Buying an Oscilloscope

[EETStudent]

Could anyone guide me along in purchasing an oscilloscope? Im 100% a cheapo, so brand new is not a demand.

[Enzo]

More than happy to help, but please do a search here for oscilloscopes and shopping for one. We have discussed it before.

[Rob Mercure]

What's your budget?

If you're only looking for an audio scope - and a pretty modest scope will work, especially to learn on, you might check and see if there isn't a military surplus store around there. While, unfortunaely, MS is now primarily focused on clothes (used to be lotas electronics) even the clothes oriented stores often wind up picking up some electronics and when they do you an find some real bargains. As far as scopes go the military often stores great quality older equipment for years and then lets it go due to age - on the same note they often keep an older piece of equipment working forever and finally discard it due to the "age" when the cost of repair is minimal (but who wants to put $20 into a 40 year old scope?).

Again, I want to remind you that "modest" is the key word. If you're looking for 16 channel, 64 teraHz, 218 Gram storage scope - well, mebbe someone somewhere's got one. But even a single channel 1 mHz scope can really help teach you want you want (did you parents let you learn to drive on their muscle car or 18 wheeler?) although you will find dual channel handy (built a chopper for my first EICO) - so you might pick a working low bandwidth 'scope for less than $100 (remember the highest frequency that you can hear is around 20 kHz). And learning "work around" a basic tool can teach you tricks that you don't learn with fancier gears that does the work for you.

Rob

PS: You might wind up seeing lotsa great big old Techtronix tube scopes in your quest. While on the one hand they've probably got some desireable nifty Telefunken signal level tubes in them the cost of just recapping one of these beasts runns into the hundreds of dollars (I've got several in my junk pile that would be great restoration projects if I wanted to spend the rest of my life restoring Tech scopes.)

[Gtr_tech]

Could anyone guide me along in purchasing an oscilloscope? Im 100% a cheapo, so brand new is not a demand.

I have a couple here that are in need of minor repair...both early 80s B&K, one is 10mhz (1476a) and the other 15 (1477). Let me know if you're interested in one and I'll bench them and get them running again.

I also have a mid-late 80s B&K 20mhz digital storage scope in like new shape. No probes, $125 plus shipping. model 2522.

[EETStudent]

Well, kinda along the lines of what Rob said, $100 would probably be the limit for me. I was looking on ebay and saw several that appeared to be useful for $70-$100. It wouldnt be for another month or so before I got one.

[Gtr_tech]

Well the ones that need to be repaired I was thinking closer to 50-60$ as long as I don't have to sink major amts of time/parts into them. I do have someone else from the synth diy list interested in one so I should really try to get to them.

[Rob Mercure]

Well, to further involve myself in the selling of pigs in pokes - GT's prices are ballpark for the equipment stated - especially if one of the B&Ks is dual trace (B&K 1470 is my primary scope right now - big ugly EICO tube '60s job seconday & better for quicky funky stuff IMHO) and might be better to buy from a "known character" than an "e-bay stranger." Ask him whether they've been recapped? Any 'scope older than 20 years needs to be recapped if you're going to trust the trace integrity.

Riob

[Enzo]

SInce budget is an issue, remember the probes. You have to have a probe to use a scope. I have always gotten good service from the generic $30 probes that everyone sells. But if your scope comes without probes, then you will have to buy at least one of them.

Always look to see if probes are included on any sale.

[Gtr_tech]

Yea I should've mentioned there's no probe(s) with any of these. They came to me without them....

[bob p]

More than happy to help, but please do a search here for oscilloscopes and shopping for one. We have discussed it before.

http://www.music-electronics-forum.c...ead.php?t=1856