Oscilloscope MHz recomend

**Dwayne** · - 29th March 2005, 16:43

I started out with an old Government Surpluse scope.. Good to 20 mhz. That was extremely good...

Then I purchased a IFR Spectrim Analyzer Good to 1 gig, and that smoked cigarettes, drank beer, and cleaned your house for you at the same time...Then I purchased a FLUKE 123... And between the cheapie and the 123 scope, I use them equally. I sold the IFR Analyzer (It was just way too much for what I did, and I got to put 3000 dollars in my pocket at the same time <chuckle>.) The fluke has many MANY options that are just REALLY nice. IT goes BEYOND a scope. If I were to compare my 12000 dollar Analyzer to my Fluke 123... The fluke did almost everything the IFR Analyzer did when it came to scopes and accessories. Granted it didn't have the receiver, Spectrim Analyzer, Freq Range, Various inputs, Deviation, AM/FM and other stuff... But I never used them. They just "Were there". The Fluke can see some things easier if the "spikes" are extremely quick. And in "AUTO" mode, its kinda nice to have the meter do all the stuff for you <chuckle>. But if you get right down to it... my old Scope does just as good of job, with solid preformance. I think you can pick up one for about 100 dollars or so.

I have a OLD very OLD EICO scope...i am trying to figure out what to do with it... It works... I can't remember the speed, but it was made in the 1960's... Great working boat anchor. I think todays chips are too fast for it <g>... Its kinda neat to see that "O" in the middle of the screen.

Dwayne

**mister_e** · - 29th March 2005, 17:13

Dwayne you raise an interesting point about the display speed and/or acquisition time.

IMHO, a cheap analogue will display better and faster some little glitches or noise on a line than many digital model due to the sampling rate and so many other reasons. This is why i like yes and no the digital ones for some applications. The same for digital multimeter and old VOM. but this is out of the current thread.

OXIMBIT · - 29th March 2005, 17:27

I have several scopes from a 10mhz Picoscope to a 100mhz dual channel Tektronix. What I found was the analogue scope was ok if you have repeating signals. But as all I seem to do is work with Pic's It's not much use as I'm trying to capture 1 shots or analyse data trains so my Pico scope still gets a good look in. If I had the money and needed a new scope I would plumb for a high speed PC scope and be able to capture the signals when needed.

**mister_e** · - 29th March 2005, 18:38

That's a point. If you have some Visual Basic ability, you can also built your own datalogger or call it as you want. Easy to do in conjuction with the free
Softwire software as Bruce already suggest on this thread. Grabbing the serial PORT or Parrallel port becomes easy with or use the INPOUT32.DLL within VB. quick tutorial here

**Dwayne** · - 29th March 2005, 19:48

Hello Steve,

For a good example that I ran into about 1 week ago....

I was using a 675 and a 648A with serial communication between them. The 648A is attached to a LCD for a homemade "Backpack".

I was using 675 for Pulsin, and decided to increase my frequency using another 648A pin and making a Psuedo PWM signal The Pulse was a instant on, Instant off, so the timing was very short. On my Old scope I was showing nothing. I had to go to my FLUKE, and my FLUKE showed a "Spike". Though that spike was just a thin line, I *knew* something was there. I took my old scope, and set it to the EXACT settings of my fluke. I still could not see the "Blurp". I adjusted the light density (which was EXTREMELY bright) and STILL could not see the Blip. After playing a little bit, I was barely able to see the blip on the scope. And I had to slow down the scope to see them... This has been the first and only time I have run into this problem. I switched to a 60 mhz scope, and had the same exact problem seeing this Blip. If it wasn't for my fluke, I am quiet sure, I would have missed it all together.

Though I really like the FLUKE VOM's too, I actually prefer the old meter VOM over the LCD's for many things. The meter tells me a lot by its movement...I can't tell if the LCD kind is switching modes because of bad contacts, or varying voltage <g>. But either way...If I were to buy, It definitely would be a Fluke... They are shock Proof, water proof, and Definitely worth the extra money. Yeah.. they are small, but they sure are wonderful to use. I think they run 600 dollars (for the 123) on Ebay. But they are workhorses. The only thing I do not like about the 123, is that the battery pack doesn't last a long time. Maybe 30 min to 45 min or so. The 123 does have a automatic battery cycler, but anyone who REALLY nows about Nicads, KNOWS you never discharge NICAD batteries to zelch. Big mistake, yet Most folks are clueless on this.

Dwayne

OXIMBIT · - 29th March 2005, 22:44

Steve

When I want to do any serious datalogging I use my old 16 channel dos based PC data logger. I got it free with my £100 Pico scope what must be 6 years ago, the logger design as been around for about 10 years, sadly not available now. Still runs although not on my XP machines, unless I use Dosbox.