Cheap Osciloscope Textronix TBS 2000 100 Mhz 1Gsa/s 4 Channels

[_nacho]

Hello everybody,

I have been following a Textronix TBS 2000 in my country craiglist it is currently at $540. I am a electronics aficionado but have been searching for an oscilloscope for some time and this one is really cheap for this brand. In my part of the world a Textronix is very rare, I saw one in Uni but we were not allowed to touch it. So I come to the members of the Eevblog forum for advice if its worth it to purchase it and how to make sure it is in working order.

I have some understanding of electronics from uni courses, but my masters is in biology so the only thing we ever measure with a oscilloscope, were electrical discharges from neurons from crickets muscles.

I attached the pictures from the listing. It seams that they don't have the probes but I could ask if it wort it.

Thanks in advance
Nacho

[bdunham7]

The TBS2000 series are very nice scopes.  Not the most bang-for-buck compared to budget brands, but if you want a solid basic scope the price is right.  As a bonus it has the TekVPI probe interfaces, although you aren't going to like the price of those specialized probes if you do find them.  Regular probes will work, if the seller has the original ones that would be nice but not a deal breaker if they don't.

[_nacho]

Talked to the seller and he says he has the probes, so later today I am going to check it out. Any tips in checking if it working correctly would be appreciated.

[bdunham7]

Talked to the seller and he says he has the probes, so later today I am going to check it out. Any tips in checking if it working correctly would be appreciated.

It would be very difficult to do a comprehensive test of all the functions or even all the input ranges.  If it boots up without error, then just connecting all 4 probes to the calibrator output and then verifying that all 4 channels look the same  on a few ranges would cover 90% of failure scenarios.  If it looks nice and passes basic tests, then it is probably OK.  Of course as they say, you pay your money and you take your chances.  Personally I'd snap it up.

[_nacho]

So, i pulled the trigger and got it. It came with 4 probes, 2 tpp0051 and 2 tpp0100, they are a bit dirty but they all seem to work fine. The seller didn't had the plastic screw driver for the probes. The oscilloscope had 16000 hours of operating time and 231 power ups. The selftest pass with no issues. The scope signal path compensation had never been self calibrated so I don't know if I should do it just for completeness?

The seller also gave me 2 Fluke 80i-110s AC/DC Current Probes and they are nasty, seems that the "Duraleaks" did some damage inside. They also have a huge hole in the back. I put a new battery in the one that looked basically clean and it turned on. Searching online those fluke probes are $1000 each or at least that is the price in amazon new, ebay is like $400 used. I have no idea how to use them so any help will be appreciated.

[_nacho]

More picture from the probes

[coromonadalix]

and theses last pictures show  rust and corrosion ?

[bdunham7]

This may have come from an educational institution where it was just left on all the time?  The TPP0100 are the correct probes, the TPP0051 are meant for a TBS1000-EDU model and you might not be able to compensate them properly on this scope.  Those Fluke 80i-110s look rough, but clean them up with alchohol and a toothbrush and see how they turn out.  IDK what the holes are, perhaps from monkeys prying the battery cover up?  In any case, you may not need them now but they are very handy to have when the need arises.  You connect them just like a voltage probe and then they read the current in a wire passing through the loop end.

[vmax]

This oscilloscope has increased from the previous generation's 2.5K or 20K memory to 5M - a historic improvement.

[_nacho]

First of all thank you bdunham7 for so much encouragement and help in this weird adventure.

So today I had more time to take everything apart to do some cleaning. The oscilloscope metal shielding vent was a bit corroded but the all the other pcbs, main, power supply, and external inputs, were really clean. I took it apart and sanded the shielding and gave it a lick of spray paint. I think living in the tropics is not a good at all for any metals, is like living next to the ocean but at any height, humidity reaches 80% or more everyday.

Also I cleaned the Fluke probes, the one that looked the worst was in bad shape the flex connector was broken were it contacts the pcb. I solder some pins to the flex connector and solder it to the pcb, the flex conector has really thick traces so it wasn't absolutely terrible, just terrible, no picture because its not a profesional job at all. I checked for continuity to the hall effect sensor and everything seems to work fine. I let them dry and put them back together, ahh this probes suck to take apart and more to put back together. (If anyone needs help with this, this guy did it on youtube, , they are different brand but they are the exact same probe).

I connected the probes to the oscilloscope and they seem to show the same signal and when I adjust the zero dial the move the same amount. I searched online for any tutorial on how to use them and found almost nothing so I cannot for certain if they are working correctly. So any resources on them will be appreciated.

[_nacho]

More pictures