Which Oscilloscope for a pickup maker?

[belwar]

Well I got my scope, and so far the thing is excellent. I'm trying to determine whether or not this has x-y plotting. I need to learn to use that next.. Can anyone tell me if it does?

bel

[rockin roy]

Tektronix may be the best manufacturer of Oscilloscopes. The 400 series scopes (465 was my favorite) was so good it almost ran them out of business. I'm guessing most of the ones they built still work. That sort of flooded their market. As mentioned the 2000 series used special in house IC's which died in a few years so stay clear. USB scopes are probably best for what you guys are doing, just a pod and your computer. A logging voltmeter may be better. Instead of frequency rate them by refresh rate and samples per second.

[Joe Gwinn]

Well I got my scope, and so far the thing is excellent. I'm trying to determine whether or not this has x-y plotting. I need to learn to use that next.. Can anyone tell me if it does?

If you still have the scope we discussed, it does have XY plotting. What make and model scope are you now using?

[fieldwrangler]

Tektronix may be the best manufacturer of Oscilloscopes. The 400 series scopes (465 was my favorite) was so good it almost ran them out of business. I'm guessing most of the ones they built still work. That sort of flooded their market. As mentioned the 2000 series used special in house IC's which died in a few years so stay clear. USB scopes are probably best for what you guys are doing, just a pod and your computer. A logging voltmeter may be better. Instead of frequency rate them by refresh rate and samples per second.

I have a 465 on my bench... if only I could find the intermittent grungy stuff in the gain selector network... just "spraying away" seems to not be quite the ticket...

Bob Palmieri

[SonnyW]

I was just reading this thread and had to jump in with my two cents worth. First I would like to say thanks to you Joe for your posts a long time ago on determining the self-resonance frequency by using the x-y functions. I have a 100 mhz Tektronix 2236 which has the multimeter and frequency counter option and it is just about perfect for that test, as well as general use. I have tried several methods, for resonant frequency and yours is about the only one that to me is definite and repeatable. Everything else seems too ambiguous to me and the peak varies with the signal generator frequency too much. I got my scope off ebay for around $300 a couple of years back. I picked that model mainly because it was like the one we had at work, but it turned out the nice thing is that I can run the self resonance test and then read the frequency directly off the scope display, much more accurately than reading the dial on my signal generator. Resonant frequency is only a good reference for comparing my own work or my small library of stock pickups, but it does give some indication. I also use the built in multimeter a lot because it is there on my bench and handy such as when soldering leads on bobbins to make sure I have a good solid joint. I just hook it up to the ends of the lead wires and watch the reading while I solder. I have found the scope and signal generator very handy tools for pickup making.

[apguitars]

Soundcard Oscilloscope

Soundcard Scope

Main features:

The PC based Soundcard Oscilloscope receives its data from the Soundcard with 44.1kHz and 16 Bit resolution. The data source can be selected in the Windows mixer (Microphone, Line-In or Wave). The frequency range depends on the sound card, but 20-20000Hz should be possible with all modern cards. The low frequency end is limited by the AC coupling of the line-in signal. Be aware, that most microphone inputs are only mono.

The oscilloscope contains in addition a signal generator for 2 channels for Sine, Square, Triangular and Sawtooth wave forms in the frequency range from 0 to 20kHz. These signals are available at the speaker output of the sound card. These can be fed back to the oscillocope in order to generate Lissajous figures in the x-y mode.