Thanks Shahriar for the inspiration to finally get my Anritsu MT8222A working. The spectrum analyser mode came up with lock errors. Turns out the fault was one the 3300 to 4300MHz VCO. One of the inductors in the varactor path was open circuit. Very fine wire used in the inductor open circuit. All fixed now, so I have a fully functioning 6.1GHz Spectrum Analyser & 3GHz VNA in one box.
I just had to toss out a comment for an excellent choice to tear down, I work for the company that made that ceramic 5 pole filter - pretty freaking neat to see a teardown where a product we made is present!
I usually make a photo, print it out in DINA3 and then sticky tape the screws onto the place in the image where they came from. Makes it easier to keep track of things when you have to wait for spare parts and put stuff aside.
Sounds like a really great idea. Only problem I have had when using sticky tape and screws is residue and occasionally fumbling a screw when removing the tape.
This one doesn't look that bad physically compared to the previous Anritsu portable you got. At least it probably didn't fall down from cellphone tower as most of second-hand portable SA tend to like:D
I remember when I didn't know what a SAW filter was. Have you made a video explaining basic terms? Electronics is overfilled with acronyms that are rarely defined. Doing the job once would be a big help.
I've always wanted to see the guts of one of these because deep down I knew it would be a work of art, but man, if I saw that lock error I would get demonetized
Why not sell the Analyser and use the proceeds to "double down" on more broken gear? A personal Ponzi scheme. To reduce risk I suppose you might want to buy a few different boxes vs. one expensive box. . .
I'm 18 minutes in where you've discover LO1 lock error. Please don't be a broken Hittite part :-) Okay, it wasn't but very cool you found a solution. I don't know why I was surprised that the VCO is varactor based.... I was expecting something far more exotic.
Tell them we really need those service manuals they are so jealously keeping for them! It's such a pity buying old Anritsu test equipment is so risky due to the lack of available service and calibration documentation...
The microwave ground plane traces? For the segregation of the different blocks, did look like silver -as it is the whitest metal, and has the best electrical properties. Even the parts that started to tarnish looked like silver to me. The only oddity being, it had almost a matte finish to it, which is strange. Probably alloyed with something or other to give it more appeal in rf board design. As usual, beautiful video, thank you for sharing
Hi, I need ur help .last time I tried to upgrade my anritsu MS2720T but I think it's failed while upgrading , there's appeared "Could not find start symbol, Check for compatible version number. Application recovery may be required" and "Application Package : Unknown" message. Please help me
i have a mt2222a the display gone wrong its not the the lcd i found a replacment and its still the same shows the same image over and over again 2 cm apart so cant read anything it even does it through the computer software the same any idears where to start looking for the problem displace driver chip ect any help would be gratefully received
It generally goes for about $2.4k on eBay if it comes with option 20 (tracking gen). I got mine for $2k with carrying case and charger. Which is not too bad considering that it goes up to 7.1GHz. Much better value than getting a low end Rigol or a Siglent that cost similar but only goes to 2GHz. Although I agree that the GUI and the processor is not as fast.
Hi Shahriar Just bought a MS2721B "broken" (displays a saturation error randomly, but works and does not seem to saturate at all... Strange). And discovered that I must have watched your video two years ago and that I do not have to open the shields thanks to you awsome teardown :) One question: Where did you get the battery from? The repaired / clones a google search for sm204 or ms2721b battery produces options which cost a third of what I paid for the hole SA :(
Hey mr Shahriar, I wonder if a power amplifier(for speaker purposes) can be connected for TSP #15 where you showed how to amplify a signal from a microphone?
Great video as always :-) Can you please explain what frequency band each of the three VCOs cover? I suppose they are called LO1, LO2, LO3. How did you find out what frequency range each VCOs was running?
Replying to an old question but it may help others. I tracked down VCO problems by either a full range sweep and watching for which portion of the trace kicked out an Lx error. Also, to the left of the VCOs in Shariar's video, with the VCO labels reading correctly, there are three control lines, one of which goes to each VCO. You can watch them on a multi channel scope as you sweep the full range (or part thereof). You'll see the ramp of tuning voltage for each part of the range.
14:30. I don't believe that surface roughness is a problem on the top of the traces - the current flows on the bottom... (yes oxidation can eventually lead to problems, but surface roughness conduction losses are at the copper-dielectric interface for microstrip)
I really haven't kept up with your repair videos. You started out buying old, broken equipment to fix and use for some aspect of your work. Is that still true? I wouldn't mind if you fixed test equipment and made a profit to spend on more equipment to repair for You Tubers.
I am a senior student in Turkey, specialized in microwaves and RF engineering. Thanks to you and your videos, the theoretical knowledge has more meaning for me. I mean, seeing these repair videos have helped me a lot when I am stuck with something from the course because I learn its applications from you.
Another outstanding and educational video! If you're open to suggestions, I'd love to learn more about the various distributed element shapes and an explanation of how they work; like what's going on with the EM field that makes them behave. Thanks to you and a handful of others, what used to be total black magic to me now makes sense and I can actually apply the things you teach. But distributed elements are still mysterious voodoo to me. Thanks!
Hi Shahriar I just bought a MS2721B that is missing the internal flashcard, can you give us more details on how to get the program installed correctly?
Thank you Shariar for giving me the courage to buy a broken MS2721B and fix it. The problem was also one of the three Micronetix VCO modules. Micronetix (now Mercury systems) was absolutely useless for price, availability or quote, even though the parts are still made (2021). Funny because I could have been sitting on a multi million $$ contract which they would now never hear back on :-) In fairness, it was during Covid but I've heard comments from RF acquaintances that that's how they operate :-( I carefully removed the Micronetix label with a little heat and set it aside to re-apply (I'm a bit vain when it comes to appearance). With a 50 watt Weller stained glass iron, I removed the metal cover only by observing under a microscope until ONLY the perimeter had melted ... within a few minutes With heat, the VCO would work for a few hours then stop. While the module's internal soldering was not bad, by today's standards I would say the components had inadequate solder volume. I fluxed, reflowed all parts then carefully cleaned (flowing solvent toward the PCB edge, away from other stuff). Some small dots of solder paste followed by the Weller iron to the top and the metal cover was beautifully reflowed ! Label stuck back on so it's "pretty". The unit has been working for months with hot and cold tests applied.
Great repair video Shahriar, I really like when you do repairs, not so much calendars...lol I was wondering when you would put out another repair, I recently did a series of youtube videos on the repair of a Heathkit IP-17 power supply and was astonished at how long it takes to produce a video. If you want to view it it is under my name. Thanks for all you do and looking forward to your next video!
Hi Shahriar I, know this is very old and you have probably sold the SA by now, but I hope you can still help me. I have got one of these MS2721B and the previous owner has removed the internal SD card (but clean with no damage :) Could you please let me know how you made that new SD card with operating system on it? Do you have the disk image? you can post on eevblog
As always great video Shariar! I was a little disappointed that you haven't checked what kind off fancy stuff like modulation one can do with the tracking generator. Are you saving that for another video?
What is the problem? The stress to its own joints caused by the unit that was decapped? Seem to be so, and the joints need to be relooked and reflowed if necessary.
My 2721b was damaged overlevel by another engineer. Anritsu would not provide decent service information. So I had to send it to them, and they charged me $9,000 to repair the unit with a 90 day warranty. Now, after loading the application, it tries to re-boot. Ask me why I HATE Anritsu...
I know this is old but having dealt with Anritsu on this model (or any) I can't blame them for limited support on a long out of production product. It's standard today. I would HATE myself, however, after spending $9k and having follow up issues. Hope it worked out for you !
He was sitting there looking at them very carefully. I could tell from his pose that he was considering attacking them. But ultimately he chose staying alive over playing with screws! ;)
