This month my GW Instek GDS2102A oscilloscope which I purchased and received at 16 March 2013, this now becomes three years old.
Eventually product warranty plan of three years this ends too.
I have to admit that since the beginning of using my new oscilloscope I was always skeptical and a bit puzzled, as I was not aware at all, of how robust in time? My new Oscilloscope this will be shown.
According to my very own rule or better said mindset regarding my own tools, personally I do feel good and say the words as: Well spent money, only if any of my tools this seems robust for a decade of time.
Today instead been simply happy that my Oscilloscope this seems totally healthy, functional and ready so this starting it fourth year at serving over my workbench, I thought to perform to it one truly in-depth technical inspection in all parts of it.
I took this task very seriously and yes I borrowed the idea from pilots them making an airplane flight checklist before its one flight.
This is my very own airplane flight checklist & test results.
1) Rotary knobs (Rotary encoders) = PASS
1) Rubber push buttons = PASS
3) TFT screen (color contrast / dead pixels / luminosity) = PASS
4) Power switch / contacts resistance measurement by LCR = PASS
5) Cooling fan noise / lubrication inspection: The fan seemed to need few drops of fresh oil. = PASS
6) SMPS Power supply & capacitors inspection.
To be honest about this section of my oscilloscope I was more interested to discover it status.
7) SMPS Power supply parts thermal inspection.
This is a LP7351 made by lytec.com.tw, this SMPS primary this using a combination of RS2051 PWM control IC and as switching regulator one Toshiba 2SK3562.
All electrolytic capacitors them are KY series of Nippon Chemi-Con.
Them according to their dimensions their endurance could be 5,000 hours, or 7,000 or 10,000 hours.
KY series Nippon Chemi-Con datasheet this mentioning ESR at 100 KHz, and a second Tan-Delta measurement at 120Hz.
ESR section this has data from capacitors with capacity starting from 1uF up to 12000uF.
Even my own handheld LCR DE-5000 LCR at 100 kHz, it range this is limited to 10uF max, and therefore I ended performing only Tan-Delta (Dissipation Factor) check according to datasheet, and even this was partially possible because most capacitors in this PCB they are connected in parallel.
My measuring tests this shown no problems at all.
But I did notice that C2 (one 22uF 50V at RS2051 PWM IC) this measure double ESR than new at 100 kHz, and I thought as good idea this to be replaced by a new Nippon Chemi-Con FR series, and I did that not because this capacitor was actually bad, but because it pleases me the thought that even the weakest link in this chain this is now back to 100% of health.
My last testing this was thermal inspection of all parts, and I did that by using my 50:1 infrared temperature gun after leaving the oscilloscope this run for 30 minutes with out any active cooling and with it back cover removed.
At room temperature of 18 Celsius any component with attached heat-sink this never measured over 38 Celsius.
Capacitors temperature this is varying from 25 up to 27 Celsius.
With active cooling and the rear cover back on, I bet that this power supply will run another 10 Celsius cooler than what I measured.
In conclusion, my own in-depth components evaluation of the entire oscilloscope, this now gave to me a huge portion of inner peace, especially now that I am getting off warranty period.
GW Instek this worth most of credit and even my own complements, because they did select quality parts for their GDS-2000A series.
I was aware prior purchasing my GDS-2102A that this it is not a budget category product series.
And today that is three years later, I am glad that GW Instek slogan: Simply Reliable!! , this is something that I can verify too and even in the section of frequent firmware updates & free software application tools for this Oscilloscope.
Topic: My GDS-2102A oscilloscope thoroughly inspected after 3 years in use (Read 5658 times)
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