Hey everyone, thanks for allowing me to be a part of the forum. There is a lot to learn.
I've recently been tasked with setting up an electronics test lab for the small company I work for. The budget is 10-15k. We need a little of everything.....oscillscope, function generator, power supplies...etc. We have a solder/hot air station and a stereoscopic microscope already.
The boss told me to make it look as close to something Tony Stark would have as possible with the budget or at least make a good starting point.
To give an idea of what we do...............we repair damaged ECM's for litigation type work so some sort of wow factor for lawyers is always good.
Also would like to keep the number of vendors to a minimum if possible.
I figured you all have the most experience with the equipment and can give me good recommendations on brands and models that will fit the price range.
Thanks.
Noone is going to take you seriously when you ask for gear like Tony Stark would have.
You need to know what speed/frequency signals you are intending on looking at in order to purchase an appropriate oscilloscope and function generator. Rigols entry level 4 channel oscilloscope the DS1054Z to anyone not familiar with test equipment will look like science fiction. It's 50MHz but can be upgraded to the 100Mhz model with an unlock code that is a paid option, or free if you decide to google/search/ask.
Modern digital oscilloscopes also may have advanced options to show communication protocols to aid in debugging. So think of some as limited channel logic analyzers.
A function generator again would be dependent on the type of signals sent to the ECM externally and the speed requirements and communications protocols the device uses as it's core logic. If you were trying to emulate an external signal to prove the ECMs operation it could be anything from a high or low voltage signal, a sine wave at a certain frequency, a pulse width signal or something far more complex. It entirely depends on how deep you want to go, or if you ever need to use any of these features.
In terms of a power supply, I can't see if you are using more than 13.8V DC and need anything spectacular, Rigols supplies probably all have current limiting which is useful in not destroying the device under test when powering up on the bench. If powering logic components directly that would you need to be worried about overshoot and ripple but you can get around that.
Couple of decent sized HD screens so you can look at schematics, wiring diagrams or images of board layouts etc would look great on a large desk. Good luck learning everything if you decide to go that far.
Have a look at the Rigol gear at tequipment.net and talk to a rep.
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
