EEVblog Electronics Community Forum

Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: DrHouse101 on May 28, 2015, 04:14:07 am

Title: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: DrHouse101 on May 28, 2015, 04:14:07 am
So I was trying to find something small and compact to replace the Tek 468 I had (Which by the way is a good oscilloscope which i got for 100$) as I have no room for it lol.

Which instead I got this nice little piece of kit
(http://www.nasutek.com/~mmanley/IMG_20150527_211903.jpg)

Only wish it had the Module which lets me hook it up to a controller or a PC with the proper IEEE-488 port but hey it was free! Works great too, way more compact then a 468.

Also is there really a huge loss going from a 100MHz BW to 60MHz?
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: Fsck on May 28, 2015, 04:17:01 am
picture doesn't work for me.
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: DrHouse101 on May 28, 2015, 04:25:38 am
Heh didnt notice, i fixed it lol.
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: kizzap on May 28, 2015, 05:43:33 am
Also is there really a huge loss going from a 100MHz BW to 60MHz?

About 40MHz?  :-//

It really depends on what you are using the scope for as to whether you will notice the Bandwidth limits. If you are working on Audio stuff up to a handful of MHz stuff it will be fine. If you start to try working on really high speed circuits, then that scope might not cut it.
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: R_G_B_ on May 28, 2015, 06:00:17 am
The -3db point is 60MHz but it will go well beyond that its just not going to be accurate. So you should still be able to check clock frequencies at 100MHz or more but you would not be able to check the signal integrity at these higher frequency.

R_G_B
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: tmbinc on May 28, 2015, 08:36:11 am
Regardless of what people say, the TDS2xx-series is/was a reasonable scope. It was eye-opening for me when I first got it, because I was finally able to look at digital busses in single-shot captures. Sure, it has limitations, but so has everything in life.

Regarding the bandwidth limit, unfortunately I'm not aware of any schematics. But I'd guess it's just a passive filter. But then again, as people said, when you start looking at faster stuff, this may not be the right type of scope anyway.
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: Fungus on May 28, 2015, 09:00:34 am
It's the 'scope mentioned in the latest EEVBLOG:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwRhvhKJlzs&t=6m30s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwRhvhKJlzs&t=6m30s)
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: tggzzz on May 28, 2015, 09:37:39 am
Also is there really a huge loss going from a 100MHz BW to 60MHz?

That will depend on what you are using it for and on the probes you are using.

As noted in the various references here https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/library-2/scope-probe-reference-material/ the scope's risetime will be 0.35/bandwidth. Thus 60MHz->6ns whereas 100MHz->3.5ns.

The risetime of ordinary modern digital signals is 1ns-3ns, and high speed signals are ~5 times faster. Hence you could use the scope to look at well-behaved or "slow" digital signals, but it would be of limited use looking for glitches or for investigating signal integrity.
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: Fungus on May 28, 2015, 09:58:11 am
I often watch or read old reviews where the reviewer makes such a big thing of the kit, how its the next best thing since sliced bread, roll forward a year and suddenly that same reviewer is saying how its limited or junk now, everything today is going to be junk compared to tomorrows next gen of equipment. But that old kit still does the same awesome job it did then and in fact is what made todays equipment possible, they had to test todays equipment with yesterdays tech.
Not quite true.

The people developing tomorrow's equipment are using the very best 'scopes available today. People lower down the scale will have to wait a year or two before their 'scopes can be used on those circuits. Hobbyists will have to wait even longer than that.

Yesterday's test gear can definitely be useless for today's equipment.

If you're an audio engineer then your basic oscilloscope needs were met a decade or two ago. Even so you might be forced to upgrade to a) Get more features to make your job faster/easier (life is short!), and b) So you can stay competitive with whippersnapper audio engineers who have better equipment than you and can charge less money for the same job.

Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: R_G_B_ on May 28, 2015, 10:14:25 am
Also it's not just about bandwidth as I have discovered comparing the TDS1002 with the owon sds7102V and analogue discovery
in the frequency domain using the fast fourier transfer. For a 1KHz square wave The TDS1002 showed alias components. Both the analogue discovery and SDS7102V display the FFT correctly. But this is down to how tektronix written the software with respect to sampling vs time base settings someone please correct me if im wrong about this?
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: Wuerstchenhund on May 28, 2015, 03:49:39 pm
So I was trying to find something small and compact to replace the Tek 468 I had (Which by the way is a good oscilloscope which i got for 100$) as I have no room for it lol.

Which instead I got this nice little piece of kit

Not bad for a free scope  :-+

However, considering that there are many people willing to pay insane prices for these old Tek scopes, you could easily sell this one off and use the money for a new Rigol DS1054z (and maybe even some money left). Which essentially means getting a free DS1054z  O0
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: nctnico on May 28, 2015, 04:01:06 pm
Maybe even a 100MHz version of the DS1000Z.
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: Fungus on May 28, 2015, 04:09:24 pm
However, considering that there are many people willing to pay insane prices for these old Tek scopes, you could easily sell this one off and use the money for a new Rigol DS1054z (and maybe even some money left). Which essentially means getting a free DS1054z  O0
I thought you were kidding but I just checked on eBay and noooo, it looks like there's plenty of people willing to pay $400+ for one of those.   :wtf:
Title: Re: Got a Oscilloscope for free
Post by: R_G_B_ on May 28, 2015, 04:58:01 pm
I'm struggling to sell a tds1002 cheap. It has the built in FFT function which the tds210 and 220 lack. And they are robust as Dave Jones has demonstrated

R_G_B