Refurbishing a Tektronix TDS7104 Oscilloscope

(tomverbeure.github.io)

32 points | by jwise0 1 hour ago

4 comments

  • sdcfgy 51 minutes ago
    Give it a month and the acquisition ASICs will blow up and the caps will eat through the board traces. Can’t stand these scopes.
    • tverbeure 3 minutes ago
      Nice, so I'll get even more entertainment out of it!

      The equipment that's bought and sold at the electronics flea market typically isn't used as a means to an end, it is the end. There's disappointment when you buy something there and it just works. There's no fun in that.

      I don't really have a use for a R&S AMIQ, but replacing all the PC motherboard caps taught me a lot about good desoldering practices. https://tomverbeure.github.io/2026/06/28/Rohde-Schwarz-AMIQ-...

  • devy 1 hour ago
    Flebay has some used ones around $1.5k. I wonder how much this model MSRP brand new? Either way, $300 is a steal!
    • tverbeure 1 hour ago
      I think they sold for $60k back in the early 2000s.
  • milleramp 58 minutes ago
    The TDS500, 600 and 700 series can expand memory by removing zero ohm resistors.
    • tverbeure 56 minutes ago
      My TDS754D is waiting for the resistor and capacitor mod that converts it from a 500MHz/2Gsps scope into a TDS784D with 1 GHz/4Gsps.

      Still, entering an easy to generate license key is less intrusive than removing a resistor.

  • slhomme 28 minutes ago
    Love this. I knew nothing about oscilloscopes until just a few months ago, when reasearched and bought one from a science lab. It wasfor a personal side project. I gutted it out and installed a mini PC inside, and now i run AI models into it. It's like my personal AI assistance. Hooked up to OpenAI realtime voice, grok bot, claude code, etc so I can command it to do stuff even when my main computer is off.

    I just mainly love the retro-moder look of it. Here's a link to how it looks, for those curious:

    https://x.com/slhomme/status/1965131874734584291

    I had now idea there was such a huge second-hand market for those. It was such a great opportunity to learn about this tech.