Roy,
I'm not going to blow my own horn here, as I do this primarily as a service to fellow Tek owners.
There are hundreds of members here who have bought my kits, who can speak for me if they wish.
Sure you can spend hours of your own time, poring through pages of Digikey and Mouser parts, and make up your own selection.
That's your privilege, and nobody can take that from you.
But do you really know your scope's circuits and functions so intimately, that you can easily select which components out of a vast pool of available components is really the most suitable, most reliable or longest-lasting one?
Where would you install a super-low ESR capacitor, and where would you install a Low-Dissipation capacitor in the scope?
Where would you want a thick film, or a Ceramic, or a carbon film capacitor?
Do you really want to open up your scope time and again, because your choice of component may not have been the optimal one, even though all on paper, all the numbers matched up?
Do you want a fully-working scope in the minimum possible time, at a fair and reasonably low price, or do you want to troubleshoot part-by-part, hour after hour?
The time which I spend evaluating the photos of the Scope's PCB's including close-up inspection to determine whether additional components are defective, and answering the customers' questions during installation, is certainly not reimbursed in the kit price.
My experienced eye can identify problem components which the owner doesn't even know about.
Some of the components in my kit are not available from Mouser or Digikey, and I source them directly from Vishay's warehouse in Israel, not because it's convenient, but because it's the most optimal part for that circuit.
The bottom line is that it boils down to trust.
My customers trust me that I will deliver the optimal products for a fair price, about which they need have no concerns as to whether the product will provide a successful overhaul, and reliability for decades ahead.
Let me put it this way - if I was in the market for a used scope, and I had to choose between an unknown overhauled scope for which the owner used my kit, versus one which the owner sourced his own parts, there is no doubt that I would want the one which has my components installed. Not because my parts are optimal or better, but because I have no idea what the knowledge level of the other owner is, and what criteria he used to make his selection of components.
This statement is not intended at all to denigrate the abilities of the highly knowledgeable and competent techs on this and other forums, who likely have much more knowledge and experience than me, but only to suggest that it's a good idea to assimilate the experience of "those who have come before you", and not to focus on saving a few pennies here or there.
In 2009, I overhauled my own 2465B with exactly the same components in my kit. It now 16 years later. The scope is on 10-12 hours a day, 6 days a week. That's an easy 50,000 hours. I have had 3 failures in that time, all unrelated to the circuits in which my kit components were installed. They were: the A2 ON-Off switch burnt out - replaced; a diode on the A3 shorted after a power failure - replaced; and the A5 failed (corrosion), with a whole bunch of the SMD ladder resistors and a couple of semiconductors needing replacement - thanks to Siggy for his diagnostic help with that. I expect trouble-free performance for at least another 50,000 hours.
Menahem
