Thumbs up for another interesting video and ESD-aware handling of sensitive components! :) A little tip for all Weller Soldering Station users: The older soldering stations come with a 3,5mm jack plug, which can be used to configure how the tip of the soldering iron is connected to PE. Without that plug the connection to PE is hard (approx. 0 Ohms). If you're soldering ESD-sensitive components you might want to make that a soft connection (i.e. 470k) by soldering a 470k-resistor into the supplied jack plug.
At 50:20 notice that the spur is much narrower than the real signal. And there are a lot of false signals if you look at the whole bandwidth. All of them are noticeable narrower than real signals and they are always there regardless of input signal. I have exact same problem with my spectrum analyzer and it appeared suddenly! It was clean at the beginning.
Just a guess Shahriar, is that the Double-balanced Diode Mixer has a virtual ground within the mixer that is not sharing the same ground as the higher band mixer signal. The unwanted spur's are not properly grounded or filtered out from within the HP Dual Band Mixer Assembly. On the high end the spur's don't occur at 5.9 GHz frequency but at the low end they are generated. Could also be that the introduced mixer doesn't have the required shielding as the original mixer does. Anyways great video, allways look forward to seeing what you are upto next. Cheers
Interesting idea. But I connected the external mixer to a different spectrum analyzer and there were no other tones besides the LO feed through. This is somehow due to the interactions between the second converter and the first...
Really great repair video and well presented. Q. could it be a high power RF input that caused this failure on the first mixer? because i'm always afraid to connect my spectrum analyzer to RF unless I use serious external attenuation and gradually lose some of them lol . Many Thanks.
Awesome video, thank you! Did you ever find a rubidium standard or something else to calibrate all of your gear? I've been working a lot with 10MHz references recently, and I would really enjoy seeing your take on making a precision 10MHz standard with distribution for the home lab. Video idea?
Thanks for remembering. I ended up buying one from eBay recently. I have not powered it up yet! I have just been very busy and have a few reviews I have to complete.
Very helpful video.. I am having a few problems with my HP 8566B spectrum analyzer and even though it is a different unit, you have cleared up several things I was confused over regarding the mixing schemes.. Do you have any plans to do a tear down of an 8566B? No one has done this on youtube and yet the 8566B remains a very useful and popular SA. Regards, Glenn DSM Labs
Hello! I have one of these (8562B) for sale... It was unused for a long time and had a problem with the power supply when turning it on. It was working fine before that. I'll give you a good price the way it is. It is still possible to recover it for use or even for spare parts to repair others.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, very nice your troubleshooting video. Could you give me some advice !?: " I have a HP 8561E spectrum analyzer (a quite old SA), during the operation, I accidentally connect a wrong RF input power over +30dBm in very short time until I recognized that I am wrong- about 10~15 seconds (It is 1W RF input max indicated by manual). Now, I guess it damaged the "RF input attenuator and the input mixer", is it right ?. When I connect a source of signal + 34dBm with a 40dB attenuator, But the screen now only shows me ~+14dBm (all ATT menu settings are set as: Ref.lvl = +40.3 dB = the 40dB attenuator+cable loss; The auto ATT set as manual @ 0dB). I guess the 20 dB ATT inside the SA was damaged.
weird, did you test the output of the second mixer to see if the additional tones are coming from this part ? Did they show in the upper band as well ?
Another brilliant video as alway's, Are you able to speculate on how this failure would initially be caused, eg: component, age ,user error, etc. Kind Regard's and Many Thank's........Pete........Australia.
The spurs are both sides of the signal so something's being mixed with the input. could be some sort of harmonic distortion as there are more than one spur. Look at the integer values separating each spur 1 3 5 etc this Will give you some clue to the type of source interference if any square wave clipping triangle etc.
I am far from knowing , but I would have expected some type of terminations on the old mixer connection ? If noise may be entering there , but I have to assume [ that's always looking for trouble ] you would know weather terminations are needed . At 60+ it would be difficult to go to an RF engineering school , but fun way to keep busy , after wining lotto ;) Thanks again John
watched it all. twice. I would most certainly watch a5 hour video of yours. thank you for the repair videos, and "thanks" for raising prices on broken signal analyzers. Ive been looking for on for awhile now, but they all cost an arm and a dick. I'll eventually find one my sons can "help" me fix (they r 5 and 3-but love electronics stuff- especially my scope, when it has signals they an manipulate and observe ..their voice...light sensors...fun gen..etc..) anyways, rambling on a 4yr old comment section. thank you, again and again
You could have skipped installing the RF relay by using the LO output, but maybe you wanted to keep that. I was also going to say that you could have tested the 2nd mixer with a 3.9GHz RF signal but just read that you did that off camera. And I think the unit is not very useful wit all that spurs, I really wonder if that is normal. Oh, and you can see what the LO level is by just hooking up one of your other SA's, I wonder if part of the spur problem is related to the LO level.
This vid has a 1:7 thumbs-up:views-ratio! And NO thumb-down opposite to 198 ups!! Never saw!."Normally" its 1: 300 view : thumb-up-ratio for good vids.Cause this is a very good vid i think and here are much specialists viewing it. The instrumentboard seems to be produced beginning 1990ies.What did it cost on ebay?
I have a 8592b and there are a few problems. First when I punch in a frequency the carrier if on frequency. But when I go to span it outward the carrier moves way off frequency. What will cause this problem? My other problem is the I and 11db off when I measure amplitude. What alignment would fix this problem? I have a 8591E and with no input signal there is a high pulse that is after the spectrum analyzer 0 frequency carrier. What is causing this unwanted.
Rosalina19711 the 8592b is not synthesized, in the b model they omitted tge sampler and PLL and rely on a lookup table for the yig frequency. Just bump the case of the 8592b on small spans and you see microphony on your signal! The datasheet also says freq accuracy is 5% of span and the unit has no ext ref input as there is no PLL :)
Hey man, I like your channel but one thing strikes me about the way you make your videos, it is almost in your every video that you lose your footage somehow. How the hell can one lose footage just like that?! You cannot operate your camera or have damaged card? or importing files to your pc makes them broken? what is the deal here? cheers from Poland, keep up good work!
Great video. Always enjoy your troubleshooting.
Let's open up the bad dual mixer and trace the inputs! Maybe repair it!
Thumbs up for another interesting video and ESD-aware handling of sensitive components! :)
A little tip for all Weller Soldering Station users:
The older soldering stations come with a 3,5mm jack plug, which can be used to configure how the tip of the soldering iron is connected to PE.
Without that plug the connection to PE is hard (approx. 0 Ohms). If you're soldering ESD-sensitive components you might want to make that a soft connection (i.e. 470k) by soldering a 470k-resistor into the supplied jack plug.
Extremely well done! One of the best TH-cam videos I've watched. Thanks!
Another excellent video thank you!
Your fault finding explanations are second to none!
Thanks for another instructive REF repair video.
Love your repair vids. Your methodology has great educational value. Thanks.
i'll be back when 720p is ready! can't wait!
fantástico!! 👏👏👏 felicitaciones por el video.
At 50:20 notice that the spur is much narrower than the real signal.
And there are a lot of false signals if you look at the whole bandwidth.
All of them are noticeable narrower than real signals and they are always there regardless of input signal.
I have exact same problem with my spectrum analyzer and it appeared suddenly!
It was clean at the beginning.
Just a guess Shahriar, is that the Double-balanced Diode Mixer has a virtual ground within the mixer that is not sharing the same ground as the higher band mixer signal.
The unwanted spur's are not properly grounded or filtered out from within the HP Dual Band Mixer Assembly. On the high end the spur's don't occur at 5.9 GHz frequency
but at the low end they are generated. Could also be that the introduced mixer doesn't have the required shielding as the original mixer does. Anyways great video, allways
look forward to seeing what you are upto next. Cheers
Interesting idea. But I connected the external mixer to a different spectrum analyzer and there were no other tones besides the LO feed through. This is somehow due to the interactions between the second converter and the first...
Really great repair video and well presented.
Q. could it be a high power RF input that caused this failure on the first mixer? because i'm always afraid to connect my spectrum analyzer to RF unless I use serious external attenuation and gradually lose some of them lol .
Many Thanks.
That is likely the cause of the failure. The low-band is actually DC coupled to the output port making it a lot easier to damage.
Awesome video, thank you!
Did you ever find a rubidium standard or something else to calibrate all of your gear? I've been working a lot with 10MHz references recently, and I would really enjoy seeing your take on making a precision 10MHz standard with distribution for the home lab. Video idea?
Thanks for remembering. I ended up buying one from eBay recently. I have not powered it up yet! I have just been very busy and have a few reviews I have to complete.
Fastest Ebay delivery ever!! Less than an hour! Maybe some weird Friday the 13th time/space shift? =) Still love these kinds of vids!!
Very helpful video.. I am having a few problems with my HP 8566B spectrum analyzer and even though it is a different unit, you have cleared up several things I was confused over regarding the mixing schemes..
Do you have any plans to do a tear down of an 8566B? No one has done this on youtube and yet the 8566B remains a very useful and popular SA.
Regards,
Glenn
DSM Labs
Hello! I have one of these (8562B) for sale... It was unused for a long time and had a problem with the power supply when turning it on. It was working fine before that. I'll give you a good price the way it is. It is still possible to recover it for use or even for spare parts to repair others.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, very nice your troubleshooting video. Could you give me some advice !?: " I have a HP 8561E spectrum analyzer (a quite old SA), during the operation, I accidentally connect a wrong RF input power over +30dBm in very short time until I recognized that I am wrong- about 10~15 seconds (It is 1W RF input max indicated by manual). Now, I guess it damaged the "RF input attenuator and the input mixer", is it right ?. When I connect a source of signal + 34dBm with a 40dB attenuator, But the screen now only shows me ~+14dBm (all ATT menu settings are set as: Ref.lvl = +40.3 dB = the 40dB attenuator+cable loss; The auto ATT set as manual @ 0dB). I guess the 20 dB ATT inside the SA was damaged.
weird, did you test the output of the second mixer to see if the additional tones are coming from this part ? Did they show in the upper band as well ?
Another brilliant video as alway's,
Are you able to speculate on how this failure would
initially be caused, eg: component, age ,user error, etc.
Kind Regard's and Many Thank's........Pete........Australia.
The spurs are both sides of the signal so something's being mixed with the input. could be some sort of harmonic distortion as there are more than one spur. Look at the integer values separating each spur 1 3 5 etc this Will give you some clue to the type of source interference if any square wave clipping triangle etc.
I looked at the mixer output on a different spectrum analyzer and did not see any other tones.
I am far from knowing , but I would have expected some type of terminations on the old mixer connection ?
If noise may be entering there , but I have to assume [ that's always looking for trouble ] you would know weather terminations are needed .
At 60+ it would be difficult to go to an RF engineering school , but fun way to keep busy , after wining lotto ;)
Thanks again
John
awesome video, thanks heaps
Awesome video.
Very interesting video.
Great video! Thanks. - Do yo think you might get to that Siglent SDM3055 review in the near future?
gclaudio
What errors did you get on startup on the SA before you open up?
Hey! I thought you were going to show us the inside of the thingie under the microscope!
watched it all. twice. I would most certainly watch a5 hour video of yours.
thank you for the repair videos, and "thanks" for raising prices on broken signal analyzers. Ive been looking for on for awhile now, but they all cost an arm and a dick. I'll eventually find one my sons can "help" me fix (they r 5 and 3-but love electronics stuff- especially my scope, when it has signals they an manipulate and observe ..their voice...light sensors...fun gen..etc..)
anyways, rambling on a 4yr old comment section.
thank you, again and again
Topher osAurus you are welcome.
46:32 Of course, disrupting the signal path is unacceptable! :D
To align the amplitude levels in a 8592B is this a software alignment or a electrical pot alignment?
When was that ESA-E spectrum analyzer made?
Where do you find the componet type with only HP part numbers written on all the ICs, there appears limited information on the net.
You could have skipped installing the RF relay by using the LO output, but maybe you wanted to keep that. I was also going to say that you could have tested the 2nd mixer with a 3.9GHz RF signal but just read that you did that off camera. And I think the unit is not very useful wit all that spurs, I really wonder if that is normal. Oh, and you can see what the LO level is by just hooking up one of your other SA's, I wonder if part of the spur problem is related to the LO level.
Could you have feed a external singnal to the second converter and see if it was bad before you buy one?
Yes, I did actually do this off camera. The second converter's gain was
Hi, where I can find schematic or service manual for HP8562a (same analyzer but with YTF preselector)?
thankyou sir
do you have a video on the HP 4192A Impedance analyzer? thanks
This vid has a 1:7 thumbs-up:views-ratio! And NO thumb-down opposite to 198 ups!! Never saw!."Normally" its 1: 300 view : thumb-up-ratio for good vids.Cause this is a very good vid i think and here are much specialists viewing it. The instrumentboard seems to be produced beginning 1990ies.What did it cost on ebay?
I have a 8592b and there are a few problems. First when I punch in a frequency the carrier if on frequency. But when I go to span it outward the carrier moves way off frequency. What will cause this problem? My other problem is the I and 11db off when I measure amplitude. What alignment would fix this problem?
I have a 8591E and with no input signal there is a high pulse that is after the spectrum analyzer 0 frequency carrier. What is causing this unwanted.
Rosalina19711 the 8592b is not synthesized, in the b model they omitted tge sampler and PLL and rely on a lookup table for the yig frequency. Just bump the case of the 8592b on small spans and you see microphony on your signal! The datasheet also says freq accuracy is 5% of span and the unit has no ext ref input as there is no PLL :)
👍👍
What instrument is behind the huge KEYSIGHT cover on the above shelve at 1:30
New review coming up?
It is the S-Series scope. The review is already up: th-cam.com/video/l-PE7bNIDY0/w-d-xo.html
Hey man, I like your channel but one thing strikes me about the way you make your videos, it is almost in your every video that you lose your footage somehow. How the hell can one lose footage just like that?! You cannot operate your camera or have damaged card? or importing files to your pc makes them broken? what is the deal here?
cheers from Poland, keep up good work!
what about the second converter teardown
Sorry, totally forgot about it. It was very late at night. :(
The Signal Path Blog I'd want to see that too! Looks like an interesting block!
"I just wanna *_shoyu_* a few little things." Mmmmm... I got it, though. ;)
the verticality of the display is not really beneficial