New Scientific HM203G analog oscilloscope - 1:1 copy of Hameg oscilloscope?

[pascal_sweden]

In this video from IIT Kharagpur (Indian Institute of Technology), they use an analog oscilloscope from the brand Scientific, which seems to be a 1:1 copy of a Hameg oscilloscope.



The analog oscilloscope that is used in this video:
Scientific HM203G

According to the distributor, the Scientific HM203G is India's best selling oscilloscope in the 30 MHz range.
http://www.skyking.in/hm203g.html

As I said before, the Scientific HM203G oscilloscope seems to be a 1:1 copy of a Hameg oscilloscope.

Does anybody on this forum know more about the connection between Hameg and Scientific?

[pascal_sweden]

According to this site, the oscilloscope costs 23,000 INR (320 EUR):
http://www.scientificindia.com/products/SM203G-30-MHz-Standard-Oscilloscope.aspx

Conversion from INR to EUR:
http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=23000&From=INR&To=EUR

[anotherlin]

Simplest answer would be that it is produced under licence from Hameg.
HM203 is a very old scope, from the 80s
I don't see any reason they wouldn't agree to sell a licence for very cheap.

[pascal_sweden]

This link gives an overview of the different revisions in the Hameg HM203 series:
http://www.sm5cbw.se/hameg/hmosc/hm203.htm

[oldway]

They were also manufacturing the SM605, a copy of the HM605 Hameg, but they stopped.
http://suppliers.jimtrade.com/83/82099/60_mhz_universal_analog_oscilloscope.htm

[pascal_sweden]

I have contacted Scientific India with the following questions:

"Dear Sir,

I am writing you regarding the Scientific HM203G analog oscilloscope.

Do you still sell these scopes as new units? Are they still produced newly every month, or is it a new old stock?

Is it correct that these oscilloscopes are manufacturered under license of Hameg in Germany?

Did you acquire the schematics, diagrams, tooling and moulding from Hameg?

Do you carry other Hameg licensed analog scopes with digital storage functionality?
Hameg did several analog/digital combi scopes, such as HM205 and HM408:

HM205:
http://www.sm5cbw.se/hameg/hmosc/hm205.htm

HM408:
http://www.sm5cbw.se/hameg/hmosc/hm408.htm

Regards,

Pascal"

[tronde]

Some Hameg scopes was sold under another brand long time ago. Have forgot what brand, but they had a black front panel.

They even made a kit of a 1-channel 10MHz in cooperation with the German magazine ELV-journal in 1981-82 so I think this is a legal version.

[pascal_sweden]

I guess you mean the BBC edition of the Hameg oscilloscope. That edition came with a black front panel.

[oldway]

In an analog oscilloscope, the main part is the cathode ray tube.

The manufacture of such a cathode ray tube is not simple and the main manufacturers of analog oscilloscopes decided to manufacture their own cathode ray tubes.

This was the case for Philips, HP and Tektronix.

Hameg often used Philips CRTs.

After the closure of the Philips Eindhoven plant, the cathode ray tube division continued its activity and became Cathode Ray Technology B.V.

Hameg used their cathode ray tubes.

But this company closed in 2012.
http://www.crtsite.com/page3-2.html

One wonders where Scientific actually buys its cathode ray tubes because to my knowledge there is no longer "big" manufacturer producing high quality cathode ray tubes.

[tautech]

Interesting info oldway, thanks.

A minutes searching for new analog scopes on Aliexpress finds dozens of new CRO's whose CRT's will presumably be made is some Asian factory.
In fact today Fraser mentioned buying CRT's from China for a lot of  CRO's he bought.

I own a pile of these scopes in the 'landscape' format. They came from Digimess as a shipment that had been dropped in transit. All but one cathode ray tube had broken. They sold me 12 of them for £25 including postage ! That was £25 for all of them, not each ! They obviously wanted rid of them.

I ordered some new CRT's from China at £10 a piece and they arrived mostly intact. Three got damaged.

I did some thorough inspection work on these scopes and was not very impressed with what I found. Cheap PCB material, cheap quality components, poor soldering, poor quality plastics and underwhelming performance when repaired. I rebuilt one to see if they were any use for my projects.

I have since parked the scopes on a shelf for a day when I can get around to fitting the CRT's. This may never happen....why ? Because these CRO's really are not worth the time and effort.

[CJay]

I grew up with Telequipment and Scopex before I used a Hameg HM605 and I absolutely loved the HM605, excellent focus and brightness due to a higher than usual EHT voltage as well as a bunch of other features like the component tester.

I'd be interested in a new clone of the HM605 if available or perhaps even the HM1005 if they were built to similar quality

[pascal_sweden]

I would be interested in a new clone of the Hameg HM1007, which seems to be the last analog scope from Hameg with digital storage memory that comes in the traditional high-quality form factor.

http://www.sm5cbw.se/hameg/hmosc/hm1007.htm

That would be a big seller.

All proceeding models made by Hameg were not in the traditional high-quality form factor.
And IMO it looks like they went down on quality. Some people will say it's to save space,
but I think it probably also was related to a cost factor.

[CJay]

Not particularly bothered about the digital sampling/storage of it either, I had a Hameg storage scope for a few weeks and found I only used the analogue functions, I've only got analogue scopes thus far as I've not found enough pressing reason to progress to digital...

I do think I will be buying a digital 'scope in 2017 if things go well so I look forward to learning all about how wrong I was and embracing the digital world fully

That HM1007 does look nice though.

[oldway]

I also like the HM605, I bought a new one in 1982 and I still use it.

I have earned my life for over 10 years with it, it has been my workhorse in repair and project of power electronics.

Later, I bought others, I now have 4 units in good working order.

Some little known details:

- the older HM605s have a different cathode ray tube than the newer models. I find the old cathode ray tubes better than the new ones

- the HM605 has a very fast overscan detector ... it can detect extremely fast transients or glitches not visible on the screen with low scanning speeds. Don't forget to use it !

- the HM605 has an Y output on the rear panel which allows to measure the frequency of the signal of channel 1 with a frequency counter .... very convenient because it is not necessary to adjust the sensitivity of the frequency counter.

- the HM605 has a wide range of Y sensitivity adjustment : from 5 mV / cm to 20V / cm (probe x1) ... the sensitivity can be multiplied by 5, giving a maximum sensitivity of 1 mV / cm.
The vertical amplifiers accept a large overload without saturation, which allows to visualize a detail of the waveform using the offset adjustement.

- the HM605 has only one time base (which simplifies the device very much) but it has a delay that allows to start the sweep at a very precise point of the wave even if one does not succed to sincronize the sweep at that place.
This is an original solution that is often enough.

- the HM605 is very easy to use and sincronises particularly well, it is rare that it is necessary to adjust the sinchronism.

- the HM605 has a component tester very useful for troubleshooting ... when one is used to use it, one can not do without it!