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.

Lab Equipment

Status
Not open for further replies.

burg

New Member
Hey,

So it's come time to step up in the world. I'm looking for three items:

1) A good, robust, portable multimeter. I've been thinking about going for a Fluke, which will last me many many years to come (EE in the making, so I'll need it). But is it worth it? Any other brands people would recommend? $100-$200

2) A nice power supply for testing small circuits. In the range of 0-50V, 0-3A (Amps arent as important at the moment). I'd like to have digital, but either will do. Where to look? Ebay? Or buy new, and what brands? Budget: $100-$200

3) Oscilliscope. I'd like a relatively broad one, but it'll mostly be for analog signals, with some digital mixed in. Again, where to get a good/cheap one, and what brands should I keep my eye out for. Budget: $200ish, which I know is low, but...I'm a poor student.

Any other tips are welcome,
Thanks.
 
Without any hint of your location, I have to assume that you're here rather than there. If this is incorrect, please indicate your country or at least your continent.

1) As a student I would go for a multimeter in the $75-$100 range. Fluke is good, but I really haven't heard badly about any other major brand. Durability shouldn't be an issue if you take good care of it. A lot of extra money can be spent on drop-proof and waterproof, but it's wasted if you don't do much field work. You've probably already read that I own half a dozen $5 meters and one good one.

2) 0-30V will save you a lot of money in a variable supply, and 2A is also a fairly significant price knee. I would shop at MPJA first.

3) Take $100 from the multimeter budget and spend it on a $300 scope. I would hope you can find at least 150 MHz Tektronix on ebay. Be prepared to spend about $75 of that on probes. I went $500 for my 2465 and I love it.
 
Sorry about the location business, I'm in Toronto, Canada.

I've read that you do have a bunch of cheap ones, and I've actually been doing that for alittle while. I have to restock though.

I do a lot of field work; I'm in FSAE - student racing program, and I'm on the electrical team, so it'll get abused whether I like it or not. I'll have to do alittle more research.

Thanks for the ideas, I'll have to do some research tonight.
 
I should comment more on probes. For a while I used 30 MHz probes on my 300 MHz scope. This gave me a 30 MHz scope at a 300 MHz price.:mad:
 
I bought a Hitachi V1050F 100 mHz scope on Ebay for $175 US. It was good but you have to be careful buying on Ebay. I have a Mastech MAS838 digital meter, it cost $15 as I recall and measures temperature and hfe as well as the usual ohms, volts and amps.
You really should build your own power supply.
 
What I use and how I like them:

DMM:
favorite is my Fluke 73. Received new many years ago for free in a promotion from Fluke. Has been extremely reliable but I really miss the lack of audible beep when testing continuity.

I have two RadioShack DMMs, not sure what models but both digital. Have been reliable and trustworthy, good features, and accurate enough for almost anything. Paid $60 new.


DC Power Supplies:

have collected a few over the years including:
HP 6216A and HP6213A: these little workhorses are very old, but very simple little linear supplies with analog meter and reasonably low noise output. 400mA 25V and 10V 1A. Very happy with them. Paid about $30 each which is a bit high in retrospect. Bought through Dovebid.com

HP6632A (qty 2): powerful and HPIB programmable, reasonably quiet electrically, but the fan is noisy. Very trustworthy. 20V 5A. Paid $40 each from local manufacturer that was downsizing.

Fluke/Philips PM2811: programmable digital linear supply, 30V 2A. about $50 from local company going through layoffs. Very good power supply.

Astron VS20M: simple linear supply but when you need 20 amps at 13.6 Volts to power mobile radios or other, then this is just the ticket. Paid less than $40 from local firm, many years ago. Has been quite reliable.

Oscilloscopes:

favorite is HP1725A analog scope, this very old model still works very well, has 275MHz bandwidth. Paid less than $50 locally. Bought new probes for it.

Leader LBO-524L. Although low bandwidth, it has worked solidly without flaw since bought new in Japan for $1100 over 30 years ago. A nice friendly scope.

HP 1740A 100MHz analog scope. Works well but no advantage over 1725A so its in storage. Received in a bulk lot of stuff from local company, so no specific price.

Tek 465A: I've never liked these scopes and this one just collects dust in storage. Not that reliable in my experience, clunky selector switches. Aging badly.
 
I just got a Textronix 2212 on ebay for about 150 bucks. It came with 3 probes and the original manual. Its only 60Mhz, but as my first scope, i'm happy with it. Might upgrade somday, but heck, nothing I want to measure right now approches 1 Mhz, lol

My DMM is a Fluke ET-73. Made by fluke for MAC tools. Pretty basic. Just volts, ohms, diode checker and amps. Works great though. It was my dads when he worked in the auto repair trade.

I don't have a decent power supply yet. I want to go the build my own route when I get time.
 
For a power supply I would recommend building my bipolar 1.25V to 15V supply, as it's very useful for powering op-amp circuits which require a dual supply. It can give 1.5A continious or typically 2.2A for short periods (depending on how lucky you are with the components) and isn't hard or expensive to build; it makes a nice first project.

https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/variable-bipolar-power-supply.24291/
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top