{"id":1192,"date":"2020-05-10T13:28:35","date_gmt":"2020-05-10T18:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/?p=1192"},"modified":"2023-06-04T10:18:12","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T15:18:12","slug":"tektronix-7854-back-on-the-bench","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/tektronix-7854-back-on-the-bench\/","title":{"rendered":"Tektronix 7854 – back on the bench"},"content":{"rendered":"

I bought this unit a few years ago when I happened on a cache of Tektronix gear being sold by the sons of a deceased collector in NYC. I remembered that I powered it up enough to discover that it suffered from the infamous ‘ROM Rot’ issue that plagues these machines.\u00a0 The machine is seen in it’s vegetative state below – This specific pattern of illuminated mode switches means the machine can’t initialize itself, because it lacks the instructions to do so.
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Dude where’s my socket?<\/p><\/div>\n

Unfortunately, I’d since removed the IEC socket – I vaguely remember it was cracked. Replacing that would be the first order.<\/p>\n

Getting to the inside to attach the connector is a bit of an exercise in contortion, but it’s manageable.\u00a0 The biggest annoyance in working on these supplies is that even after disconnecting all of the connections, it’s still tethered to the mainframe by the cord to the power switch (I’ll bet there’s a way around this, but it’d be at the switch end).<\/p>\n

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It’s usually hard to plug things in incorrectly due to how they’re keyed, but I take photos just in case.<\/p><\/div>\n

The other annoyance is reconnecting the line to the HV power supply.\u00a0 It passes through a hole in the shield of the supply, and once you disconnect it, you can’t plug it back in with the shield in place.\u00a0 And, there isn’t enough slack to remove the shield, so you have to:<\/p>\n