Products > Test Equipment
Recommendation on selecting a used oscilloscope?
points2:
Hi,
"used scope" ?
here is my "tiny" experience :
1. like the other mates above that said : a "new" scope is far better than any oldies.
I agree completly... given that any oldies have a no/tricky connections to PC, not like with any "new" => useless in 2024 ! :-)
WTF buying an old blulky box that can measure any stuff within : 500MHz max & 2GS/s...
That range of scope = any "smartphone" => the last on the market is far away the perf. of any oldies :-DD
2. OLD = COOL & CHEAP... if... your need is peculiar.
given any scope, the price is related to GS/s & BW (my 2 cents...).
Lucky me, I managed to buy a sampling scope at dumped price (old-stock) ; it's an old scope, but it can do measurement that NO-NEW-DSO can do => in that case => "old" = OK given market prices of these peculiar scope.
nathankwan:
--- Quote from: David Hess on May 15, 2024, 12:42:22 pm ---
--- Quote from: nathankwan on May 14, 2024, 03:10:43 am ---But I also have concerns about each one above:
> TDS3000 series have shallow memory depth and crazy-low waveform refresh rate, but their price are around $500 in where I am.
--- End quote ---
I am not sure where the "crazy-low waveform refresh rate" comes from. The specifications list 400 waveforms per second in normal mode and 3,600 in fast trigger mode.
--- End quote ---
I think fast or slow is relative, and it's my bad not pointing out my level of reference.
I got a TDS644A($400 w. SPC failing but little DC offset) and a TDS784C($450 fully functional) years ago as my first attempts to develop my own electrionic lab. 784C have refresh rate up to 400K wfm/s, 644A should be 100 wfm/s(possibly limited by the slow ADC since those samples are stored in analog CCDs to achieve cheap 2GS/s). These bulky scopes formed my upper and lower bounds on refresh rates.
However these TDS600/700 are released at the 90s, so I think a rather high-end scope released in 2008 should have reasonably high refresh rate (just to be clear this is only describing my feeling about hardware developments over the years), so knowing it's only around 3000wfm/s gives me the impression of "crazy-low".
Again, I love scopes, I am greedy and want more performance, that's it.
I like to put scopes into different categorys using their sample rates:
CAT I-> ~1GS/s scopes - like TDS220, cheap, handy and everywhere, If I want one of these, I'll buy a new one as they are definitely far better than any used old-timers.
CAT II-> 2.5GS/s~5GS/s - like TDS3000/MSO3000, mainstream, around the edge of my financial power, If I want one of these, I'll be choosing among a) a new CAT II scope, like MDO34-200/MDO3024, or b) a used CAT III scope, like Lecroy WS104Mxi-A or DPO/MSO4104B.
CAT III-> 10GS/s above - like DPO7000C, high-end, If I want one of these, I'll have to buy a used one. THIS IS WHY I CAME HERE.
CAT IV-> over 40GS/s, far from cheap, totally impractical to purchase for personal use.
(also I found old tek 7854/7904 VERY attractive........)
coromonadalix:
@nathan as a good resume,
as an hobbyist at home
i tried some old fluke 100Mhz portable scope .... works but ...
tried the new cheap Hantek 2d15 model. was ok but basic ...
i work with old turd like TEK 7404 and 7254b, yeah yeah Windowish platforms, if they are well maintained they work, until an hard drive crash or the famous dallas clock dies, if you did not saved the power pc settings it may take a while to restart them
work with 2s Siglent sds 1000x, hacked to 200mhz simple and fun to use
work with a Rigol, hacked too to 200mhz works fine but like the Siglent a little more, but with scripting / python .. Siglent is way better
work too with a Picoscope 3406d, practical to say the least, but man very very expensive 3400$ CAD outch
wanted a used Lecroy 1 - 2 ghz models, but as mentioned, you're almost out of luck if it break, some good threads here ... unless you find a clean one and self test passed at a good price ??
oldies like tds 5k or 6k mmmm you have to see all the spc tests etc ... before even buying one, same for 7 k series, but 7k series are biiiiiiig heavyyyyyy bulkyyyyyy
we have evaluated the new Siglent SDS 7k series, my boss is hesitating ... but man this scope was NIX based and runned darn well for the tests we needed / done. having 27k$$ CAD i would have bought it right away loll
Agilent mmmmmm not, now they don't deal with single individual ... not new for sure, maybe some Infinium series ???
in the end good ol scope depends of your need, but if you compare modern things with the oldies ... you'll be deceived in some ways, you have to know your needs for sure, and know how to deal with them if they break ??
my 2 cents
still some good ol series of tek tds 7xx series up to 1 gig, you can do some BW upgrades ...
tds3k serie, way overpriced for what they offer, but BW upgradeable too
and now the race between Rigol and Siglent give us more for the money ... with easy BW upgrades cough cough loll same for many items, sig gens etc ...
nathankwan:
Thanks for the posts guys, I think putting my tek complex aside, it's the time of Siglent.
figgie:
--- Quote from: moerm on May 16, 2024, 02:12:02 am ---
Re 'LeCroy': I also was attracted but recently I learned that, at least as a private or small customer you are unlikely to get support but rather a cactus in your rear from them.
Also note that to some degree Siglent can be seen as LeCroy-ish that is they produce some hardware for them and also seem to have a similar approach.
--- End quote ---
So I think there is some region issue on support for Lecroy.
I am a TINY customer. Like hobby MAYBE going to small business size along with used equipment budget BUT i am located in USA.
I have had interactions with Lecroy directly and they have been super responsive to me on some key issues, some software notes and calibration procedures. IN all cased they were responsive. 1 time it did take them a bit as they were researching on their back end on some items i reported.
Mind you i am using a Lecroy Waverunner HRO 66zi circa 2012 (bought used from ebay for $1k flat since it was "erroring" out, long story short, there was numerous bad sectors on the OEM 160GB Western Digital Black drive that I fixed and then clonded over to 1TB corsair SSD). Currently it is running MAUI 10.7 without any issues.
You mileage will vary based on region and if you are a business or not.
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