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Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

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bd139:

--- Quote from: BravoV on June 02, 2018, 08:17:03 pm ---
--- Quote from: bd139 on June 02, 2018, 01:53:35 pm ---Sod terminating RG8 like that on anything other than N/PL259 though. I’d probably have used RG174 and lost a few dB to be lazy :)

--- End quote ---

Missed this, it will be on N type and I have these freshly acquired as well. Sigh, RF plumbing miscellaneous thingies are expensive aren't they ?  :'(  :palm:

--- End quote ---

Excellent. Nice Amphenol ones too. They are expensive but worth it  :-+

bitseeker:

--- Quote from: Specmaster on May 20, 2018, 09:29:40 pm ---As requested by some of the members, here is a small selection of photos from the Shuttleworth evening air show Saturday 19/5/18

...

And these ones were taken at North Weald Airfield when I went to watch the Gnat Display team training for the upcoming display season and was also escorted by a member of the airfield ops team to the opposite end of the airfield which is off limits to the general public, to get some photos of some Jet Provosts coming in to land and also do a few running breaks. There was a lot of general aviation landing and taking off as well and I include just one of these planes landing. Taken on 20/5/18


--- End quote ---

Awesome photos, Spec! Thanks for posting. Adding to the POI index.

Yeah, I really am this far behind on the thread (page 439 :o). Was busy with other things and now I'm busy attempting to catch up with y'all.

tautech:

--- Quote from: Specmaster on June 02, 2018, 07:28:22 pm ---Thanks for sharing these with us, its nicely laid out but I'm not so sure I approve of the BNC socket being mounted directly onto the PCB, get a sticky plug or a ham fisted person, I can see that coming asunder.

--- End quote ---
As seen it's a rear BNC and IIRC inside the enclosure feet/horns so when you roll the DSO over it's clear of the surface it's sitting on.
For the front BNC's Siglent run a proper front panel chassis so every front BNC is nut retained while still part of the PCB. Some new DSO manufacturers still overlook this.  ::)
Tek should've done this too with their early DSO's as they were prone to breaking away from the PCB.
Furthermore they cheaped out and only used a 2 post BNC and the posts broke off.  ::)

The need for decent scope BNC mounting of particularly inputs is well illustrated here:
https://www.eevblog.com/2017/03/31/eevblog-983-a-shocking-oscilloscope-problem/


--- Quote from: Specmaster on June 02, 2018, 02:27:56 pm ---
--- Quote from: BravoV on June 02, 2018, 01:55:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: Specmaster on June 02, 2018, 01:48:47 pm ---Well the point is that if you can get a working CRO for a few quids, then thats the way to learn surely and then if they ultimately fuck it up, its just a few quid down the drain rather a few hundred. Better to make your noob mistakes on a cheap piece of equipment rather than making those mistakes become expensive ones. Once your relatively with an old CRO, upgrade to a DSO entry level one or maybe slightly better when you have a better appreciation of what they are and how to use them correctly.

--- End quote ---

The reason is always they're dirt cheap ... yeah , but you will have to wait, lurk, stalk for good deal, maybe days, weeks or even months.

Also ALWAYS judging that every beginners will 100% and definitely screwed & toasted their 1st scope, and better buy cheap sacrificial one is not a strong argument, c'mon, you have to admit this one is pretty weak.

--- End quote ---
Totally disagree, its not a weak argument, so your saying that Dave's advice is also flawed in the same way, he has done a series of scope videos showing how to connect them without blowing the arse out of them which is a typically a thing a beginner might do. I'm not saying that someone a bit more experienced wouldn't to, hell we can all screw up from time to time.

--- End quote ---
It is and he's admitted such that his previous advice to get a CRO first is now superseded with the recent availability of dirt cheap 4ch DSO's.
WRT ground loops, a DSO ground path is pretty robust (excluding an early Tek DSO(factory recalled to fix)) so you're more likely do blow the DUT or a fuse.....if you're supplied with a proper modern earthed supply and not some old 2 wire non-grounded installation.

mnementh:

--- Quote from: Mr. Scram on June 02, 2018, 08:57:05 pm ---
--- Quote from: Specmaster on June 02, 2018, 09:37:36 am ---I don't think that anyone is claiming CROs are better, both CROs and DSOs have advantages over each other. Apart the obvious like the higher cost of a DSO over a 2nd hand CRO, and the size and weight differences, there are differences in the way that they work, screen size etc.

DSOs are good at capturing signals, storing them and allowing them to be displayed /examined in many ways which most CROs cannot. CROs in the main are live only devices with smaller screens and earlier ones do not have screen cursors and wealth of information they can provide unlike DSOs which all have them.

Fact is however that a CRO is more likely the way that beginners will be learning their scope manship on purely on the grounds of cost alone. What makes transistion to DSOs harder is that the interface is so vastly difference with many functions tucked away behind many levels of a menu system requiring multiple pushes of a button to reach.

Fact is that in reality a good electronics bench really needs both of them to accomplish different tasks.

I just wonder if the DSOs of today will still be around on say 20 let alone 40 like so many of the CROs are?

From mobile device so predictive text might have struck again [emoji83]

--- End quote ---
This is why I'm asking. We see the same statement in different permutations made over and over. CROs have advantages over DSOs. A good work bench needs both. They both have their qualities. However, what's been discussed so far doesn't show that. Proper industry labs don't buy them any more. Half decent manufacturers don't develop them any more. There may be some still in use, but they're definitely on the way out in any industry type setting. Nobody buying a new oscilloscope for the company lab is making a report on which is the more suitable choice.

If there would be a property where the CRO has a distinct and practical advantage over a DSO, this should be reflected in their development and manufacture. We all know development is dead as a dodo. I think the only difference in favour of the CRO that has been discussed here is them being less noisy, but considering we're not seeing special low noise CROs being developed or sold it seems DSO technology has advanced to a point where it simply isn't an issue. As I've said before, the electronics industry is one where niche devices with very specific uses thrive, yet there's no high end low noise CRO market.

Don't get me wrong, I understand where some people are coming from. Because it's a technology that's on the way out, you can get what once was cutting edge black magic voodoo technology for what's essentially chump change. That's fun stuff to play with. The lack of modern features also have a certain charm. It's fun to occasionally write a letter on an old typewriter too. But it seems the romantic notions of some people are getting in the way of their common sense in a bid to justify the equipment they buy and spend their time on.

If you have the room and cash to spare to add a CRO to your collection, by all means. Having a historic perspective never hurts. But it seems that's about as far as it goes.

--- End quote ---

What's been discussed HAS shown EXACTLY that; it's not our fault you ignore those parts of the discussion or dismiss them. I've given several examples, and all you have to do is look at all the gear being sold from that Philips 3D LCD lab in Cambridge to see that Analog scopes STILL serve a useful purpose in a laboratory setting.

You seem to think that because laboratory-grade CROs are not being manufactured anymore is reason enough to discount them... Those of us who understand their value are telling you that their death is not entirely due to some fundamental flaw in them, but more the exigencies of profitability and the fact that MOST commercial customers are willing to sacrifice a certain amount of absolute repeating-signal resolution for the strengths of a modern DSO.

Time may very well show that the death of CROs was a foolish economy, and now that the art and science of manufacturing such high-quality CRTs has been lost, something irreplaceable and invaluable was lost as well. I personally feel that is already true.


mnem
 :horse:   \$\Omega\$ :horse:

mnementh:

--- Quote from: tautech on June 02, 2018, 11:06:52 pm ---
--- Quote from: Specmaster on June 02, 2018, 02:27:56 pm ---
--- Quote from: BravoV on June 02, 2018, 01:55:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: Specmaster on June 02, 2018, 01:48:47 pm ---Well the point is that if you can get a working CRO for a few quids, then thats the way to learn surely and then if they ultimately fuck it up, its just a few quid down the drain rather a few hundred. Better to make your noob mistakes on a cheap piece of equipment rather than making those mistakes become expensive ones. Once your relatively with an old CRO, upgrade to a DSO entry level one or maybe slightly better when you have a better appreciation of what they are and how to use them correctly.

--- End quote ---

The reason is always they're dirt cheap ... yeah , but you will have to wait, lurk, stalk for good deal, maybe days, weeks or even months.

Also ALWAYS judging that every beginners will 100% and definitely screwed & toasted their 1st scope, and better buy cheap sacrificial one is not a strong argument, c'mon, you have to admit this one is pretty weak.

--- End quote ---
Totally disagree, its not a weak argument, so your saying that Dave's advice is also flawed in the same way, he has done a series of scope videos showing how to connect them without blowing the arse out of them which is a typically a thing a beginner might do. I'm not saying that someone a bit more experienced wouldn't to, hell we can all screw up from time to time.

--- End quote ---
It is and he's admitted such that his previous advice to get a CRO first is now superseded with the recent availability of dirt cheap 4ch DSO's.
WRT ground loops, a DSO ground path is pretty robust (excluding an early Tek DSO(factory recalled to fix)) so you're more likely do blow the DUT or a fuse.....if you're supplied with a proper modern earthed supply and not some old 2 wire non-grounded installation.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, except that the current crop of "dirt-cheap DSOs" aren't THAT dirt-cheap, and none of them have the linearly intuitive UI of a recent-production (last 40-ish years) analog scope. Many of them are downright anti-intuitive, like my own 1054Z as you've correctly pointed out. This is what I've argued all along, and you severely overrate that "superseded" statement. He STILL recommends an analog scope as the first scope for anyone NOT in a laboratory or trade-school environment; they have a UI that has developed hand-in-hand with the fundamental laws of electronic theory for nearly a century. The current state of DSOs is... ummm... not there yet.

The concept that comes to my mind is hard to express in a single word... something like "failure to launch" combined with "feature creep" combined with "design scope schizophrenia" combined with "WTF WERE THEY THINKING?!?" is my usual gut reaction even to the best developed DSO UIs I've worked with; and that's saying something, as I was able to figure out most of what my positively Cretaceous 2230 could do before it developed a memory defect.

Cheers,

mnem
*poot!*

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