EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: trevwhite on July 06, 2013, 12:02:46 pm
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Hi.
I need to buy some scope leads. There are loads of cheap ones on ebay but I do not know if any of them are any good, if the specs are just lies, etc. I just want some leads to handle signals that are under 100Mhz really and not even that I suppose. That is just what my scope is spec'd at.
Can anyone recommend decent enough scope leads to buy that wont break the bank?
Thanks
Trev
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Rigol one, if on sell
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Are you willing to go with used "used" leads, I have good luck with probe master.
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My experience with the chinese import 100 and 200 MHz probes on ebay has been surprisingly good. I don't think they will take as much physical abuse as some of the better probes I now have would, but the ones I have get the job done. And you can't beat the price.
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I've been looking at probes recently and I noticed that the ones Picoscope are selling seem suprisingly cheap. I don't know how good they are but Picoscope are an established company and they are the ones they sell with their own scopes.
http://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope-accessories.html#passive (http://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope-accessories.html#passive)
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PicoScope differential probes seems to be rebranded http://www.caltestelectronics.com/ (http://www.caltestelectronics.com/)
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For general purpose hobby work, the best value I've seen are the Testec probes, such as:
http://uk.farnell.com/testec/tt-lf312-2-6-10020-2-6/probe-oscilloscope-150mhz-1-10/dp/4308098 (http://uk.farnell.com/testec/tt-lf312-2-6-10020-2-6/probe-oscilloscope-150mhz-1-10/dp/4308098)
I had a set on my old 100 MHz analogue scope and they worked just fine - nicely made and no problems at all.
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I second the choice for Testec. I have lots of them and they work just fine. Don't bother with used probes (unless you like to wear used shoes).
Edit: Testec probes can be bought in pairs and single units. The single units have more accesoires so it may be wise to buy a few single ones for the extras.
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I have some of the Ebay $20 100mhz probes.
They work fine. The tips are not spring loaded and not very sharp. Useless for poking through soldermask.
However they do work up to 100mhz bandwidth fine. The catch is that you will need to rig up a better gruond lead than just the flying clip.
Get rid of the clip above 10mhz.
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Thanks for all the replies
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I too am using Testec probes right now, exact model TT-LF312.
In general, they are very nice, feel very solid but one thing I don't like is the hook tip. Wire in it is too thick, so it can't be connected to DIP sockets and similar.
One thing I especially love is the tip of the probe itself. It can be unscrewed and replaced and replacements are in general very cheap, so there's no need to get a new probe is the tip is damaged. There are also mini/micro-grabber and banana tips for the probes, but I can't actually find anyone who has them in stock.
Their quality control could be a bit better. The two probes I have have cables of different lengths (but that OK for intended frequencies, or so I've been told) and one cable came with a slightly bent BNC pin.
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One thing that surprises me is how the designers of cheap probes (from any brand) appear to ignore that components have gotten smaller since Tek et al. introduced the 5mm miniature probes somewhere in the seventies. A DIP IC is huge by today's standards, and SSOP is about average. Cheap probes can barely hook up to a DIP IC, let alone SOIC or SSOP. For example, how many places are there to hook up that alligator ground lead on a modern board while trying to keep the loop area between tip and ground lead as small as possible?
The more expensive passive and active probes tend to have smaller tips and can connect to SMT grabbers and other accessories to connect to small packages, but just because I only need 100 MHz bandwidth does not mean I'm using eigties-era all-through hole components. Those used shoes are much better at connecting to SMT parts ;).
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I have no problem probing QFP and TSSOP with the Testec probes. Their design is very slim.
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Hi.
I need to buy some scope leads. There are loads of cheap ones on ebay but I do not know if any of them are any good, if the specs are just lies, etc. I just want some leads to handle signals that are under 100Mhz really and not even that I suppose. That is just what my scope is spec'd at.
Can anyone recommend decent enough scope leads to buy that wont break the bank?
Thanks
Trev
I've seen 100MHz 1x/10x probes on eBay for $10. I don't think mine are much better, my scope is only 50 MHz.
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I had some 100 MHz probe lying around while I got my Siglent SDS1072CML. It seems to be of better build quality so I thought it would be nice to use it instead of one of the cheapies I got with my scope. I was disappointed to find out I couldn't compensate it properly - the adjustment range just seems too narrow. So, while hard to verify it beforehand, that'd be one thing to keep in mind, I guess.