Tek LCD screen failure

[CC]

Hi:

It figures that with all the Tek TDS3000 series scopes I've been using
at work for the past 8 years, that the TDS3014 I bought and paid for
with my own money at home would have the LCD screen fail!

Tek wants $1300 to fix it. There is a TDS3VM VGA output adapter for the
thing. It can be had for $200. I think I'll get it.

I could also inquire about the cost of the screen component, and
consider doing it myself. But that has the risk that it may not the
correct component. The VGA adapter, if it works, would confirm that
it's the LCD panel, but after getting the adapter I might as well just
use it and not spend any more money.

I never need it to be portable, so it's not so bad. Could actually be
advantageous, since I often look at signals from about 2m away, while
changing program code for embedded micros at my desk. Using a cheap LCD
monitor pegged to the wall might make that easier to see.

I also have an Agilent MSO6054 at work which I love. I might not buy
another Tek next time I want one at home or at work.

Anyone have any sense of which maker has more LCD or other failures in
these cheap plastic scopes these days?



P.S. Sorry to hear about Tony Williams. My heart goes out to his
family and friends.




Good day!

 

[James Sweet]

Hi:

It figures that with all the Tek TDS3000 series scopes I've been using at
work for the past 8 years, that the TDS3014 I bought and paid for with my
own money at home would have the LCD screen fail!

Tek wants $1300 to fix it. There is a TDS3VM VGA output adapter for the
thing. It can be had for $200. I think I'll get it.

I could also inquire about the cost of the screen component, and consider
doing it myself. But that has the risk that it may not the correct
component. The VGA adapter, if it works, would confirm that it's the LCD
panel, but after getting the adapter I might as well just use it and not
spend any more money.

I never need it to be portable, so it's not so bad. Could actually be
advantageous, since I often look at signals from about 2m away, while
changing program code for embedded micros at my desk. Using a cheap LCD
monitor pegged to the wall might make that easier to see.

I also have an Agilent MSO6054 at work which I love. I might not buy
another Tek next time I want one at home or at work.

Anyone have any sense of which maker has more LCD or other failures in
these cheap plastic scopes these days?



P.S. Sorry to hear about Tony Williams. My heart goes out to his family
and friends.

What sort of failure? Could it be just the backlight?

 

[ChairmanOfTheBored]

What sort of failure? Could it be just the backlight?

Not only that, but is it past the warranty period?

Either way, a quote of $1300 to repair it is ludicrous.

 

[CC]

Not only that, but is it past the warranty period?

Either way, a quote of $1300 to repair it is ludicrous.

Thanks for your replies.

When the scope is starting up, horizontal bars of varying display
contrast flicker across the screen. After a few minutes, there are only
occasional flickers, but the whole screen contrast is terrible. The
white-on-grey soft menus that are displayed for instance by the
"Quickmenu" button are barely visible.

Overall backlight appears uniform, and the low-med-high levels appear to
work correctly.

I recall hearing years ago that folks had to pay about $1200 to fix a
failed LCD. The reduced prices for LCDs obviously haven't percolated
into Teks replacement parts. There is a lesser model of color Tek scope
that I heard someone had to pay about $450 to fix.

It is well past the warranty period. I think I bought it in 2001.
Maybe I will consider extended warranty next time. But I will also give
Agilent preferential consideration!


Good day!

 

[Joerg]

Thanks for your replies.

When the scope is starting up, horizontal bars of varying display
contrast flicker across the screen. After a few minutes, there are only
occasional flickers, but the whole screen contrast is terrible. The
white-on-grey soft menus that are displayed for instance by the
"Quickmenu" button are barely visible.

Overall backlight appears uniform, and the low-med-high levels appear to
work correctly.

I recall hearing years ago that folks had to pay about $1200 to fix a
failed LCD. The reduced prices for LCDs obviously haven't percolated
into Teks replacement parts. There is a lesser model of color Tek scope
that I heard someone had to pay about $450 to fix.

It is well past the warranty period. I think I bought it in 2001. Maybe
I will consider extended warranty next time. But I will also give
Agilent preferential consideration!

If you don't need more than 200MHz check out GW Instek. I bought one,
very nice.

 

[Ken S. Tucker]

Thanks for your replies.

When the scope is starting up, horizontal bars of varying display
contrast flicker across the screen. After a few minutes, there are only
occasional flickers,

That sounds like a thermal fault, likely a loose
connection or bad solder joint.
Open and try heat gun or cold spray and some
wiggling. I've found 80% of faults are mechanic
it's the other 20% that suck.
Ken

 

[ChairmanOfTheBored]

When the scope is starting up, horizontal bars of varying display
contrast flicker across the screen. After a few minutes, there are only
occasional flickers, but the whole screen contrast is terrible. The
white-on-grey soft menus that are displayed for instance by the
"Quickmenu" button are barely visible.

Overall backlight appears uniform, and the low-med-high levels appear to
work correctly.

If you intend to get the external display adapter then it might be
worth opening the case and examining the LCD display connectorization.

The interface has to connect conductors to glass "fingers". Sometimes
high humidity settings cause crosstalk failures, and low humidity
settings cause drop out failures.

Can't hurt to examine that interface if you are going to be getting the
alternative display anyway. Perhaps even before you commit.

 

[CC]

If you don't need more than 200MHz check out GW Instek. I bought one,
very nice.

There's has a very attractive price. It's only missing a few nice
things about the Tek, like the logic triggers. Well, I only took a
quick look. I'm sure there's a few things. GW's has a little more
record length, though, at 25k instead of 10k for Tek.

But the Tek TDS3014 is 3x the price of Instek.

The Agilent 3000 series should have put in a 4 channel model, then they
could have seriously crimped these cheaper manufacturers. OOh, but
Agilent 3000 has only 2.5kpts. Blah!

I will probably go for an Agilent MSO6014 in a few years. Though I
could find some uses for 300MHz BW too. Just no way can afford 4
channels. I find 4ch more useful than >100MHz. My home projects are
not too demanding.

I'm also extremely interested in high-resolution scopes. This is
another reason why I like the Agilent MSO/DSO6000 series, which provide
a high-res mode which gives effectively 12-bit res. for <=100us/div.

There is hope for more 12 to 16-bit scopes to appear though, and some
which already exist:

I just found this one yesterday (14-bit):

http://www.cleverscope.com/products/

Then Picoscope has 12-bitters, and used to make a 16-bit, which they
will re-make in about a year:

http://www.picotech.com/audio_spectrum_analyzer.html

Very expensive for the speed and not so hot dynamic range:

http://www.gage-applied.com/products/digitizer_pci/16_bit/

Amazing speed for 16-bit, but not so hot dynamic range:

http://www.ztecinstruments.com/hardware/modular-oscilloscopes/high-resolution/16-bit-400-ms

The Cleverscope looks really cool as a low-budget spectrum analyzer with
it's remarkable noise floor.

 

[Jim Yanik]

Yes.
As a TEK scope nears the end of it's Long Term Product Support(LTPS)
period,Tek raises its prices on parts and service to "encourage" owners to
buy new equipment.You should check TEKs website to find the cutoff date for
your model,ASAP.

Thanks for your replies.

When the scope is starting up, horizontal bars of varying display
contrast flicker across the screen. After a few minutes, there are
only occasional flickers, but the whole screen contrast is terrible.
The white-on-grey soft menus that are displayed for instance by the
"Quickmenu" button are barely visible.

Overall backlight appears uniform, and the low-med-high levels appear
to work correctly.

I recall hearing years ago that folks had to pay about $1200 to fix a
failed LCD. The reduced prices for LCDs obviously haven't percolated
into Teks replacement parts. There is a lesser model of color Tek
scope that I heard someone had to pay about $450 to fix.

It is well past the warranty period. I think I bought it in 2001.
Maybe I will consider extended warranty next time. But I will also
give Agilent preferential consideration!


Good day!

Here's the TDS killer;
AFTER the LTPS period is up,parts will NOT be available for your scope
model,unless they share the same part number as a currently supported
scope.Only CAL service will be available after the LTPS expires.
NO exchange modules,they all go to TEKs salvage store as scrap.

 

[Jamie]

Yes.
As a TEK scope nears the end of it's Long Term Product Support(LTPS)
period,Tek raises its prices on parts and service to "encourage" owners to
buy new equipment.You should check TEKs website to find the cutoff date for
your model,ASAP.




Here's the TDS killer;
AFTER the LTPS period is up,parts will NOT be available for your scope
model,unless they share the same part number as a currently supported
scope.Only CAL service will be available after the LTPS expires.
NO exchange modules,they all go to TEKs salvage store as scrap.

so, what you're saying is, it was a smart idea when I bought my chinese
knock off which works very good at a throw away price ?

 

[James Sweet]

Thanks for your replies.

When the scope is starting up, horizontal bars of varying display contrast
flicker across the screen. After a few minutes, there are only occasional
flickers, but the whole screen contrast is terrible. The white-on-grey
soft menus that are displayed for instance by the "Quickmenu" button are
barely visible.

Overall backlight appears uniform, and the low-med-high levels appear to
work correctly.

I recall hearing years ago that folks had to pay about $1200 to fix a
failed LCD. The reduced prices for LCDs obviously haven't percolated into
Teks replacement parts. There is a lesser model of color Tek scope that I
heard someone had to pay about $450 to fix.

It is well past the warranty period. I think I bought it in 2001. Maybe I
will consider extended warranty next time. But I will also give Agilent
preferential consideration!

If it changes as it warms up, you might have a decent chance of tracking
down the problem with some freeze spray or a hair dryer. It was made right
around the time that the defective electrolytic capacitors made an
appearance, they would often start having problems when cold.

 

[CC]

Yes.
As a TEK scope nears the end of it's Long Term Product Support(LTPS)
period,Tek raises its prices on parts and service to "encourage" owners to
buy new equipment.You should check TEKs website to find the cutoff date for
your model,ASAP.

Well, the only difference it would make is that I would have to decide
now whether I ever want to fix the display.

They have perhaps encouraged me to buy new equipment--from Agilent or
another maker.

Here's the TDS killer;
AFTER the LTPS period is up,parts will NOT be available for your scope
model,unless they share the same part number as a currently supported
scope.Only CAL service will be available after the LTPS expires.
NO exchange modules,they all go to TEKs salvage store as scrap.

I wonder if Agilent and Instek do similar things?



Good day!

 

[CC]

If it changes as it warms up, you might have a decent chance of tracking
down the problem with some freeze spray or a hair dryer. It was made right
around the time that the defective electrolytic capacitors made an
appearance, they would often start having problems when cold.

Yeah, I'll try to check it out one of these weekends. I have little
time, so fixing stuff isn't very appealing. I'd rather spend my couple
hours a week learning, programming, or designing something new, and
spend money to get commercial gadgets to keep working.

 

[ChairmanOfTheBored]

If it changes as it warms up, you might have a decent chance of tracking
down the problem with some freeze spray or a hair dryer. It was made right
around the time that the defective electrolytic capacitors made an
appearance, they would often start having problems when cold.

Except that it is more likely an interface issue than a component
issue, and the spray will likely exacerbate the problem.

 

[Nico Coesel]

Except that it is more likely an interface issue than a component
issue, and the spray will likely exacerbate the problem.

It could be a wiring / contact problem. I've spend many hours trying
to get my Tek DAS9200 to boot properly and read 3.5" disks without
errors. I even bought a replacement hard drive and floppy disk. In the
end it turned out the ribbon cables went bad. A new SCSI cable and a
new floppy cable solved the problems completely.

 

[John Devereux]

[...]


Thanks for your replies.

When the scope is starting up, horizontal bars of varying display
contrast flicker across the screen. After a few minutes, there are
only occasional flickers, but the whole screen contrast is terrible.
The white-on-grey soft menus that are displayed for instance by the
"Quickmenu" button are barely visible.

Overall backlight appears uniform, and the low-med-high levels appear
to work correctly.

Hi Chris,

I have a TDS3054 that had a badly flickering LCD, usually during
startup or when knocked. It was just a bad connection of the LCD flex
ribbon cable. Simply unplugging/replugging this cable fixed it.

Make sure you download the service manual from their web site, it
explains in great detail how to get the thing apart. (It would be
impossible otherwise but is straightforward with instructions).

 

[Nico Coesel]

What part of the meaning of the word "interface" do you not understand?

Probably somewhere between the 'i' and the 'e'

Do you know how conductor elements are INTERFACED to an LCD panel?

Interface seems a wrong word here. Attached would be better. Anyway, I
fixed one of my own 19" panels. The wires coming from the TFT screen
where torn off the TFT driver PCB because the previous owner dropped
it. So I do know what a TFT screen looks like on the inside.

 

[ChairmanOfTheBored]

It could be a wiring / contact problem. I've spend many hours trying
to get my Tek DAS9200 to boot properly and read 3.5" disks without
errors. I even bought a replacement hard drive and floppy disk. In the
end it turned out the ribbon cables went bad. A new SCSI cable and a
new floppy cable solved the problems completely.

What part of the meaning of the word "interface" do you not understand?

Do you know how conductor elements are INTERFACED to an LCD panel?

 

[CC]

Hi Chris,

I have a TDS3054 that had a badly flickering LCD, usually during
startup or when knocked. It was just a bad connection of the LCD flex
ribbon cable. Simply unplugging/replugging this cable fixed it.

That's encouraging.

Make sure you download the service manual from their web site, it
explains in great detail how to get the thing apart. (It would be
impossible otherwise but is straightforward with instructions).

That's funny. A lot of things are like this.


Thanks for the reply. I'll give it a try.


Good day!

 

[James Sweet]

Except that it is more likely an interface issue than a component
issue, and the spray will likely exacerbate the problem.

That's the point. The problem already makes the scope unusable, some freeze
spray won't break it any worse.