Cal Test CT4200 Series (CT4203) passive oscilloscope probe thoughts?

[matthuszagh]

I'm in the market for good, general-purpose, 10x passive oscilloscope probes that aren't going to cost me an arm and a leg. In my search I came across the CT4203 (https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/cal-test-electronics/CT4203/9645860) and other probes in that series. They look quite nice for the price. They have good bandwidth and come with a lot of accessories. In particular, a number of different IC probe caps are included, down to 0.5mm pitch. These make it much easier to probe fine-pitch SMD parts. Does anyone have experience with these probes? Any thoughts?

I'd also be interested to hear about any other good 10x passive probes that people like.

[Weston]

I have not personally used them, but the CT4200 probes seem to be a lower quality copy of the PMK 2.5mm probe line ( https://www.pmk.de/en/products/2_5_mm_tastkoepfe ) which is rebranded by several companies.

The external accessories should be compatible but the tips do not seem to be compatible. Also, the capacitance of the CT4200 probes seems to be higher and the injection molding quality looks lower.

I have used the PMK rebranded 2.5mm probes and can recommend them.

The PMK 2.5mm probes are rebranded and sold by Agilent, R&S, and Picoscope, amongst others. I think the picoscope one is the cheapest (but sometimes the R&S or Agilent probes can be found used on ebay for cheap). It might be worth the price differential https://www.picotech.com/accessories/standard-passive-probes/500-mhz-scope-probe