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PC Scopes

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rpqcca

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Hi Guys,
I'm looking to buy my first PC Scope. I need it for my home lab. I don't have to much experience with electronic components and electric measuring. Can you give me some suggestions about price, caracteristics and softwear.
 
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I'd recommend buying a used bench scope off e-bay. You get more for your money than you would for a new PC based scope, and it's stand alone.

For generic use you want a bandwidth of maybe 20mhz and as large a capture buffer as you can find. You need to be a little more specific about what you're going to be using it for to make suggestions beyond that.
 
10x for the answer. I just started my school (college) and i dont have time to do all my labs there...so i decide to build my own home lab. My school work isn't to much complicated...diods, transistors and all basic components. I need something simple...but i dont have idea what kind of PC Scope will be usable. For example numbre of channles, frequency band width...what kind of softwear i need.
 
I'm not sure you read my first post, DON'T buy a PC based scope if you can manage it, you can get used scopes that will more than meet your needs for close to the price of a good PC based scope. 2 channels more if you can afford it, 20mhz is a good number for starting bandwidth, they come with software but again consider a stand alone scope. E-bay has MANY to chose from if you can find one for a decent price. Look around post a link to one or two that you think might be okay for you.
 
Sorry i misunderstood your first post. I'll try to find stand-alone scope. 10x for your suggestions.
 
Like Sceadwain said get a real scope from ebay I started with a pc scope it's ok to play with but not much good for real work and if the lab's now are like what I did an real scope is what you need. You can get and scope on ebay for less then $100 dollars that will do more then a $200 to $300 pc scope and and the cheap pc scopes are to slow. I got a 20mhz duel channel for $48.50 shipping and all. I love it. No more switching from pc scope to firefox to ask for some help.:D
 
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10x guys this really help me...sometimes it's good to ask someone with experience befor to make ..."my biggest mistake in my life" :))))
 
10x guys this really help me...sometimes it's good to ask someone with experience befor to make ..."my biggest mistake in my life" :))))

Hardly be the biggest mistake in your life. I think that does not happen until you say I do... :)
 
Hardly be the biggest mistake in your life. I think that does not happen until you say I do..
That's for sure it's a lot cheaper to let her go home then to put a ring on her and keep her.
 
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lol, cheers to rpqcca. Cold beer, lifes little soldering iron.
 
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I have a Picoscope, and before that I had the Radio Shack Probescope.

They're ok, work fine and all, but I hardly ever use them. The bench scope is just a lot more handy.
 
I hate giving advices as I do electronics as hobby and not professionally like most of the seniors here but .. I needed the scope and everyone told me "better get used bench one for 50-100E, replace all the electrolytes and it will be superb" but it happens that finding a "used" one for reasonable price is impossible (found some potential ones on e-bay, but cost + shipment would be too much for a cat in the bag)... I checked out the PC scopes and decided to go with picoscope 2203... it works like a charm and I'm more then impressed (and I had experience with some 100K+ scopes while I was in satellite industry)... does everything I need :) and more.... Just be sure to have some probes as it comes without any (most of them come without any probes - that's stuped for me) and the linux libraries are fairly useless (as they come precompiled - no source - so no 64bit, no new kernel, no ...) ... anyway, you can't beat the price .. I hear some ppl complaining about the more expensive models and I might agree that BITSCOPE = PC OSCILLOSCOPES AND ANALYZERS is maybe better when it comes to 600E+ class but for 200E Low-cost, compact USB Oscilloscopes from Pico is just the best solution I was able to find (and I spent 3 months searching for the solution, both "used bench" and "usb")
 
The key to finding good buys on e-bay is giving it time, you may have to wait a few weeks for good deals to come up. Those picoscopes look okay, but for the price you can do way better.
Right now the 2202 kit is listed at about 350 dollars, and it's only a 5mhz scope.

The first bench scope on e-bay I found was for 350 was this
**broken link removed**
 
It's fine until the thing you need to test is in the other room.
 
So limit yourself to portable meters, they sell those too =) Even if you use a cheap netbook to read your scope you're still adding 200+ dollars to the total cost, the price/benefit ratio for a bench meter is just way better.
 
The Thing I don't like about a pc scope if your computer gets slowed down it will to and to get the most out of it you would need two computers and for sure keep it off line. I have a 20 lcd on my bench don't need 1 more there. LOL .And i I don't like the Ideal of hooking
Ac to my pc.
 
I have a 200MHz 4 channel analog scope for bench testing, and use it constantly. However, it is not a digital (or storage) scope, so it is not well suited for analyzing slowly-occurring, or one-time events. The solution was to get a stingray. It works well as a digital scope at less than 1Mhz, and is also a data-aquisition system which can log data for days to weeks.
 
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