Oscilliscope opinion's!

[nadude98]

Just wonder what you guys might think about one of these as a low cost option for basic troubleshooting.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SainSmart-D...154516?hash=item461487cb94:g:zKYAAOxyNmZTkDfb

 

[jbeckva]

Just wonder what you guys might think about one of these as a low cost option for basic troubleshooting.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SainSmart-D...154516?hash=item461487cb94:g:zKYAAOxyNmZTkDfb

Sure, I can give ya a way-informed opinion ... I have one of them.

The main thing to keep in mind is that the max input voltage is strictly a hard limit at 5 volts. You would need to invest on some decent 1:100 probes and whatnot to measure any decent voltage. Trigger on display is a little bit tricky... basically if it's not triggered half decent the waveform doesn't even show.

For about twice as much, I went ahead and bought an old used HP from ebay shortly after this one. Much better.

 

[orange]

I got a Tektronix 465M from a good friend, refurbished and surplus from his job for not much more than 2x that. 200 MHz is your friend for most things.

 

[nadude98]

Sure, I can give ya a way-informed opinion ... I have one of them.

The main thing to keep in mind is that the max input voltage is strictly a hard limit at 5 volts. You would need to invest on some decent 1:100 probes and whatnot to measure any decent voltage. Trigger on display is a little bit tricky... basically if it's not triggered half decent the waveform doesn't even show.

For about twice as much, I went ahead and bought an old used HP from ebay shortly after this one. Much better.

Sounds like a very informed opinion! Thanks!

 

[rtp_burnsville]

I agree that an older analog scope would be a much better deal. I have given several away in the past and you can find them for next to nothing if you happen to be located in a larger city.

A much better option if you have $300-$400 would be one of the imported digital scopes. A couple years back I bought a version of this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Rigol-DS1052E-Digital-Channels-sampling/dp/B003MYND5A

There were some unofficial software updates that now make it a 100MHz scope. Works great and have never looked for my analog scope since the purchase. The storage feature in itself made it worth the purchase for me.

Robert