Recommendations for Oscilloscope.

[Fred Abse]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 14:29:40 -0400, krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 11:07:18 -0700, Fred Abse <excretatauris@invalid.invalid
wrote:

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:38:44 -0400, Michael Black wrote:

We've had questions here over the years, people can't get their scopes to
work, and the answers are usually things like make sure the knobs are set
right.

AKA RTFM.

No, it's a matter of going through all the knobs to see which one is set
wrong. The manual won't help one bit.

Tek analog scopes were made for *engineers*, who used to know at least
something about how they worked.

Don't be an ass. You still need to go through all of the settings to see
which one is messed up. With no trace, it's not obvious which one it is.

Brightness fully CCW.
Time/div 1ms.
Timebase main.
Trace #1.
Volts/div fully CCW
Input grounded.
Trigger p-p auto, or auto.
Beam locate in.
Advance brightness for visible trace.
Center trace and release beam locate.

It becomes second nature. You can look at the front panel of an analog
'scope and it's obvious how to drive it. An unfamiliar digital means a
session with the manual to find out which menu does what. I've never spent
more than 60 seconds getting a central, focused trace on a working analog
'scope.

I had a Tek 4-trace, 1GHz B/W, color, TDS something-or-other, that I never
fully got the hang of. My digital 'scopes are now all HP.

I still use a 7904A, by preference, except if I *need* math.

--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
(Richard Feynman)

 

[Winston]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:38:16 -0700, Fred Abse wrote:

(...)

I had a Tek 4-trace, 1GHz B/W, color, TDS something-or-other, that I
never fully got the hang of. My digital 'scopes are now all HP.

I grew up with analog scopes and found the TDS learning curve to be
almost flat. Before long the instrument was just like a natural
appendage. I never could get the hang of the Agilent scopes.
'Seems like the least little operation required lots of time looking
at the manual. Feh.

--Winston

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 15:08:46 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

"krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" wrote:

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 11:36:53 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 18 Aug 2012 22:53:53 +0100, newshound
newshound@fairadsl.co.uk> wrote:

On 10/08/2012 22:45, Daniel Pitts wrote:
As I get more advanced at creating circuits, I can see the benefit to
owning an Oscilloscope. I'm on a fairly tight budget, and was hoping to
get a recommendation on a cheap oscilloscope that is "good enough" for
hobby work. I've used one at school years ago, which probably had more
bells and whistles than I would ever need.

What features are essential for a hobbiest? What can I do without? Any
particular brands that are cheap but reliable?

Thanks for suggestions,
Daniel.

Unanswerable without knowing more about what you are making. Audio?
Computers? Radio? GHz comms?

FWIW Ive started dabbling with simple stuff again (used to have access
to serious research kit) and thought about getting one of the little
digitals recently, but in the end got an old Phillips 30 MHz storage
scope from eBay for not much over Ł100. Partly because although it has
lots of knobs, I understand what they do; I suspect that doing
everything via menus would be a PITA.

Nowadays the benchtop digital scopes have the usual knobs, volts/div,
time/div, positions, trigger level. They do have menus for stuff like
ac/dc, trigger slopes, that sort of thing. The Rigols are pretty easy
to drive.

In the early days of digital scopes, some had, like, 4 buttons and all
menus. We domo'd one HP scope that nobody could get to do anything.


I bet I remember that one. Two stacked boat anchors, one a 10-Ms/s
digitizer, the other a display. You had to drill down two menu levels
to set the vertical gain.

The Tektronix digital oscilloscope was pretty cool, OTOH. It was basically a
7704A with a digitizer inserted between the display half and the plugin bays.
It took any combination of 7000 series plugins. An external computer was
required, though. ;-)

I got it off the IBM corporate surplus list, and within an hour it was
out in the hallway to be taken away and thrown out.

I'm sure at least a couple of the Tektronix DPOs were in there, too. I put
them there. ;-)

The most valuable button on my Tek scope is "default setup" which,
basically, means "get me the hell out of here!"

I'd never go back to using analog scopes.

I'm pretty fond of my 475 and 2467. You can see stuff that's invisible
on most digital scopes. They also don't alias, which Simon found
helpful this summer. (I'll be integrating some of his LPC1769 code into
my noise canceller design this week.)

I like the 475s and would probably buy one for myself, If I knew it would work
(don't trust the ones on eBay). OTOH, I doubt I'd ever find a reason to
replace my Agilent MSO-X-3104 at work, with one.

My eBay success rate is probably 92%, averaged over several dozen
instruments. The exceptions have been mostly due to poor packing.

For cameras, my results have been excellent, too, but I worry about >40YO
electronics where parts availability is zero.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On 19 Aug 2012 23:47:12 GMT, Winston <Winston@Bigbrother.net> wrote:

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:38:16 -0700, Fred Abse wrote:

(...)

I had a Tek 4-trace, 1GHz B/W, color, TDS something-or-other, that I
never fully got the hang of. My digital 'scopes are now all HP.

I didn't have any trouble figuring out the TDS-3034(?) and 3014(?) we had at
the PPoE. It was a very logical layout.

I grew up with analog scopes and found the TDS learning curve to be
almost flat. Before long the instrument was just like a natural
appendage. I never could get the hang of the Agilent scopes.
'Seems like the least little operation required lots of time looking
at the manual. Feh.

I would have stuck with Tektronix at my CPoE but the "lead" engineer was sorta
stuck on Agilent and had their reps in for demos. The boss said we could
order scopes (one for each of the new guys), so we did. I requested a
MSO-X-3054 (didn't want to be greedy) but when it came it was a 3104 - don't
know where the switch was made but I didn't complain. Again, I've had no
trouble finding my way around it. Like the Tektronix scopes, it also is a
very natural layout. After driving it a while, I much prefer the digital
aspects over the Tek. The bus analyzers have hardware assists so are
real-time, rather than sampling off the digitizer. The only negative about
the Agilent is that most others around have Teks, so probes are a problem. But
that's fixed with $$. ;-)

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Phil Hobbs wrote:

My eBay success rate is probably 92%, averaged over several dozen
instruments. The exceptions have been mostly due to poor packing.

The only bad item I've received on Ebay was a Fluke 8050A with a bad
MPU. Some had bad batteries, but work OK on AC. I spent under $100 for
three of them.

I have a Tektronix 453A on a cart, and a Sony/Tektronix 324 portable
scope. I have a magnavox built military scope I've never plugged in,
along with several Cushman scope modules in some service monitors.

Most of my equipment is older. Only a few items were bought new, and
that was years ago.

I saw a triple temperature controlled soldering station I liked,
until I saw the $1200 price tag, and the price didn't include the irons.
I picked up three replacement Hakko irons on Ebay, and I'm going to
build a digital controller. Has anyone used one of these 24V 15A power
supplies? http://www.ebay.com/itm/270977298621

 

[Phil Hobbs]

Winston wrote:

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:38:16 -0700, Fred Abse wrote:

(...)

I had a Tek 4-trace, 1GHz B/W, color, TDS something-or-other, that I
never fully got the hang of. My digital 'scopes are now all HP.

I grew up with analog scopes and found the TDS learning curve to be
almost flat. Before long the instrument was just like a natural
appendage. I never could get the hang of the Agilent scopes.
'Seems like the least little operation required lots of time looking
at the manual. Feh.

--Winston

Agilent learned how to make scopes about a dozen years ago, right around
the time that Tek forgot.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs
--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Winston]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 21:38:27 -0400, Phil Hobbs wrote:

Winston wrote:

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:38:16 -0700, Fred Abse wrote:

(...)

I had a Tek 4-trace, 1GHz B/W, color, TDS something-or-other, that I
never fully got the hang of. My digital 'scopes are now all HP.

I grew up with analog scopes and found the TDS learning curve to be
almost flat. Before long the instrument was just like a natural
appendage. I never could get the hang of the Agilent scopes. 'Seems
like the least little operation required lots of time looking at the
manual. Feh.

--Winston

Agilent learned how to make scopes about a dozen years ago, right around
the time that Tek forgot.

I'll take your word for it in both cases Phil.

The Agilent I tried to use was one made in '94 or so (18 years?!).

I've seen some scuttlebutt about some of the very latest Teks and I'm
saddened because the TDS I used in '95-'98 was an excellent tool.

--Winston

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 08/20/2012 10:00 AM, Winston wrote:

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 21:38:27 -0400, Phil Hobbs wrote:

Winston wrote:

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:38:16 -0700, Fred Abse wrote:

(...)

I had a Tek 4-trace, 1GHz B/W, color, TDS something-or-other, that I
never fully got the hang of. My digital 'scopes are now all HP.

I grew up with analog scopes and found the TDS learning curve to be
almost flat. Before long the instrument was just like a natural
appendage. I never could get the hang of the Agilent scopes. 'Seems
like the least little operation required lots of time looking at the
manual. Feh.

--Winston

Agilent learned how to make scopes about a dozen years ago, right around
the time that Tek forgot.

I'll take your word for it in both cases Phil.

The Agilent I tried to use was one made in '94 or so (18 years?!).

I've seen some scuttlebutt about some of the very latest Teks and I'm
saddened because the TDS I used in '95-'98 was an excellent tool.

--Winston

When I was at IBM, around 2006ish, the Tek guys demoed a 10-GHz scope
that had about 8% overshoot on the step response.

It was a really sad experience, having to explain to *Tektronix factory
engineers* that a scope lives and dies by its step response.

The 7-GHz TDS7704 I eventually bought (a demo model) was much better,
but still not what it should have been.

They do seem to have wised up considerably in the interim--I had a demo
of their nice MSO-spectrum analyzer combo, which I might buy if a couple
of contracts come in. Unfortunately the spectrum analyzer part doesn't
have that great close-in phase noise, but the three-domain capability is
very powerful.

And the new ones don't run Windows, huzzah!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:22:43 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 08/20/2012 10:00 AM, Winston wrote:
On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 21:38:27 -0400, Phil Hobbs wrote:

Winston wrote:

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:38:16 -0700, Fred Abse wrote:

(...)

I had a Tek 4-trace, 1GHz B/W, color, TDS something-or-other, that I
never fully got the hang of. My digital 'scopes are now all HP.

I grew up with analog scopes and found the TDS learning curve to be
almost flat. Before long the instrument was just like a natural
appendage. I never could get the hang of the Agilent scopes. 'Seems
like the least little operation required lots of time looking at the
manual. Feh.

--Winston

Agilent learned how to make scopes about a dozen years ago, right around
the time that Tek forgot.

I'll take your word for it in both cases Phil.

The Agilent I tried to use was one made in '94 or so (18 years?!).

I've seen some scuttlebutt about some of the very latest Teks and I'm
saddened because the TDS I used in '95-'98 was an excellent tool.

--Winston

When I was at IBM, around 2006ish, the Tek guys demoed a 10-GHz scope
that had about 8% overshoot on the step response.

It was a really sad experience, having to explain to *Tektronix factory
engineers* that a scope lives and dies by its step response.

The 7-GHz TDS7704 I eventually bought (a demo model) was much better,
but still not what it should have been.

They do seem to have wised up considerably in the interim--I had a demo
of their nice MSO-spectrum analyzer combo, which I might buy if a couple
of contracts come in. Unfortunately the spectrum analyzer part doesn't
have that great close-in phase noise, but the three-domain capability is
very powerful.

You do know that the SA on that box uses (hardware accelerated) FFT from the
sampled input. It's certainly useful to correlate time and frequency domains
but it isn't a great stand-alone spectrum analyzer.

And the new ones don't run Windows, huzzah!

I thought they did.

 

[Phil Hobbs]

"krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" wrote:

On Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:22:43 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 08/20/2012 10:00 AM, Winston wrote:
On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 21:38:27 -0400, Phil Hobbs wrote:

Winston wrote:

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:38:16 -0700, Fred Abse wrote:

(...)

I had a Tek 4-trace, 1GHz B/W, color, TDS something-or-other, that I
never fully got the hang of. My digital 'scopes are now all HP.

I grew up with analog scopes and found the TDS learning curve to be
almost flat. Before long the instrument was just like a natural
appendage. I never could get the hang of the Agilent scopes. 'Seems
like the least little operation required lots of time looking at the
manual. Feh.

--Winston

Agilent learned how to make scopes about a dozen years ago, right around
the time that Tek forgot.

I'll take your word for it in both cases Phil.

The Agilent I tried to use was one made in '94 or so (18 years?!).

I've seen some scuttlebutt about some of the very latest Teks and I'm
saddened because the TDS I used in '95-'98 was an excellent tool.

--Winston

When I was at IBM, around 2006ish, the Tek guys demoed a 10-GHz scope
that had about 8% overshoot on the step response.

It was a really sad experience, having to explain to *Tektronix factory
engineers* that a scope lives and dies by its step response.

The 7-GHz TDS7704 I eventually bought (a demo model) was much better,
but still not what it should have been.

They do seem to have wised up considerably in the interim--I had a demo
of their nice MSO-spectrum analyzer combo, which I might buy if a couple
of contracts come in. Unfortunately the spectrum analyzer part doesn't
have that great close-in phase noise, but the three-domain capability is
very powerful.

You do know that the SA on that box uses (hardware accelerated) FFT from the
sampled input. It's certainly useful to correlate time and frequency domains
but it isn't a great stand-alone spectrum analyzer.

And the new ones don't run Windows, huzzah!

I thought they did.

It's FFT, but not from the same digitizers as the scope part. They
downcovert and then do I/Q sampling on the IF, to 12 or 14 bits iirc.
So it's not an 8566B, but then you can't trigger a scope off a frequency
bin of the 8566B either.

So the noise floor could be better, but for a three-domain instrument,
it isn't at all bad for what you pay.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs
--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Fred Abse]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 21:38:27 -0400, Phil Hobbs wrote:

Agilent learned how to make scopes about a dozen years ago, right around
the time that Tek forgot.

Amen to that!

--
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
(Richard Feynman)

 

On Fri, 10 Aug 2012 14:45:11 -0700, Daniel Pitts
<newsgroup.nospam@virtualinfinity.net> wrote:

As I get more advanced at creating circuits, I can see the benefit to
owning an Oscilloscope. I'm on a fairly tight budget, and was hoping to
get a recommendation on a cheap oscilloscope that is "good enough" for
hobby work. I've used one at school years ago, which probably had more
bells and whistles than I would ever need.

What features are essential for a hobbiest? What can I do without? Any
particular brands that are cheap but reliable?

Thanks for suggestions,
Daniel.
I asked this same question a few years ago and the consensus was a

Tektronix 465B. I bought one for about $100.00. A great scope. I have
solved more problems with it than I ever thought I would. The scope is
built like a tank. It is kinda large but it was cheap and is reliable.
Eric