Help on testing/picking an oscilloscope

[The little lost angel]

My friend found for me what appears to be a cheap oscilloscope on sale
at a used parts place. He took down some details for the Tektronic
scope's three modules
5110 (the 2 chan thingy?)
5A14N (4 Chan amplifier??)
5D10 (Waveform Digitizer???)

The 5A14N has four inputs but he couldn't get four traces on the
screen no matter what. It seems broken since according to him, the
scope would display two traces from the other module.

The working bit with two channels seem to be ok. I think he missed out
the part number for this, but it's the most recognizable piece to me
from his description of what clearly are the two analog voltage
setting dials

But without any sort of input, Chan 2 appears to be faulty as there
are signals around half the screen in amptitude when he turned it to
the smallest voltage level 1mv, viewing at 100usec.

The last piece is the triggering piece 5D10 I think (my friend forgot
to note down the position of the modules)

So our problem is how do we tell if the scope is working sufficiently
to be worth the $100 the shop is asking for? We don't have any
sophisticated instrument to test with and the scope doesn't come with
any leads/probes. Are there some ways to conduct a quick on the spot
test with some very basic items?

Is it even worth considering or way too old to spend any money on? I'd
like to have 10Mhz to 20Mhz, this is only 2Mhz according to the web
but for the price, neither of us have found anything close to it yet.

thanks!!!

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[Jim Yanik]

a?n?g?e?l@lovergirl.lrigrevol.moc.com (The little lost angel) wrote in
news:4155d1fb.182472361@news.singnet.com.sg:

My friend found for me what appears to be a cheap oscilloscope on sale
at a used parts place. He took down some details for the Tektronic
scope's three modules
5110 (the 2 chan thingy?)

It's called a Mainframe,needs one vertical and one horizontal plug-in to
work.

5A14N (4 Chan amplifier??)

Vertical plug-in

5D10 (Waveform Digitizer???)

The 5A14N has four inputs but he couldn't get four traces on the
screen no matter what. It seems broken since according to him, the
scope would display two traces from the other module.

First,for the 5A14,you can't use the scope without a B series timebase
plug-in.
I don't recall if the 5D10 has it's own timebase to provide horizontal
deflection.

The working bit with two channels seem to be ok. I think he missed out
the part number for this, but it's the most recognizable piece to me
from his description of what clearly are the two analog voltage
setting dials

But without any sort of input, Chan 2 appears to be faulty as there
are signals around half the screen in amptitude when he turned it to
the smallest voltage level 1mv, viewing at 100usec.

The last piece is the triggering piece 5D10 I think (my friend forgot
to note down the position of the modules)

So our problem is how do we tell if the scope is working sufficiently
to be worth the $100 the shop is asking for? We don't have any
sophisticated instrument to test with and the scope doesn't come with
any leads/probes. Are there some ways to conduct a quick on the spot
test with some very basic items?

Is it even worth considering or way too old to spend any money on? I'd
like to have 10Mhz to 20Mhz, this is only 2Mhz according to the web
but for the price, neither of us have found anything close to it yet.

thanks!!!

I don;t consider the 5000 series TEK scopes to be of much use.
The 5110 is only a 2 Mhz bandwidth mainframe.I also believe you are not
experienced enough to evaluate or repair this used scope system,thus it
would not be a wise buy.

Better scopes would be a 400 series scope such as a 465/475,a 2200 scope
such as a 2213/15/35,or a 7000 series scope such as a 7603,7704A,7904/A
with 7A26 and 7B plug-ins.They may cost a little bit more than $100,though.

I worked for TEK for 21 years as a field service technician repairing and
calibrating TEK test equipment such as these scopes.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik-at-kua.net

 

[The little lost angel]

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 00:44:08 GMT, dh <devious_henchman@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Not worth it. Check eBay. I picked up a 465B (100MHz, probes, bag,
manual, perfect condition) for $99 plus $25 or so shipping. That would
be infinitely better than this old dog you're looking at.

I know... but the last time I found a suitable scope for a good price
on ebay... it would had cost about 2x the price to ship it halfway
across the world to me

--
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If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[The little lost angel]

On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 22:50:15 +0000 (UTC), Jim Yanik <jyanik@abuse.gov>
wrote:

I don;t consider the 5000 series TEK scopes to be of much use.
The 5110 is only a 2 Mhz bandwidth mainframe.I also believe you are not
experienced enough to evaluate or repair this used scope system,thus it
would not be a wise buy.

Better scopes would be a 400 series scope such as a 465/475,a 2200 scope
such as a 2213/15/35,or a 7000 series scope such as a 7603,7704A,7904/A
with 7A26 and 7B plug-ins.They may cost a little bit more than $100,though.

Thanks! Though I guess I will just have to keep looking

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[Jan Pompe]

The little lost angel wrote:

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 00:44:08 GMT, dh <devious_henchman@yahoo.com
wrote:


Not worth it. Check eBay. I picked up a 465B (100MHz, probes, bag,
manual, perfect condition) for $99 plus $25 or so shipping. That would
be infinitely better than this old dog you're looking at.


I know... but the last time I found a suitable scope for a good price
on ebay... it would had cost about 2x the price to ship it halfway
across the world to me

I bought some books that way and it cost 3 times the price to ship.

They were heavy though and locally would have cost over $800 new and got
them for $150.

It was still a bargain.

Books are one thing but unless you know how to service these things I
wouldn't be buying on unless I see it working - properly.