[time-nuts] HP5370B & HP5345B Front-End IC Redesign Effort

Dimitri.p dimitri at dotp.com
Sun Jan 24 23:02:31 UTC 2016


Someday , someone will get bored with everything 
else and give it a try, you know, in their spare time.
The time when these counter were new was a long while ago.
Back then an amplifier chip with 500MHZ BW was a 
much bigger deal than it is in 2016.
...but spare time is permanently on backorder .... :)

Dimitri

At 06:15 AM 1/24/2016, Bob Camp wrote:
>Hi
>
>Back when these counters (5345, 5370, 5335) all were new, the inputs were
>the weak link on all of them. There were known 
>“don’t do that” things on the line
>that would blow out each of them. Regardless of 
>the level of care and yelling, inputs
>blew on a fairly regular basis. Probably 10% of the counters went back
>for repair over a 5 year period. It was always a 
>“swap out the entire board” sort
>of repair and never was under $1K. We regularly 
>spent the price of a new counter
>each year on repairs. If there had been an easy 
>way to fix them,  (or even to just
>pay $500 for the chip) we would have done it.
>
>Bob
>
> > On Jan 24, 2016, at 8:34 AM, Dale Cannon <dalecan1 at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> >
> > Funny,
> >
> > A friend asked me if I could replicate the front end for a 5370A, a many
> > years back. I related to him that replicating the input chip was not a
> > trivial task. His 5370A had been used (by someone else) for direct testing
> > of controlled-motion DC motors and the front end had obviously been
> > overstressed by voltage spiking. At the time, I had considered replicating
> > the front-end probe circuit of a K100D logic analyzer: FET diff. pair
> > followed by an ECL 10216 line driver. Obviously most daughterboard or dead
> > bug modification approaches have downsides; in the end I just couldn't cut
> > up the HP front end and told him to search for a more qualified repair
> > facility.
> >
> > BAMA boat anchors has the K100D manual and probe schematic.
> >
> >               Dale Cannon  KS4FA
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On Behalf Of Mathew
> > Breton
> > Sent: Friday, January 22, 2016 5:15 PM
> > To: time-nuts at febo.com
> > Subject: [time-nuts] HP5370B & HP5345B Front-End IC Redesign Effort
> >
> > I was gifted an HP 5370B with the usual problem: front-end problems,
> > probably due to overstress. It is currently up and running again with a set
> > of 5345A series A3/A4 boards as I wasn't able to get a cheap pair of
> > 5088-706x hybrid ICs.
> > This sounds like a common problem. As a 
> result, I'm designing an open-source
> > drop-in (hopefully) replacement. My hat is off to the original IC designer,
> > as it is not a trivial effort due to the wide input signal common-mode
> > range, and very tight trigger timing requirements. Other items (like the
> > E-ECL) output) are also adding a bit of extra effort.
> > I'm hoping that someone(s) might be interested in working with me on it. I
> > would like to have my assumptions and math checked before I start the
> > detailed design phase, and perhaps contribute some better ideas.
> > In addition, it would be really helpful if 
> someone could run a few rise-time
> > dispersion tests on an instrument with a working "B"-series A3/A4 PCB set
> > (my unit obviously doesn't qualify).
> > Regards,
> > Mat Breton
> > _______________________________________________
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