Products > Test Equipment
New to DSO's, specification advice needed. (I've been out of the game a while!)
<< < (3/3)
Harrow:
I'll need to wait for them to trickle to Australia, lol. :-)
David Hess:

--- Quote from: bdunham7 on February 27, 2024, 03:34:01 pm ---Since you're transitioning from a CRO, one thing that might trip you up is overload recovery.  If you are used to using any measurement technique where part of the signal is off the screen vertically in order to magnify some other part, it may not work as well on some modern DSOs.
--- End quote ---

With some exceptions, analog oscilloscopes usually do not handle overload well either.

The exceptions include oscilloscopes specifically designed to handle overload gracefully, or those which are simply immune to overload.  An example of the former is any Tektronix 7000 mainframe using a 7A13 vertical amplifier which includes a feedback circuit to enforce clamping early in the vertical signal chain.  Sampling oscilloscopes are an example of the later as they are completely immune to overload short of that which will cause damage.

Otherwise the results of overload are unpredictable and vary between designs.  Except for the case of the 7A13 mentioned above, I do not remember having seen it included in specifications.
bdunham7:

--- Quote from: David Hess on February 28, 2024, 02:37:16 am ---With some exceptions, analog oscilloscopes usually do not handle overload well either.

The exceptions include oscilloscopes specifically designed to handle overload gracefully, or those which are simply immune to overload.  An example of the former is any Tektronix 7000 mainframe using a 7A13 vertical amplifier which includes a feedback circuit to enforce clamping early in the vertical signal chain.  Sampling oscilloscopes are an example of the later as they are completely immune to overload short of that which will cause damage.

Otherwise the results of overload are unpredictable and vary between designs.  Except for the case of the 7A13 mentioned above, I do not remember having seen it included in specifications.

--- End quote ---

I think the official statement from Tektronix is that they typically won't specify it and you'd need to characterize your scope's overload recovery time yourself.  I've never undertaken that task in a systematic way.  As I detailed in a thread a few years back, I found that all of my older scopes--including 3 older DSOs--had fast enough overload recovery to not be an issue for my application while some newer models were unusable.  The recovery times were orders of magnitude larger.   I wouldn't have mentioned all this except that the OP is planning on using it in a way where he might have this issue.
David Hess:
I should have included that the 7A13 was designed with overload recovery because of its intended application.  It can operate as a differential comparator, meaning that it effectively has a vertical position control with 20,000 divisions of range for monitoring small DC changes at large DC offsets.  The modern equivalent is an "offset probe".
2N3055:

--- Quote from: David Hess on February 28, 2024, 11:24:39 pm ---I should have included that the 7A13 was designed with overload recovery because of its intended application.  It can operate as a differential comparator, meaning that it effectively has a vertical position control with 20,000 divisions of range for monitoring small DC changes at large DC offsets.  The modern equivalent is an "offset probe".

--- End quote ---

Also called power rail probe...
Navigation
Message Index
Previous page
There was an error while thanking
Thanking...

Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod