Scope question

Dec 09, 2008 7 Replies

Hi gang, Sometimes I develop irrational attachment to test equipment. If you had a 100MHz two channel analog storage scope with a dying storage tube and a cheap chinese 100MHz two channel color LCD scope, which would you keep? The CRT scope is a HP1741A, it still works in conventional mode and is finicky in storage mode. (Hard to find the right write current.) The LCD scope is a Rigol DS5102C. It works but the noisy trace compared to a nice clean CRT display is aesthetically displeasing to my elevated sense of beauty. Hey, I still use a Tek 547 for the razor sharp and needle thin trace. But the USB connection on the Rigol for getting screen capture is just soooo handy.


I'd start shopping eBay and CraigsList for dead HP1741A's, with problems that seem far, far away from the CRT.

Oh -- and I'd keep both scopes.

Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com Do you need to implement control loops in software? "Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says. See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

That's not irrational.

I have 8 or so 547's, most of which work. The 547 had the best electron optics of any scope ever built. Next-gen CRTs used post-deflection meshes to make the tubes shorter, and spot size went to hell.

ftp://66.117.156.8/547_crt.JPG

John

Hmm, new wallpaper. I guess the picture of a Technics RS-1500 with the iso-loop is getting old...

The coiley things are delay lines that drive the distributed vertical deflection plates.

John

On a sunny day (Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:03:19 -0800) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

Nice

Oh yeah. 'cept for ebay, won't touch it; too much spam.

They both serve a useful purpose. You sometimes need USB and you sometimes need a decent trace. You have to keep both until you get a scope that has both characteristics.

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