Products > Test Equipment
Best Oscilloscope under $300?
<< < (8/17) > >>
tggzzz:

--- Quote from: Aldo22 on February 22, 2024, 09:46:01 am ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on February 21, 2024, 10:36:35 pm ---If budget is an issue, then old scopes are virtually free nowadays.
...
Provided they are working,

--- End quote ---

Maybe in England, but here you can't get anything in working order for less than ~100.-
If you buy it online, you have no idea what you're getting.
I really don't think a beginner should start with such an old piece of equipment. Does a beginner even recognize the faults?
For me, it's also out of question because they are too big and too heavy. You need space on the desk and a healthy back for these.
No thanks!  ;)

--- End quote ---

Well, Switzerland has always been excessively expensive (except for cuckoo clocks  >:D )

Big and heavy? Bigger and heavier, yes, but absolute values matter as much as relative values. While some justifiably deserve the term "boatanchor", I've used digitising scopes that were marked "two person lift".

You need a trusted source of any old equipment, e.g. a car or house :)
Fungus:

--- Quote from: Muxr on February 22, 2024, 02:45:36 am ---Like sure 4ch is nice, and everyone should probably get a 4ch scope as it doesn't cost too much to get the extra 2ch. But if budget doesn't permit, 2ch will be absolutely fine.

--- End quote ---

I assume you all drive Smart cars then?

2 seats is enough to move any number of people, you just have to make more trips...
tggzzz:

--- Quote from: nctnico on February 22, 2024, 10:49:36 am ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on February 21, 2024, 10:36:35 pm ---I don't think a beginner should be concentrating on learning any tool. They should be concentrating on the operation of their electronic circuit. Tools change with monotonous regularity;

And for the price of a new Rigol etc, you can get an extremely capable older scope plus a logic analyser plus.... (Major exception: capturing single shot events),

--- End quote ---
You are contradicting your own logic here  >:D Tools change and what was useful yesterday, is less useful today. There ain't no such thing as an extremely capable older scope.

--- End quote ---

You need to come into the modern world, and not be stuck with decades old technology :) 100MHz was just about adequate 40 years ago with LSTTL logic. 100MHz became outdated in the late 80s. Modern jellybean logic has sub-nanosecond risetimes.

The 24x5 scopes are very good, have 50ohm inputs, and higher bandwidth . The 485 has even higher bandwidth, if you can get hold of one.


--- Quote ---Logic analyser is the same story; Tektronix (and maybe Keysight as well) has even stopped making these as nobody has a use for a logic analyser nowadays.

--- End quote ---

That's a very weak argument. Tek/HPAK have never made equipment for beginners.

Tek/HPAK stopped making LAs for reasons that are irrelevant to beginners: FPGAs and multi Gb/s baud rates are standard and attaching LAs to those is "interesting".

Haven't you noticed the very cheap devices that are readily available? They have limitations, just like all tools, but they are usable for many purposes.


--- Quote ---Modern day oscilloscopes have become super versatile and for somebody at the beginning of their career, it makes sense to start with today's technology as much as financially possible.

--- End quote ---

A beginner should learn the fundamentals of the technology that will last a lifetime.


--- Quote ---The other day I read an article about 2 interns (studying fine woodworking) who where working on restoring old ships. Great fun but none of the crafts/wood joining methods used to build old ships is used today.

--- End quote ---

If those interns are aiming to be technicians assembling houses, you are probably correct.

But if they are aiming to become engineers then a sound knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses (literally!) of different types of timber is likely to be useful. Using the old techniques might be useful.

Directly relevant electronics example... Look at the "old primitive" topologies of radio receivers and transmitters. Then look at the topologies of microwave and terahertz radios. They are very very similar. The reason isn't hard to understand: in both cases the RF components are pushed to the limits of their capabilities.
tatel:
My 2 cents:

a) OP seems to be looking for a decent oscilloscope to buy it and forget about buying another one for years to come. I think it's a sensible approach, with just one caveat: I would spend a hundred bucks more to get a 4-channel one, quite probably one of the new/coming Rigol/Siglent -unless OP is sure he will never do any digital work. In that case a 2-channel one could be fine. But I find that probability is quite small as of today, so I would really go for a 4.channel device.

b) If budget is really tight, and considering there are other tools that come really handy, I would get the really cheap way and accept the shortcomings unavoidable on cheap oscilloscopes. That way there will be some remaining money to buy some of these other tools.

On the cheap toyscopes available today, I can't see too much value on 2-channel oscilloscopes unable to substract one channel from the other, and real performance is usually worse than the published specs. So:

b1) I would get the really cheap ZeeWeii DSO154Pro, just one channel and useable bandwidth just around 10 MHz, but enough to learn quite a bunch of things and able to remain useful to do field work in the future, say looking at his car waveforms, etc. Probably less than 50 bucks.

b2) a second cheap option would be to get an old 2-channel, 20-50 MHz, about 100 bucks, CRO oscilloscope which will usually be better than the specs and able to substract one channel from the other. OP is in the US and things there are much better than almost anywhere else when looking for a vintage oscilloscope. In the future, it will remain useful to work with PSUs, do analog work, etc.

Of couse any of the b*) options will have shortcomings: it's just a "toy" or is a "boat anchor" that a "newbie can't be sure about it really working good". And, going with a "b" option, it probably means OP will be getting an entry-level decent benchtop oscilloscope somewhere in the future.

But, if budget can't get stretched to about 400 bucks just for the oscilloscope, OP will have to accept some shortcoming -again unless he's sure he will never want to do any SPI work with ease.

TL;DR: get a 400 bucks, 4 channel new Rigol/siglent 12-bit device
tggzzz:

--- Quote from: nctnico on February 22, 2024, 10:49:36 am ---Modern day oscilloscopes have become super versatile and for somebody at the beginning of their career, it makes sense to start with today's technology as much as financially possible.

--- End quote ---

But cheap entry-level scopes often have crippling limitations that a beginner might not appreciate before purchase.

Most have very deep capture buffers, so they can capture far more than can be shown on a <800x600 display.
Some have digital signal protocol decodes, so you can see the characters/digits being transmitted serially.
But the decodes only work with what is displayed on the screen, i.e. a few characters at best.
That means searching for the unexpected/incorrect message is very very very tedious and error prone.

Better to use a separate tool dedicated to that, e.g. a cheap protocol analyser.

Same problem with their FFTs ignoring most of the captured data. Plus their inputs are 8-bits at best, and probably significantly less at "high" frequencies (make sure you understand the scope's ENOB spec and how it affects the spectum). Makes their FFTs little more than a toy.
Navigation
Message Index
Next page
Previous page
There was an error while thanking
Thanking...

Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod