Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Oscilloscopes to look for

It all depends on what you want to do with it.

There is more or less a direct link between speed and cost,
particularly for a digital scope. You can use the audio input on a PC
as a low bandwidth scope; the programs are floating around the net.
The biggest limitation on USB scope adapters is sampling frequency. If
you want to catch one time nanosecond glitches, it's going to cost. I
think a lot of those products are aimed at audio guys; a 100 KHz bandwidth
isn't going to do much for digital signals.

The 465 and even older 454 have more than adequate bandwidth for most hobbiest
needs if you don't need the storage, waveform analysis or capture capabilities
of newer scopes.

Once past the 465, repair gets a little more difficult with more proprietary
(ie unobtanium) ICs.

I have a 7904 mainframe scope on my bench right now. 500MHz bandwidth,
onscreen readout and multiple plugins. You can have up to 4 traces
with the right plugins and I just got a transitor curve tracer for it.
The 7000 series is reasonbly cheap and not too bad to repair. Tek made
a lot of those and parts are available if you look around.

The new scopes have amazing capabilities, the two questions are: do you
need them? and can you afford them? For me, analog and cheap works and
Tektronix is the only name in scopes :-)

On Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 10:41:21PM -0000, bradandlee@... wrote:

> Around 10 years ago people thought that picking up a Tektronix 465
was a good all around scope for a low power user working with shop
problems & diagnostics.

> With all the changes in electronics & digital since then, what is
the equivilant good go-to scope to look for these days? Is the Tek
still able to serve the job as good as the newer unit, or have some new
features appeared that are really great to have?


--
Paul Amaranth, GCIH | Rochester MI, USA
Aurora Group, Inc. | Security, Systems & Software
paul@... | Unix & Windows