How rubbish is your 'scope.

[dr pepper]

This is my first 'scope, I fetched this home on the back of my pushhog a long time ago.

Single trace, 100khz (on a good day), the y and x controls are not switches they are pots!, zero calibration.

I still managed to make a few babani projects work with it though.

Anyone have anything worse?

 

[Ian Rogers]

They ain't rubbish but here is my first and second..
Here they are in storage...Awwww!

 

[dr pepper]

I've had a couple of telequipments, in fact I still have one, but its not very well.
The scopex looks bargain basement, but probably useful in its day.

 

[DerStrom8]

I currently own 5 scopes, all of which I have had to repair to some extent. Age ranges from the '50s to the early 2000's.



The fifth one is from the '60s but I don't have any photos of it at the moment. It's a Tek 516, still runs but is in dire need of a tune-up.

The first scope shown I have been unable to find much information on. It appears to be a kit from the '50s or early '60s. It has no time base, only a horizontal and vertical input. I had to replace a rectifier tube in order to get it to work again. The second one just needed some cleaning, the third one needed new traces and a capacitor (the original capacitor leaked and destroyed a 3" x 3" section of the timebase board). Fourth one shown needed a new capacitor.

 

[audioguru]

My 'scope is about 50 years old and still works better than new. It was a kit.
I souped it up a little so its trace is very clear and very linear but its frequency response is only up to 3MHz and it is AC-coupled so it does not show DC voltages.
I replaced most of its capacitors. None of its vacuum tubes have ever failed but there is a loose connection inside its CRT that takes a whack to fix it temporarily.

I used it for many years to show a "moving tangled ball of thread" when showing L-R stereo.
I also used it to show how scrambled pay-per-view cable TV works and how to unscramble it.

 

[atferrari]

My 'scope is about 50 years old and still works better than new. It was a kit.
I souped it up a little so its trace is very clear and very linear but its frequency response is only up to 3MHz and it is AC-coupled so it does not show DC voltages.
I replaced most of its capacitors. None of its vacuum tubes have ever failed but there is a loose connection inside its CRT that takes a whack to fix it temporarily.

I used it for many years to show a "moving tangled ball of thread" when showing L-R stereo.
I also used it to show how scrambled pay-per-view cable TV works and how to unscramble it.

I guess AG, you would qualify it as an "old (but not lousy!) scope".

 

[audioguru]

My old 'scope IS lousy but it is better than nothing.

 

[dr pepper]

I too have 5, 4 proper 'scopes and a usb, actually I spose 6, I have a little pen handheld thing thats also a 'scope, great for finding faults on vehicles.

 

[tomizett]

I'm very fond of my 20MHz Iwatsu that my father saved from a skip. It's basic, but a fairly solid instrument (has a nice narrow form factor as well so it takes up less space on the bench than typical models).
The trick, of course, is to know the limits of your equipment, so you know when to believe it and when to seek the advice of something superior (and then, of course, who you can borrow the better equipment from).

 

[dr pepper]

The 'scope I use the most also came from a skip, still cost me a tenner though, when i went to collect my fluke my mrs pulled this 20mhz dartron out of the skip and bargained 10 quid on it.
I use it a lot as I dont mind if I blow it up, needless to say I have not.

 

[rumpfy]

Oscilloscopes are like women; they are all beautiful.

 

[fezder]

any scope is better than no scope at all, IMO

 

[kubeek]

any scope is better than no scope at all, IMO

As long as it is oscilloscope. What I had was called oscillograph from 1954, it didn´t have any calibration for timebase nor gain, just coarse and fine adjustment without any levels marked. http://www.radiohistoria.sk/Oldradi...B3D6130B83F63C1257BA10064BC73/$file/TM694.jpg I guess the bandwidth was about 150Khz, and without any stable timebase it was quite useless.

 

[fezder]

Oh, my bad, never heard of oscillosgraph

 

[dr pepper]

I think I have one of those somewhere, a russian doofer.
The 'X axis' if you can call it that is motor driven, I put a stepper on it to get some accuracy.
Bandwidth is only as fast as the pen will move across the paper, maybe 5hz.

 

[Dean Huster]

Meanwhile, as I approach that magic age where I no longer work for income but instead work at my hobby, I'm beginning to collect oscilloscopes. My first, bought 41 years ago was a Heathkit IO-104, a very lousy design. It was replaced by several, all of which I still have: Tektronix 212, 213, 465DM44, loaded 7904. I've since added a loaded R7903 and 7854 and will be working to make at least one decent mainframe from a pair of 5111s, a 5110 and a pair of 5113s, with lots of plug-ins for those as well. I used to work for Tektronix, and my love is their "older" analog scopes. I have little desire for a stand-alone DSO and no desire at all for a PC-based "scope" of any kind.

 

[dr pepper]

One of my very first employers sold me a 'cope for a weeks work, I only got rid of that last year, it had just about had it.
One of the members here has just got one the same.

 

[JimB]

I have a total of four oscilloscopes.

The first one, a Tektronix 515 of which failed many years ago and was put to one side with the thought " I will fix that one day"
The problem is the EHT transformer, needs to be re-wound. I have the details of how many turns on each winding, I just lack the wire and the inclination to do it.
Cost about £100 in 1978.



The second, a Telequipment D75 is still in working order but has not been used since I bought scope number four.
It has needed one major repair, the EHT multiplier failed. A replacement multiplier was unobtainium, so I built one from scratch which has worke perfectly for about 15 years.
Cost £450 in 1984.



The third is a USB type scope which I bought when I started working for myself. I thought that there would be situations where it would be useful to have a nice portable scope.
The reality turned out to be quite different. I never really needed it.
There was one occasion where I was at a job and needed a scope, there was a scope available but it had no probes or suitable BNC-croc leads.
I did get by with single wires from the unit under test to the scope, not ideal but I managed.
Where was my scope when all this happened? Back home about 8000 miles away! Doh!
I now find it very useful when working on PICs. It is good at catching fast pulses.
Cost about £950 in 2004.



The fourth, an Agilent DSO3202A. Nice size, fits on the shelf above the work bench. 200MHz bandwidth and can connect to a PC via USB.
Cost 900Euro in 2012.



JimB

 

[misterT]

I have a usb scope.. it has so low impedance inputs that whatever it shows can't be trusted. rubbish. I tried to use its logic analyzer for i2c, but once I connected it, it held all the lines down all the time.. ridiculous.

 

[JimB]

My USB scope has standard 1M Ohm inputs and came with two x1/x10 switchable probes.
It also has a built-in function generator.

All in all a handy bit of kit, sometimes.

JimB