oscilloscopes

[soundcollage]

Would this be an adequate oscilloscope for all of my diy needs?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=45005&item=3812666730&rd=1
If not what do you recomend as minimum requirements? I have now made ggg's electric mistress (ambitious first build I now realize but it works fine and the parts came for that before my easyface parts and I'm impatient) an easyface, and the paia 9700 modular synth which I built from a kit. I just started researching in this field in January mainly due to an interest in building my own tube amp. I have all the books by Kevin O'Conner and several others on that topic. I built the effects first because they were cheaper to finish and I still am designing my ideal amp. I got Mim's Getting Started in Electronics, Horowitz's Elementary Electronics, and Connelly's Analog Integrated Circuits. I have to express my thanks for the existence of this forum and all the work that people have put in to make this such a vast storehouse of information. I bought a fluke 175 DMM, a nice soldering station and a drill press. An oscilloscope is the next acquisition I am hoping for and would like one that would meet my needs.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

This scope is OK for fx building, no problem.
And a bonus, for a beginner, is that there isn't a whole shitload of mysterious stuff there. You will soon want a 2nd probe, though.

[niftydog]

looks good.  word of advice, don't skimp too much on a cro probe.  Cheap probes will lead you down the garden path.  Spend at least AUD$50.

Make sure you calibrate the probes on the "probe adjust" terminal before you start.  Drop us a line if you want more info on that.

[ErikMiller]

That scope would be more than adequate for audio engineering. Terrific price!

New surplus Tektronix YT-5060 probes can be had for about $20 from a couple of different eBay sellers. You'll want two probes, and the one that comes with the scope is probably not as good as the Tektronix.

[RedHouse]

That scope would do ya, but you could do better.

I recommend a 2 channel (aka "dual trace") which helps you follow the changes in signal because you can display the input waveform and the waveform of the area you are currently testing getting a much better idea of what is happening to your signal.

[Paul Marossy]

If not having two channels doesn't bother you, it looks like a decent buy to me.

[ErikMiller]

Didn't notice that it wasn't a dual trace 'scope.

Two traces are pretty essential for what I do. Just the thing for doing frequency response tests with a signal generator.

Hold out for a dual trace. Looks like the same seller sells a cheap dual trace.

[troubledtom]

dual trace tektronix scopes is all i use.
  - tom

[ErikMiller]

This looks good, for the same price:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dllViewItem&category=45008&item=3813956834

[The Tone God]

I have to recommend atleast a two channel scope. Once you get one you'll never understood how you could live without it. Even just for looking at input and output at the same time.

All my scopes have atleast two channels including my main scope. They serves 80% of my needs. Sometimes I need more so I pull out my four channel scope.

Andrew

[brett]

Hi.  IMO there's 2 ways to go, each with some advantages.

The ideal setup is a proper dual trace oscilloscope and a decent signal generator (and a spare guitar for generating real guitar signals) and a small amp for hearing what you're probing.  But that costs a few hundred $$ (at least).

I bought a cheap ($50) scope and my probe is a $0.02 piece of wire.  I split the signal and send a little through a $2 LM386-based amp that powers a couple of good quality car speakers ($20).  Don't underestimate how important it is to HEAR as well as see the signal.  My signal generator is the 2 transistor $2 one at geofex.com, modified to operate from about 0.5 to 5kHz.  It all works quite well, really.  I only build or repair a dozen circuits per month, mostly distortion pedals.  Sometimes I'd kill for a double trace scope, but mostly I'm happy.

Just yesterday I used the scope to test the input impedance of a fuzzface.  I needed an AC voltage measurement below 0.1V AC, which my DMM doesn't do (well, it only cost $7).

OK, so I'm a cheapskate.  But for me, making my own test gear is as much fun as pedal-building   .

cheers

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Using an ordinary piece of wire as a probe works fine, a lot of the time. But be warned, that if you connect an ordinary wire to a circuit, you are also connecting maybe 50  or mor picofarads & this may make a circuit unstable, give misleading results etc. For a low impedance point, and low (that is audio) frequencies, no problem usually.

Incidenatlly, my record with 2/hand scolpes is 2.5 out of 7. The .5 is a Hameg digital storage scope with one channel blown out (was used in a static electricity test lab..)