Oscilloscope

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pishta

pishta

I know I'm right....
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Anyone use one outside electronics work? Are they worth the $50 I may spend on a 20MHz dual trace locally? I imagine I can use it looking at position sensors and maybe tweaking my cassette deck. I always thought they were cool with all their knobs, buttons and that green EKG line across its tiny TV screen. Or would a $25 LCD Ebay kit fill the bill?
 
I don't do much anymore, seems like there's "no time." But I DO still have a couple of scopes. "My best" is a Tektronics 475, and this summer I just bought a Tektronics model 220 digital scope, solid state display. (The 475 is CRT) 50 isn't bad if it's a decent scope
 
from what I read, this is a low end 20MHz dual trace with limited digital capability, circa 1990, but its German made and very clean so I thought it may be somewhat serviceable with its socketed everything.
 
The automotive scopes have some sort of adjustable delay gate that is displayed on the scope, adjustable by knob. You have one lead that hooked (in the old days) to coil neg/ points. When you move the delay gate "in time" from cylinder to cylinder, it clamps the coil neg to ground at that time, preventing that cylinder from firing. Same thing as going around the cap and shorting out one plug at a time
 
There are usually lots of used scopes on the internet auction sites. 20MHz is plenty fast for automotive use, unless you start looking into CAN or MOST bus data. You can pick up a 20 year old Tektronics for a couple hundred bucks. If you buy one, make sure it comes with probes. They can cost as much as a used scope.

Garry
 
Went to Fall fling and found nothing I needed (dang, am I done looking????) so I swung by a craigslist listing and picked up a O-scope with my fun money. Digital no less, and 100MHz that is hackable to 200MHz. Thing is like brand new, only had 8 boot ups on the clock. Didnt come with probes, but the stock probes were only 100MHz anyway, not the 200 that Ill overclock it to. $100 and the pickup. Let the fun begin! Uh...how do you use this thing? :)
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I actually wanted to use it to tune cassette decks and CD player alignment and focus. I hope the digi is gonna do the CD as the wave form is crazy and you sort of need to see the focus of the 'eye' pattern....we'll see. Anyone got some probes in their junk drawer?
 
There are some decent probes on egag. I only have one good pair of Tektronix probes left, everything else is china egag.
 
There are digital scopes that run on PCs that are pretty cheap & have a lot of features. The one I bought was a Hantek.
 
If you are looking for a great usb to laptop oscilloscope then bitscope makes the best for the money. These are actually used in the mining industry for expendable data loggers. The bitscope software is powerful with a playback data recorder.
Very small and easy to use.
 
Cool, I was thinking of getting another one, mine is old and only runs on windows xp, so all I have is one desktop xp machine that still runs.
 
I thought the USB interface was too slow for crazy traces? Well, I got some Chinese 200MHz probes for cheap, I actually ordered 2 and they sent me 2 packs of 2 so.... I got an extra set. Anyone need some inexpensive 200MHz probes?
 
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