I was tinkering with an RF control circuit and couldn't get it to work. So I dug out my Tek 2465 scope that hasn't been turned on in about ten years to do some signal tracing. I plugged it into the handiest power outlet which happened to be my computer surge suppressor power strip. Then I turned the scope on, all seemed normal, I probed the scope's square wave voltage calibrator, it looked pretty good, I wanted to optimize the square wave with the probe adjustment, but didn't have a tuning tool handy. So I'm thinking to myself, I'll just put the probe ground alligator clip to ground to see if the square wave cleans up a bit. Around the time I placed the ground clip to the outer shell of the channel input BNC, I heard loud pops and saw lots of smoke. I didn't notice any sparking at the ground clip. I immediately unplugged the scope.!!
So my first question, did I cause this malfunction by placing the scope probe ground clip to ground or was it just an unfortunate coincidence????
My second question, is the following a sensible approach:
1. Take the covers off and do a power-off visual inspection
2. Replace any visually suspect components
3. Then with cover off, power up and check for smoke.
4. Replace any suspect components
5. Then with power on and isolation transformer connected, do voltage checks
I have some electronics background but no experience with troubleshooting switch mode power supplies. Anyone recommend any books, web sites, youtube videos that cover troubleshooting / repair of Tek 2465 SMPS???
