Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Good (and cheap) Oscilloscope

Status
Not open for further replies.

bearwolfe

New Member
I am looking for a good hand held unit or even a small bench unit for troubleshooting and repairing electronic equipment.....such as radios, navigation equipment, and any general electronic equipment, etc.

Suggestions please....

TIA
 
Good, cheap and reliable. Pick 2, you wont get the third.

However, if you are prepared to purchase second hand then check ebay. You can get some good bargains on there. Aim for a decent brand (e.g. HP/Agilent or Tektronix) and see if you can get a deal.

It would be useful if you knew in advance what features you need, such as how many channels, maximum bandwidth, digital storage etc.
 
Ty all, indeed I wish I knew what I needed in advance, however I am just getting started......second hand is ok with me, so long as they work, I know very well about the Good, Cheap, Reliable triangle...LOL
 
That 'scope from Maplin looks like it's little more than a toy.

I've never tried it but someone else on a forum bought this cheap Chinese 'scope from Rapid and were quite happy with it.
**broken link removed**
 
I'd be very very wary of anything from maplin, the quality of many of their products is no better than the pot-shots you get from china on ebay they have very little care for quality and charge the earth for it (or rather for its lack of), They are best kept for emergencies for wire and components.

Hero that scope although a 25 MHz scope is only 100 MS/s (so potentially on 4 samples per cycle), for a little more you could buy a rigol DS1052E with 1 GS/s and 50 MHz bandwidth. in the UK it is sold for £ 281+VAT
 
However, if you are prepared to purchase second hand

Aim for a decent brand (e.g. HP/Agilent or Tektronix) and see if you can get a deal.

Yup, very sound advice.
Some of the top brand old stuff is really well built, very reliable, and EXTREMELY good value.
 
I like my DSO 3450 usb type scope, but don't do the heavy technical stuff. What you guys have to say about the Chinese usb scopes?
 
And if I am not mistaken is this not the model that can be converted to the 100mhz model with a serial lead and a simple command in hyperterminal?(!) Oh I wish I had some spare cash right now!!!
 
And if I am not mistaken is this not the model that can be converted to the 100mhz model with a serial lead and a simple command in hyperterminal?(!) Oh I wish I had some spare cash right now!!!

Yes it is (I've done mine) but if you buy now you have a 50 % chance or less of getting a hackable model as Rigol got wise fast and changed the firmware. if your lucky to get a scope that has been sitting in stock you may be able to mod it. in any case it is a very good value for money machine. What is a little less known is that it uses 10 ADC's and they are overclocked to 250 % normal speed so they were able to produce a low cost scope capable of realtime sample rates of 1 GS/s
 
Yes it is (I've done mine) but if you buy now you have a 50 % chance or less of getting a hackable model as Rigol got wise fast and changed the firmware. if your lucky to get a scope that has been sitting in stock you may be able to mod it. in any case it is a very good value for money machine. What is a little less known is that it uses 10 ADC's and they are overclocked to 250 % normal speed so they were able to produce a low cost scope capable of realtime sample rates of 1 GS/s

Do you have the logic analyser module? If so, how good is it?
 
no I don't and it is said that it can't be bought seperately although many are certain that the hardware is the same but for the actual module, I expect the firmware is different
 
I've been very happy with my B&K 2120B. I see Test Equipment Depot still offers it for the "sale" price that I bought mine about two years ago. It's 30MHZ bandwidth is good for at least 95% of the projects our members seem to be working on. And it has a sharper trace than some of my older TEK 'scopes. It is missing some features I'm used to, like an "invert" mode for taking differential measurements. But the price and specs are great otherwise, I think.
 
That 'scope from Maplin looks like it's little more than a toy.

I've never tried it but someone else on a forum bought this cheap Chinese 'scope from Rapid and were quite happy with it.
**broken link removed**

Its an excellent fully functional scope. It is portable so you can't expect the same resolution as a 'box'. It is however 99% accuracte up to 2MHz and up to 200V. It is single channel which might put some off and if you want to capture a screen you take a picture of the scope with your camera!

The Rapid scope looks quite good on paper. I'd have no problem with one of those, but they are twice as expensive.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top