Oscilloscope donation for a beginner - request

oland and here oscilloscopes are rare and expensive. I'm keen to learn elec= tronics and I just can't continue without an oscilloscope in my lab. I obvi= ously can't afford one.

and would like to donate it I would gladly accept it. I can pay for the shi= pping, which is still going to be very expensive but it's still much cheape= r than an oscilloscope. I think I can only accept an oscilloscope from some= one from Europe, escpecially from Poland or from a nearby coutry, because i= t would cost over 150USD to ship it from USA to Poland. I guess I could acc= ept one out of Europe if the postage is under 50 bucks but I doubt it would= be that cheap.

No ex-Soviet oscilloscopes in your area?

Have you tried eBay?

Further, this request would be a lot more appealing if the o'scope were going to an educational institution where many people could use it, rather than for one person's exclusive use.

There are no scopes from Poland available on Ebay. You can buy a scope in Poland but, mainly due to the currency, they're expensive. I have been looking even for soviet scopes but the only two I could find were unteseted and still expensive.

I guess it would be more appealing if the scope was going to an educational institution but I'm just a hoobyst and I'm not going to lie.

Hi

I'm probably not the first one to ask for a free oscilloscope. I'm from Poland and here oscilloscopes are rare and expensive. I'm keen to learn electronics and I just can't continue without an oscilloscope in my lab. I obviously can't afford one.

So, to all engineers out there : if someone has an oscilloscope leftover and would like to donate it I would gladly accept it. I can pay for the shipping, which is still going to be very expensive but it's still much cheaper than an oscilloscope. I think I can only accept an oscilloscope from someone from Europe, escpecially from Poland or from a nearby coutry, because it would cost over 150USD to ship it from USA to Poland. I guess I could accept one out of Europe if the postage is under 50 bucks but I doubt it would be that cheap.

It would be best if the scope was over 20MHz bandwidth.

Best regards Jakub (fenclu)

***Is there Freecycle or Freegle groups in your region?

***A strict rule is that anyone who answers your WANTED: post must be offering the item free, but usually you have to collect it from them.

***A scope is a bit outside run of the mill stuff that people offer, but I've asked for and got some pretty obscure items.

As I said, I am able to pay for the shipping if it's under 50USD.

As I said, I am able to pay for the shipping if it's under 50USD.

***In that case sign up for Freecycle and cast your net wider than your immediate area. Strictly speaking, group rules state that money should never change hands - but on a number of occasions I've negotiated "petrol money" for people to drop off items I was unable to collect.

***Does Gumtree operate where you are? There are various groups aimed at diverting useful items that people would otherwise toss into landfill.

Do like the rest of us who also can't afford an o-scope. Save yer money! Until then, go piss up a rope.

nb

--
vi --the heart of evil!

and here oscilloscopes are rare and expensive. I'm keen to learn electronics and I just can't continue without an oscilloscope in my lab. I obviously can't afford one.

would like to donate it I would gladly accept it. I can pay for the shipping, which is still going to be very expensive but it's still much cheaper than an oscilloscope. I think I can only accept an oscilloscope from someone from Europe, escpecially from Poland or from a nearby coutry, because it would cost over 150USD to ship it from USA to Poland. I guess I could accept one out of Europe if the postage is under 50 bucks but I doubt it would be that cheap.

Are any of the low-end digital scopes (Rigol, Saleg, like that) available there? Some of them are below $300 here.

Do any of the european distributors (Farnell and such) have presence in Poland? Ummmm... yes!

What sort of electronics are you interested in?

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com   

Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom timing and laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

and here oscilloscopes are rare and expensive. I'm keen to learn electronics and I just can't continue without an oscilloscope in my lab. I obviously can't afford one.

would like to donate it I would gladly accept it. I can pay for the shipping, which is still going to be very expensive but it's still much cheaper than an oscilloscope. I think I can only accept an oscilloscope from someone from Europe, escpecially from Poland or from a nearby coutry, because it would cost over 150USD to ship it from USA to Poland. I guess I could accept one out of Europe if the postage is under 50 bucks but I doubt it would be that cheap.

If you don't need it daily, maybe you can find a hackerspace, school or university, where you can use a scope.

--
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
electronics and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss

Are any of the low-end digital scopes (Rigol, Saleg, like that) available there? Some of them are below $300 here.

***In that ball-park is the Pico scope - a little box that connects to PC or laptop, you just have the BNC inputs on the front panel and GUI controls & display on your screen. ***Prices range from not too bad to *OUCH*!!!

BTW: any idea how to fix quoted text indentation in Win7/Live Mail ?

Sure. Don't run Microsoft apps.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com   

Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom timing and laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

On 7/14/2012 1:48 PM, Fenclu wrote: I guess I could accept one out of Europe if the postage is under 50 bucks but I doubt it would be that cheap.

I didn't realize that there was a monetary denomination of "bucks" in Europe.

Look on the German Ebay (ebay.de). Shipping from Germany shouldn't be expensive (maybe you could pick it up).

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

You might be interested in building your own. You will probably be dealing with repetitive signals, and you might be interested in an inexpensive 1GHz sampling scope. There is a companion article that allows you to send the output to a plotter. It could be modified to work with a DC - audio converter so you can use the sound card on your computer. It will take a bit of software and hardware hacking, but when you are done, you will have an instrument that will outperform anything you could purchase, plus the knowledge and skills that will serve you well in any future endeavour.

The articles are old and the images are a bit to small to read. But you can get a simple magnifier program to blow them up so your can read them.

The first article is the sampler. It is intended to work with a 10MHz scope, which you don't have yet.

1-GHz Sampling Oscilloscope Front End Is Easily Modified ""

The second article works with the scope to convert the signals to run a plotter. You could modify the outputs to work with the sound card and display the signals on your computer instead. This has the advantage that you can store the signals for future reference, and add any analysis that you wish, such as FFT, digital filtering, risetime calculations, etc.

Here is the second part:

Precise Trigger Aids In Recording Scope Signals On Plotter "

"

Wish you the best of luck. I'm sure if you run into problems, there will be many willing hands here to help.

Once you have it running, you could start a small neighbourhood club to show others how to do the same.

Regards,

Mike

They don't use the Euro in Poland either. Maybe bucks is slang for Zloty.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Here's another approach. You may only need low frequencies at the beginning. There are a bazillion programs that convert the sound card in your pc to a dual channel scope. Here's one that seems fairly complete:

This claims to have dc response. Here are the specs:

You could use this to get the low frequency portion of the sampling scope going, then use it to display the plotter output from the sampler. There are all kinds of neat tricks you could use to bootstrap yourself up into a very credible wideband scope.

To search for other similar projects, try soundblaster scope in google.

Regards,

Mike

I got a Magnavox 20 MHz scope on the local freecycle group, a couple years ago.

Poland but, mainly due to the currency, they're expensive. I have been looking even for soviet scopes but the only two I could find were unteseted and still expensive.

going to lie.

Shipping is going to kill you on an older 'scope. They're hardly worth shipping across town.

I traded in a little one a couple years ago when Tek was offering 10 or 15% off if you supplied a working trade-in.

Isn't there some nearby university that's upgrading?

People who have relatives in Poland complain that everything is relatively expensive now with the Euro.. and as JL points out decent Rigols are less than 250 Euros, and being modern they're very light and cheap to ship.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Well that wouldn't make MS$ to happy, would it ?

Jamie

and here oscilloscopes are rare and expensive. I'm keen to learn electronics and I just can't continue without an oscilloscope in my lab. I obviously can't afford one.

would like to donate it I would gladly accept it. I can pay for the shipping, which is still going to be very expensive but it's still much cheaper than an oscilloscope. I think I can only accept an oscilloscope from someone from Europe, escpecially from Poland or from a nearby coutry, because it would cost over 150USD to ship it from USA to Poland. I guess I could accept one out of Europe if the postage is under 50 bucks but I doubt it would be that cheap.

I have a 60 MHz Philips/Philco (Air force issue), solid state scope. Even though it isn't that large, it sure is heavy for shipping but, I have not used that for some time now and it worked great the last time I used it, the only problem with it was the foam in the head cover that kind of denigrated and turned into gou while the accessories were in it.

I did manage to clean that up, it didn't come in contact with any of the controls because the flip door in the head cover kept it out..

The shipping would exceed your budget I am afraid.

Jamie