Rather than spending money on equipment I don't think you really know how to use according to your numerous other threads, how about you get that hands on learning experience that you said you're wanting by fixing your Tek 2213?
How am I every going to know how to use it if I don't have it to use it?
I started this thread at the request of ez24, I have already purchased the following:
Rigol MSO4014: $2594 (Still returnable, not 100% sure I'm going to keep it yet)
Analog Discovery: $159 (2 differential channel 40 MHz scope, 2 channel 10 MHz AWG, 10 MHz Network Analyzer, 16 channel LA)
Build my own power supply using recycled parts: free
Banggood.com M12864 LCR ESR Transistor meter: $20
Extech EX210T True RMS + IR temperature Multimeter: $34
Radio Shack 2200172 AC/DC Digital Clamp On Multimeter. $13
Make Soldering Station Starter Kit: $25
Still have over $2k left.
I started this thread at the request of ez24, I have already purchased the following:
Rigol MSO4014: $2594 (Still returnable, not 100% sure I'm going to keep it yet)
Analog Discovery: $159 (2 differential channel 40 MHz scope, 2 channel 10 MHz AWG, 10 MHz Network Analyzer, 16 channel LA)
Build my own power supply using recycled parts: free
Banggood.com M12864 LCR ESR Transistor meter: $20
Extech EX210T True RMS + IR temperature Multimeter: $34
Radio Shack 2200172 AC/DC Digital Clamp On Multimeter. $13
Make Soldering Station Starter Kit: $25
Still have over $2k left.
I started this thread at the request of ez24, I have already purchased the following:
Rigol MSO4014: $2594 (Still returnable, not 100% sure I'm going to keep it yet)
Analog Discovery: $159 (2 differential channel 40 MHz scope, 2 channel 10 MHz AWG, 10 MHz Network Analyzer, 16 channel LA)
Build my own power supply using recycled parts: free
Banggood.com M12864 LCR ESR Transistor meter: $20
Extech EX210T True RMS + IR temperature Multimeter: $34
Radio Shack 2200172 AC/DC Digital Clamp On Multimeter. $13
Make Soldering Station Starter Kit: $25
Still have over $2k left.
ah the truth comes out I was being silent
but to be honest kinda strange a $2600 scope and other "cheap" stuff. Does not seem equal. In other words 1/2 of the budget on one item. Should go with my one item suggestion But we will learn for others $2,000 still can buy a lot of stuff. (how about a new car for me ? )
FYI someone said Dave said 5k budget. Did he ? Not that I know of.
I started this thread at the request of ez24, I have already purchased the following:
Rigol MSO4014: $2594 (Still returnable, not 100% sure I'm going to keep it yet)
Analog Discovery: $159 (2 differential channel 40 MHz scope, 2 channel 10 MHz AWG, 10 MHz Network Analyzer, 16 channel LA)
Build my own power supply using recycled parts: free
Banggood.com M12864 LCR ESR Transistor meter: $20
Extech EX210T True RMS + IR temperature Multimeter: $34
Radio Shack 2200172 AC/DC Digital Clamp On Multimeter. $13
Make Soldering Station Starter Kit: $25
Still have over $2k left.
ah the truth comes out I was being silent
but to be honest kinda strange a $2600 scope and other "cheap" stuff. Does not seem equal. In other words 1/2 of the budget on one item. Should go with my one item suggestion But we will learn for others $2,000 still can buy a lot of stuff. (how about a new car for me ? )
FYI someone said Dave said 5k budget. Did he ? Not that I know of.
Is a scope not the most important instrument in an electronics lab? It's a 675 MHz scope, plus it has a 1 GSa/s 16-channel logic analyzer... I think it was a steal at that price, a comparable Keysight would have cost $13k. If you notice everything I bought was on sale. For instance, that Radio Shack clamp on meter that I picked up for $13 normally costs $60, it was on clearance. And the soldering iron gets the job done when using good quality Kester 0.020" and a Hakko 599B-02 tip cleaner.
Is a scope not the most important instrument in an electronics lab?
I wish I had a programmable power load (these are pricey)
Quite an "interesting" approach... "I haven't even thought about what I want to build yet, there is no point in doing that until I have a lab with all the essentials"
And you are hoping with this approach you wont a) spend $20K and b) not be stuck with a bunch of equipment you don't need. I must be in bizarro world
I purchase equipment as I find a compelling need for it, not to dream up something to do because I have a piece of equipment laying dormant that requires that specific project to justify its existence in my lab...
My first post still stands and now is confirmed by your post above, imho the initiation of this thread is the old cart before the horse... but good luck with it. I'm guessing your background isn't as an EE?
Lol, what a stupid thread. Spending 5k$ on new equipment
5k$ can buy you everything or nothing, especially in US, where shipping of the goodies on US ebay is cheap.
Nothing if you buy new.
Tek-7904A: 80$ + lots of pugins for it 250$ => 320$
Quick list of bottom low prices without shipping (negotiable in US, since about only 20-50$)
HP-3456A : 50$ (get a bunch of broken ones and fix f them) => 200$
Tek-7904A: 80$ + lots of pugins for it 250$ => 320$
HP-E3617A: 80$ (get a few, like 3) => 240$
HP-8568B: 600$ (get a second 8566B RF section for 400$) =>1000$
HP-3585A: 600$ (B version with signal tracking cost more =>600$
HP-8662/8663: 1200$ (get each of em, parts are exchangeable) => 1200$
HP-3326A: 200$ (really cool LF synthesizer) => 200$
Tek TM500 with function gen plugins: 350$ => 350$
HP-8005A :80$ (external trigger by 5359A for accurate timing) => 80$
HP-5359A : 250$ => 250$
Generic cheap soldering iron => 50$
Set of good tweezers => 100$
Cheap solder sucker => 5$
Aoyue 952 hot air gun => 80$
So far 4575$ and a really good lab for start, but you must know how to repair stuff of learn it by doing.
Quickly fill it to 5000$
HP-16500B/C with 16532A/16557D: =>350$
EIP-545A LF/RF counter (maybe with RF power meter) =>180$
Where can you find a 7904A for $80?
How do you expect a beginner to fix all this non working equipment without even so much as having a working scope?
Where can you find a 7904A for $80?
Time is your friend. And keep your eyes open. It was out there, and it probably will be again.How do you expect a beginner to fix all this non working equipment without even so much as having a working scope?
Buy a working shit scope for 20$. And learn it. You can do it, if you really want to and dedicate some time to it. Manuals are good and available. I'm no EE, but I learned most of it by repairing stuff.
I started this thread at the request of ez24, I have already purchased the following:
Rigol MSO4014: $2594 (Still returnable, not 100% sure I'm going to keep it yet)
Analog Discovery: $159 (2 differential channel 40 MHz scope, 2 channel 10 MHz AWG, 10 MHz Network Analyzer, 16 channel LA)
Build my own power supply using recycled parts: free
Banggood.com M12864 LCR ESR Transistor meter: $20
Extech EX210T True RMS + IR temperature Multimeter: $34
Radio Shack 2200172 AC/DC Digital Clamp On Multimeter. $13
Make Soldering Station Starter Kit: $25
This is a very entertaining thread
Lets get serious;
Who actually needs a 6.5 digit DMM?
That is ridiculous for a 5K lab.
Forget the spectrum analyzer right off the top, buying a new SA that might be worth a damned on a good day when the sunshine was just the right shade of white would take too much of that 5K.
Don't even consider doing anything serious with RF.
Your big purchase will be your scope, so you need to decide if you really need a low end Mixed domain scope or just a DSO of reasonably good quality. From here on out the rest of your gear will be ether low-low end stuff or just low end stuff.
The other thing I don't see mentioned here; what about all those cables?
You going to buy them or make them. I prefer to make them since I am very good at it and know my workmanship is good to well beyond UHF by a decade or so.
Until quite recently I often questioned why you'd ever need a 6.5 digit DMM having spent the past 98% of my life without one, living perfectly well with 3 3/4 digits for many years thank you very much. For me it's not for absolute measurement, but for relative measurement: I do a fair amount of rework, and tracing down shorts, and badly behaving parts in circuit on a PCB is so easy with a high resolution DMM, and now I'd get frustrated without the resolution. But I'd agree, for absolute measurement the value of 6.5 digits still eludes me in a practical sense. I would not buy a 6.5 digit DMM new, or calibrated, there is just no value to me to be able to measure absolutely. The same is not true in the frequency domain though!
I'd agree about an SA. They're the most under utilised pieces of equipment in my lab, and I just made a count and have five of them, from 1.5GHz to 22GHz. The two VNAs I have get quite a bit more use than the SAs.
As well as the scope, get some decent tools especially soldering irons. I use four different irons almost daily for SMD rework, three Wellers (two 80W with different sized tips and a tweezer) and one bargain basement hot air iron from eBay which I'd have no hesitation in buying again. Well within three minutes on a rework job on a chip I'll use all four, and sometimes on the tweezer and hot air iron I'll swap bits.
If the OP must get an SA, what about a Tek MDO3014 and liberating its bandwidth (and everything else)?
I agree about cables, I have always made my own as a general rule... but they often do look pretty useless on a TDR compared to the professionally made high end brands like HP/Agilent Radiall etc., and for the VNAs above 100MHz or so I use the real thing for measuring stuff, no point in introducing more unknowns than you need to.
Buying everything at once as if that's it, there will be no more, doesn't sound right though. I didn't know I needed a 20GHz oscilloscope until a few months ago. Come to think of it, I probably still don't really need one, but being able to squeak at 10ps/div sure makes me feel good. Somebody call the doctor.
Some, found this thread entertaining...and maybe in a sick sort of way it is.
But overall it is scoring pretty high on my recently calibrated bullshit meter.
When you were in school you had a school lab full of equipment to play on, I'm merely trying to replicate that experience.
Buy a working shit scope for 20$. And learn it. You can do it, if you really want to and dedicate some time to it. Manuals are good and available. I'm no EE, but I learned most of it by repairing stuff.