Fluke 196B Scopemeter

[Ferroto]

I got a loan of a Fluke Scopemeter from an instrumentationist who maintains and services quality control equipment at a local paper mill. He said I can borrow his Fluke scopemeter for a few days.


First I'll start by saying that I'm an electronics hobbyist not an EE so I'm probably over my head here. My first impression was that it would be convient to have a meter and a scope in one. In reality the absence of a crowed front pannel means an abundunce of menus for everything from changing the triggering level in scope mode and changing the measurement in meter mode. The touch hold does work in both the scope and the meter mode and there is a recorder mode that can do a trend plot in meter mode or scope mode. Theres also a save print option which will save a snapshot of a waveform into memory for later retrieval. You can hear a relay kick in when you switch between scope and meter mode as well as when you switch between different measurement modes within meter mode and when you turn the unit on.

Needless to say navigating menus all day gets old very quickly my impression is that It would be easier to use a seperate scope and a seperate meter. Unfortunitly there won't be a teardown of the scopemeter as it belongs to the company. But if theres any aspect of the meter that you'd like me to cover just post down below.

[brainwash]

Seems like a nice unit, but weighing in 2kg is at the limit of portability.

Here are the specs for those that don't want to search (196B): http://support.fluke.com/find-sales/Download/Asset/1629083_6120_ENG_F_W.PDF

If the price falls below 800$ it would make for a really good buy.

[biot]

I borrowed a Fluke 199B Scopemeter, and fortunately do not have your reticence towards doing a teardown of other people's equipment :-)

http://sigrok.org/wiki/Fluke_ScopeMeter_199B