Oscilloscope

[Dave Harmison]

With digital electronics what they are these days, it seems an oscilloscope can be had for almost any price, from under $30 to over $10,000.
Anyone have recommendations? I don't want to buy expensive one for two reasons: 1) I am not using it a lot or professionally where having the very best is important. 2) there's a good chance it will get damaged due to my inexperience and I'd rather break a cheap one than an expensive one

[Peter Olivola]

Have you looked at this kind of alternative?

https://windowsreport.com/oscillosco.../#.XCDxBkBKhHY

[RSS]

For basic around the lab stuff a tektronix TBS1000 series should be more than enough and will cost under 500 USD.

They are also pretty rugged as we sent them into the oilfield in wireline service trucks and I can't think of any that came back broken.

[Rick Kirchner]

The cost drivers are frequency range and bandwidth. Automotive applications don't require much of either, but you need to ask yourself what kind of signals you are going to be looking at and go from there.

I'ts been a while since I looked at the specs for new equipment. I have a 25 year old techtronix dual channel and it works well for just about everything old-school, including TV. But it doesn't have the range to look at stuff like modern networking, drone control signals, etc. Frys carries several models so you can get the feel of one much more easily now than in years past.

Adding storage/recall capability used to be a huge cost driver, but most stuff now can use your PC for that, and internal memory is cheap anyway. Most modern stuff is just a digital data acquisition system tied to a display, while old-school stuff is purely analog.

There's a company that keeps hitting my FB feed with a Arduino-based unit for under $50.

[sccadsr31]

If you want to go real old school I have a HEATHKIT automotive oscilloscope built in the 60's that you can buy, worked really well the last time I used it, been sitting a while......

David

[Teuobk]

For low-end scopes, the best value for money these days is from the Chinese manufacturers, particularly Rigol and Siglent. Yes, you can buy a cheap Tektronix scope, ditto with Keysight, R&S, and others, but their low-end offerings generally are far behind Rigol and Siglent except for the more prestigious brand on the front.

Avoid the cheap (<$250) USB scopes. The software, build quality, and electrical performance is generally quite poor. There are some good USB scopes, but they're not budget solutions.

Also avoid the cheap (<$250) portable/battery-powered scopes and scopemeters, too. Scopemeters have their place, but the cheap ones are junk. As a general rule of thumb (until you have more experience), if the scope is battery powered and doesn't have a bunch of knobs you can turn on the front, avoid it. The key there is knobs -- not just buttons.

If you want a specific recommendation, get the Rigol DS1054z. It's a bench scope, so it plugs into the wall, but it's still very compact and light. It has four channels, a nice big color LCD screen, and plenty of bandwidth (50 MHz) for what you're likely to do. Plus, it has a relatively deep sample memory (12 Mpts), which can be really handy when digging through waveforms. All for under $400 these days.

Jeff

[Rick Kirchner]

I'll second the "knobs not buttons" comment above. When purely digital scopes first came out, like all digital things the designers were enamored with menus and buttons - but that's not how you use a scope. Often you have to "find" the signal, and that involves turning knobs one way, then another, and futzing with the trigger level, etc. With menus and buttons you set all that and go back to the screen and - nothing. So you try another combination and - nothing. Spinning knobs is great for working with signals with a little unknown to them.

[DanW]

You'd be amazed at what you can find. I found a Tektronix 2465 for $40 at a garage sale. $50 for some probes from Mouser and life is good.

https://detroit.craigslist.org/mcb/e...734332400.html

[Rick Brannon]

Can you provide more information concerning why an oscilloscope, such as the ability to discern signal quality? This would help at least for me understand why an oscilloscope is important then second recommend a good quality used analog or digital version. Remember your scope is only as good as the probes and your discipline to tune and select your probes before use (under compensated or over compensated) when seeking accurate readings. You commented it will get knocked around a bit, industrial quality costs more if you still require accuracy.

[gt250]

I've had good luck with these folks: https://www.valuetronics.com/. Maybe pricier than some but their stuff is tested and works.

[Dave Harmison]

Appreciate the input. I'm interested in auto type stuff, so mostly looking for noise in sensors and pwm signals so not the megaHertz of radio, TV or network signals and seeing if an Arduino is actually doing what I think it should be. I'm thinking a few kHz even considering sampling 5 or 10 readings per cycle.
I'm not sure if scope-meter is a trademark of Fluke but I am getting the impression that is the description of a graphing multimeter that is sub-oscillicope capability. I'm thinking that is really what I am after.
Thanks again for the input.