label for the screw hole because it’d be a pain to use hot air to get the label off in one without ruining it and be able to put it back like new.

Bonus discovery: molded plastics have some memory!

I dented the ABS plastic case during prying (before I thought of using hot air), but I discovered this magical temperature (143 deg C) actually heals the plastic when I blow it in a direction that undoes the dent! The small (like 2mm) dents magically smooth itself out and went back to rough where it was before I screwed it up (pun intended)!

Yes, for molded plastics, small dents caused by prying and bumping, heating it up to the temperature right before it softens will return it to its near original shape without external forces!

Of course, do not go past the softening temperature (143 deg C). If you heat it to a melting temperature, the plastic will lose its memory so you need to apply external force to beat it to the shape you wanted (which is a pain in the butt and it requires a lot of post-processing to get it to look like original).

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Agilent DSO6000 series was internally called 54670/54680?

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Architecturally, the DSO6000A series shares common designs with 54830 series oscilloscope and 54640 series oscilloscopes. I noticed the Acq board numbers for my DSO6052A start with 54672 and the my M/DSO6104A starts with 54684. Looks like the 5467X means 500Mhz and 5468X means 1Ghz while the X is the number of analog channels.

This is ‘confirmed’ by a slip up in the documentation (user guide) which they forgot to update the model number in their vector graphics:

I think I’m getting a hang of Agilent’s oscilloscope’s hardware to do deep level board repairs as I have various model to compare. I used If you need yours repaired, please reach me at 949-682-8145.

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RS-232 Stop Bits in Agilent Instruments

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Turns out Agilent instruments do not use the same defaults for the RS-232 in their instruments.

54600 series uses 1 stop bits (most common):

RS-232 modules used in old 54600 series
54620/54640 series (newer 54600 series)

However other bench instruments such as power supplies (E3640 series 663X series) and 33120A arbitrary waveform generator uses 2 stop bits (fixed regardless of parity), which is usually NOT THE DEFAULT for most terminal clients:

E3640 series and 33120A’s RS-232 configuration.
Parity only trade away one data bit, so it does not affect stop bit
663X series powers supplies’ programming manual aren’t explicit about that except in code example

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InfiniiMax AutoProbe 1 Caveats

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For most mortal souls probing up to 12Ghz, Agilent’s integrated active probe system is called the the AutoProbe 1, which looks like this:

Regular full blown Windows-based Infiniium oscilloscopes takes any AutoProbe 1 probes (as long as the shape fits), but I noticed my DSO6104A (InfiniiVision 6000A series) do not take my 1152A (2.5Ghz) probes nor my fancy 1168A (10Ghz) and 1169A (12Ghz) probes.

Turns out the more compact, embedded (VxWorks) Agilent scopes that boots almost immediately. It’s called the InfiniiVision Series, which covers 1000 X-, 2000 X-, 3000A/T X-, 4000 X-, 6000 X-, 5000, 6000, and 7000 Series.

I’m not rich enough to get my hands on the X series, but I know from the architecture that 5000, 6000 and 7000 series are basically the same scope. 5000 and 6000 series looks almost identical while the 7000 series adds a giant screen and a slightly different keypad layout (the BNC ports do not align with the channel buttons and dials).

Turns out the datasheets shows two caveats:

  • 100Mhz model uses different hardware. They don’t take Autoprobe interface as there’s absolutely no reason why you need an active probe to get 100Mhz single ended. Agilent skipped the hardware for it (thus the autoprobe pins) altogether although they kept the recessed space reserved for Autoprobe so they don’t have to mold a different front bezel just for the 100Mhz models.
  • They basically take only Generation I AutoProbe I, namely the 1130 series
  • Gen 0 (not an official name) AutoProbe 1 does not work: 1152A (2.5Ghz single ended) for 54845A. These differential probes: 1153A, 1154A, 1155A, 1159A are also considered too old. They were intended to work with old Infiniiums such as 54845A
  • Gen 2 AutoProbe 1 (only 10Ghz 1168A/B and 12Ghz 1169A/B models) does not work. These embedded scopes usually max out at 1.5Ghz, with the exception that 6000X goes up to 6Ghz, which is still way below 10Ghz
  • N2800 series are Autoprobe I, but it’s Gen III (has a bigger butt extending away from the AutoProbe I hole), so it doesn’t work
  • The rest are Autoprobe II and III that’s beyond our mortal souls (and way out of the league of InfiniiVision scopes)
https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/7018-06782/data-sheets/5968-7141.pdf

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E5070B / E5071B shutting itself down immediately after turning on

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Got a second customer coming in today with a E507XB series network analyzer that does not turn on. Looks like it’s a common problem within the model series.

If the unit turns on without the CMOS battery but it doesn’t turn on the 2nd time after the CMOS was cleared, you have a very expensive problem which likely I’m the only person who can solve it because it’s months of effort tracing the circuit and the timings inside. I regretted chasing down the rabbit hole and spent more labor than 3 good unit’s costs for the few grands I’ve charged, but I might be able to recoup the labor in the future as more of the E507XB fails the same way.

UNLESS it’s a SC815E (there are 2 revisions that uses different motherboard), it’s NOT the motherboard or the power supply. I’ve seen some faulty SC815E doing the same on other model series, but not the VP22s (I replaced 4~5 different VP22s, they all do the same thing). It’s some good timing issues that’s hard to pinpoint to a specific module (you can replace everything on the digital side and it still doesn’t work) which I had to design, build and test a special circuit to correct it.

If you have a unit E5060 series or E5070 series VNA (Vector Network Analyzer) that doesn’t boot, I’m likely to have the exact experience fixing it. Of course I’m open to solving other problems with the analyzer as well. I offer free eval (no fix, no fee). Please email me at owner@humgar.com or call me at 949-682-8145.

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