Electronics > Beginners
Why are scope probes so damn big?
KL27x:
At first, I had the same feelings. Early on, I bought a cheap set of scope probes and cut the entire probes off and soldered female pin sockets on the ends. Then I could stick these onto test pins or stick pins in there to wrap wire onto for soldering connections. Obviously no good for high voltages or frequencies, but something was wrong. Even the weight of the wire is a lot for a really small board.
What I eventually learned to do with the micro tiny boards is to bring the signals I'm interested in and port them out to a row of pinheader. Have everything glued down to a single piece of fr-4 or plywood or something. Then you can stick a piece of label tape down next to the header and name all these signals. Now you can quickly switch 2 or more standard full size probes between various signals of interest that you might need to see in relation to each other. Or have one probe hooked to a pin, and use the other to touch-probe the circuit. When you're working on such small stuff, this is even better. It takes time to work on tiny stuff, and putting some extra work in just the once, upfront, can save a lot of frustration later. So ultimately, the only tiny probe you need is disposable. It's 30AWG kynar wire and solder.
Berni:
They make small probes too, like this for example:
https://www.keysight.com/en/pd-1661742-pn-N2874A/passive-probe-101-15-ghz-13-m?cc=US&lc=eng
I have a similar set of probes from Agilent and they are indeed very nice probes.
It doesn't make sense making them smaller than this because then they can no longer be held like a pen, and you don't really gain much from going smaller. If you need a tiny probe to solder in then just cut the end off a BNC cable.
malagas_on_fire:
Yes probe master also do some small probes with hooks that reminds the ones used in logic analyzers. The price is not so small :P
https://www.amazon.com/Probe-Master-6164-Oscilloscope-Grabbers/dp/B01D3QX9CI
https://probemaster.com/6164-dual-lead-scope-probe/
In Vacuo Veritas:
--- Quote from: alanambrose on November 07, 2018, 06:21:43 pm ---Duh, we're working on these little things 1mm scale, and the damn probe is over 6 inches long with all the leverage that goes with that. Is this a design left over from the valve radio era that hasn't been updated?
Alan
--- End quote ---
Probes from that time are even bigger... HP used to make small scope probes but they were fragile and fell apart like confetti. I don't know why.
It's also the fact that most circuits now are digital and have self test makes probing and scopes in general much less useful than they used to be.
Logic analyzers come with small clips.
IanMacdonald:
More of a problem are 'shouldered' DMM probes that can't be put into adjacent sockets.
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