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High voltage oscilloscope probes, make or buy?
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tautech:

--- Quote from: korlatos on April 15, 2015, 12:45:21 am ---I saw some on-line references to people using mineral oil for filling P6015. Do you think that mineral oil would work as well as silicone gel?

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It shouldn't be ANY mineral oil but a product with a high dielectric strength like Transformer oil.
Datasheets will guide you.

I'd go with HV's suggestion.
HighVoltage:

--- Quote from: korlatos on April 15, 2015, 12:45:21 am ---Thank you, HighVoltage - that's great information. I saw some on-line references to people using mineral oil for filling P6015. Do you think that mineral oil would work as well as silicone gel? Were you able to successfully compensate your P6015 after filling it with silicone gel?

--- End quote ---

As tautech said, you can use a high quality transformer oil.
But it is nasty stuff and you don't want to handle it really.

Yes, I was able to compensate the P6015 correctly with the silicone gel as a insulator.
PaulAm:
Excellent information, thanks for posting that.

I have a P6015 that I picked up the other year and I was wondering where I was going to find some r114.  That stuff is very difficult and very expensive to find and it has a tendency to leak out of any container, even if you keep it in a freezer to lower the vapor pressure.
korlatos:

--- Quote from: HighVoltage on April 15, 2015, 05:06:28 am ---
--- Quote from: korlatos on April 15, 2015, 12:45:21 am ---Thank you, HighVoltage - that's great information. I saw some on-line references to people using mineral oil for filling P6015. Do you think that mineral oil would work as well as silicone gel? Were you able to successfully compensate your P6015 after filling it with silicone gel?

--- End quote ---

As tautech said, you can use a high quality transformer oil.
But it is nasty stuff and you don't want to handle it really.

Yes, I was able to compensate the P6015 correctly with the silicone gel as a insulator.

--- End quote ---

That's great to know. Thanks again!
Rupunzell:
One way to helping to get the air bubbles out for a filled space with silicone or similar compounds is to place the container, in this case the probe body into a larger sealed container and pump the air out creating a vacuum inside the sealed container with the probe body. The difference in pressure will help promote the air bubbles to move out of the filler compound leaving the probe body with much less air trapped inside the filler.

As for home brew probes -vs- high quality commercial probes, it comes down to waveform measurement accuracy and need. These Tektronix HV probes have been used in particle accelerator targets for high energy physics experiments. Since the probe comes apart and has a BNC connector on the main probe body housing, it can be easy adapted to being used for a host of non-standard applications. Measurement demand placed on probes in these applications are not the same as probes being used for hobbyist experiments and related. Demands placed on the resulting data are also very different between hobbyist and physics researchers or individuals doing serious development and research.

What is not often appreciated today venturing into the world of electronics is just how good and how far some of the test and measurement devices pushed the limits of physics and their understanding of nature. The Tektronix P6015 is just one example of Tektronix probes designed and made in the 1960's that are difficult to equal or better to this day. Other Tektronix probe examples are P6046, P6042 and others. Many of these Tektronix products are still in service to this day decades after they were produced.


Bernice






--- Quote from: HighVoltage on April 14, 2015, 09:44:02 pm ---Just make sure you fill it free of any air bubbles.
Hold the probe in an angle and let the silicone gel run down the  housing, essentially filling it slowly from the bottom.

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