Products > Test Equipment
Playing with Probes: Guessing game.
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BillyO:
I had a meeting moved yesterday so had a few unstructured/unplanned minutes on my hands to burn.

I broke out the Bodnar pulser and my SDS2000XP and started testing scope probes.

Here are the results of 9 different probes I had lying about.  Each was properly compensated before testing,  Each was attached to the pulser through a 50 ohm feedthrough load and an appropriately sized probe-BNC adapter.

I will update this post with which probe is which at a later time.

In the meantime your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to decide which is the most expensive probe and which is the cheapest.  The price range is approximately $6 to $600 (when new).

They are in the order they came to hand...

Update (prices are Canadian $):

* UNI-T - UT-P04 - 100MHz - $20
* Siglent - PP-215 - 200MHz - $54
* Hantek - PP-300 - 300MHz - $25
* Pico - TA-386 - 200MHz - $54
* No Name - P6139A - 500MHz - $42
* Tektronix - P6139A - 500MHz - $600 (est.)
* Hantek - PP90 - 80MHz - $6
* Siglent - PP510 - 100MHz - $40
* Instrustar - P2060 - 60MHz - $7
I am quite impressed with #4, the Pico probe.  Not the fastest rise time, but it seems well behaved otherwise.  Some things that count against it are that it is a big probe, not re-buildable, no HF compensation and the compensation adjustment is in the probe itself (which probably helps make it so large).

For #9, I'm sure the risetime measurement is being thrown off by the huge overshoot.  It is the worst quality probe I have ever held.
tautech:

--- Quote from: BillyO on March 04, 2023, 02:14:14 am ---Each was properly compensated before testing,.............. 

--- End quote ---
LF/1kHz scope source ?
No HF compensation/adjustment ?
BillyO:
The 1KHz source was the SDS2000XP compensation output.

Not having the HF compensation specs nor having access to the innards of all the probes, no special HF compensation was performed for most of them.  That should have been done at the factory.  Only one probe had the HF compensation checked and it was correct.  That was the $600 probe.
lugaw:

--- Quote from: tautech on March 04, 2023, 02:19:15 am ---
--- Quote from: BillyO on March 04, 2023, 02:14:14 am ---Each was properly compensated before testing,.............. 

--- End quote ---
LF/1kHz scope source ?
No HF compensation/adjustment ?

--- End quote ---

How do you do HF compensation adjustment?
BillyO:

--- Quote from: lugaw on March 04, 2023, 02:45:40 am ---How do you do HF compensation adjustment?

--- End quote ---
Some high quality (read expensive) probes have HF compensation adjustments internally.  You have to be able to take them apart to do the job and the specs/process have to be published.  Better Tektronix probes fall into this category.
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