| Electronics > Beginners |
| Need help choosing to buy an oscilloscope |
| << < (3/6) > >> |
| james_s:
Don't mess with the calibration unless you are positive it is out of spec and are sure the scope itself is not malfunctioning. My nearly 40 year old Tek 465B has not been calibrated since sometime in the early 90s and it's still plenty accurate. An oscilloscope is not a precision measurement device in the first place, you can check it against some basic signals of known voltage and frequency and if it's pretty close it will be good enough. Calibration is needed when you're taking measurements that have to be certified against some known standard, which as a hobbyist I doubt you'll be doing. |
| Old Printer:
I also wouldn't worry about the "TEK" compatible probe thing too much. When the proper scope is matched with the proper probe the scope will automatically adjust the trace to compensate for the 1x - 10x vertical change. If you had to buy a new TEK probe to accomplish that it might cost more than the scopes you are looking at. If you use a generic probe you will just have to be aware that the vertical (amplitude) setting will need to be matched to the setting on the probe. This is an excellent video by Alan Wolke on the subject. |
| Roka:
Yeah I had to buy probes for it aswell. Ive got these ones, they have the 1-10 thing aswell which i need to calibrate. apparently they are for tektronix. When i said calibrate i meant to adjust the scope internally, but since i dont have proper signal generator or expensive multimeter i wont do it for now. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B073GRYRCD/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 |
| Old Printer:
Those are generic Chinese probes. They will work with the 2215 and most any other scope as well. They do not have the built in sense ring and third wire to activate the Tek auto 1x - 10x compensation feature. You will likely need a Tek brand probe to do that. I don't know which Tek probes will enable that feature, but others here might. It is a convenient feature, but hardly necessary as long as you are aware to make the compensation manually. My Tek 475 has that feature, but my 2225 does not. Good luck with your new scope! |
| james_s:
You can get Chinese probes that support the probe coding but they are harder to find and more expensive. You can also add it yourself, it's just a resistor, and some mechanical bits, perhaps a pogo pin would do the job? You should not need to calibrate the scope unless it has been messed with. Certainly not to use different probes, perhaps you're confusing calibration with compensating the probes? |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |
| Previous page |