TSP #127 - Teardown, Repair and Experiments with an Agilent E4981A High-Speed Capacitance Meter

In this episode Shahriar investigates an Agilent E4981A high-speed capacitance meter which fails self-test during startup. The instrument reports a series of errors associated with the CPU board. The teardown reveals a multi-board construction where the main analog assembly employs an FPGA for control and interface to the main CPU board. The unit has a disconnected ribbon cable between the analog board and the main CPU assembly. After correcting the problem the instrument completes self-test without errors. After the repair the unit is used to measure several known capacitors for functionality verification. Finally the instrument is used to measure a hand-made parallel plate capacitor. The capacitor can accept various types of dielectric material whose impact is studied. The Signal Path www.TheSignalPath.com www.Patreon.com/TheSignalPath

• #science_technology
• #capacitance_meter
• #teardown
• #repair
• #dielectric
• #agilent
• #fpga
• #capacitor
• #lcr_meter