dl1540

Last update: Thu Jun 5 22:25:40 2025

This page is dedicated to my Yokogawa DL1540, a piece of history. Built in 1991, bought that baby "second"-hand on Yahoo auctions in Jan 2020, soon 30 years after it was turned on for the first time and guess what? It still works (well ... mostly)!
Age took its toll, especially on the fire retardant ABS plastic that is now entirely yellow, but there's also a few things to fix or improve, so let me keep it here for memory. Who knows, in 10 years maybe someone will be happy to read it?

Presentation

Specifications

4-Channel 8bits (well ... 3-channel in my case)

Sampling 200MS/s 150MHz Digital Oscilloscope

Sample depth 2M words

Manual (en)

Maker's homepage (US site)

Things to fix

Battery

Bought the parts at Akizuki, a battery holder and a Li-ion battery, just need to open the beast. Procedure is extensively described here.
One thing that bothers me is that the self-test says that the battery is ok... though 1) it looses the time between poweroff 2) logic says that a 30 y.o Li-Ion bettery is for all purpose dead. I'll change it anyway, although the procedure to open the oscillo looks tedious.

Channel 1

Plug a probe, leave it as is, no difference: it stills shows zero volt. Annoying 'cause I can't do the funny Lissajous curves, but otherwise can be ignored if I stick to "digital" electronic.

Cosmetics

Pictures

Links

Helpful sources

Inspiration

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