EB5AGV's Workbench: Tektronix DC-510 repair

Some time ago I bid and won a large lot of Tektronix and HP plug-ins at eBay. One of them was a Tektronix DC-510. But it had some problems, as very low sensitivity (you needed roughtly a volt to get a measure!) and a semi-functional keypad.

First problem (sensitivity) was tracked down to a faulty BNC connector soldering. In the picture you can see the cracked connection:

Once resoldered, sensitivity was OK!

Other problem, which seemed as a minor one, was an small nightmare!. When I got the front panel out, a myriad of parts got loose!. Some of them were evidently broken... how could I fix them???. Solution was in the stapler. What???. Yes, the stapler!. Here you can see some parts and a couple staples, one of them bent... do you start to see the solution ;-)?

What I did was a belt for each broken key. In order to fix the staples, I used some epoxy. Here you have a detailed view:

And some other views of the keypad:

*** WARNING *** as staples are conductive, you should be careful about shortcircuits with circuit traces.

Here you have the keypad attached to the front panel:

And, if you are like me and enjoy looking at the innards of finely made test gear, here you have some pictures:

And then, the final result in a TM-5006 :-)

Success!!!


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