Where do you purchace your test equiptment these days?

I'm an independent consultant and am trying to upgrade my aging lab a bit. My lab is mostly items I bought 15 years ago when I started out and various pieces I got at random HAM Fests and Ebay or closing companies.

I could use a new high end VOM (the ones I am looking at are in the $300-$500 range) and a better 'Oscope to replace my aging TDS 500 series scope (and even older 2430A) as well as a few other pieces.

Contact East and Techi-Tools prices never used to be inline with others and Future-Active is not in that business any more. E-bay has eliminated any good used or new equipment from even showing at Ham Fests anymore.

Where do folks get higher end scopes, VOMS, LCR Meteres, Freq Counters, Electronic Loads, Variacs etc at these days with good selection and price?

Also would love to hear a suggestion on a good VOM. Seems the $200 ones can ALMOST do what I want and the $400 ones can 'almost' eliminate my need for a new LCR Meeter but the devil is in the details.

I would like a 4 1/2 digit meeter with good precision (0.1%?). It should be responsive, esp for continuity, have the normal complement of sample and hold, bar graph, high low holding, auto calibration and zeroing and other modern features. It would be great if it has a usable LCR and Frequency counter as well as HFE reading. I also wish it had a reset button rather than a fuse for the current meeter. The issue with the LCR meters in most I looked at is the range is not adequate to not need a separate meeter so it seems that perhaps these should be two different tools.

Thanx Hawker

Reply to
Hawker
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I generally buy from Tucker. They have a good selection, their prices aren't too bad, their sales staff is knowledgeable, their customer service has always been just right for me, and I can at least pretend that I'm going to buy used and save $$ (I always drool over the top-end used stuff then buy mid-range new, but that's me).

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Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

On 3/2/2007 1:51 PM, The digits of Tim Wescott's hands composed the following:

Has something changed over at Tucker? We used to laugh out loud at how over priced all there items used to be. I often found used items there costing more than the same item cost new from Contact east or some such. They have quite a reputation for being over priced - or have had for years anyway. In general there used items were 4-5x the going rate from other companies.

Reply to
Hawker

Maybe I've been buying from the wrong place! I generally don't buy much, and I've certainly saved time going with Tucker. I'll have to watch the other responses you get, and remember the answers for the next time I buy.

It certainly seems these days that the way to go is to buy from eBay, at least for used stuff.

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Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

^^^^^

Maybe you gave yourself the answer already :-)

Then there are the liquidators (whose names you can find from EBay auctions. Also company sales etc. That's where I bought a lot of mine. Remember, older equipment is sometimes better than the new stuff. See the recent digital scope threads.

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Regards, Joerg  (also a consultant)

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

You exaggerate. We always assumed that Tucker wanted 3x what something was worth.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

I'd go for a new Fluke dvm and a Tek color digital scope. But lots of other stuff like power supplies and signal generators can be got cheap on ebay. Look for a seller with a few years of history and high feedback, and buy stuff declared to be working.

The Extech stuff looks fine too, so far.

Hfe meters are not necessary; I've never used one.

AADE's little LC meter is great, an amazing bargain. Be sure to get the surface-mount adapter with the tiny plastic clothespin.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Which brings up another question: A client of mine is looking for a spectrum analyzer. Anything new out there? Nothing fancy, just to be able to measure noise and stuff up to 100MHz or so. Hameg makes a nice and simple EMI analyzer for around $2k but even that would be overkill here. The TenTec VNA is, unfortunately, more of an impedance analyzer. Other than that it's truly amazing:

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

I just got a quote from them on a meter and scope. It was decent. It wasn't the absolute cheapest price I could obtain, but it was ok.

Hawker: I liked the Extech MM560 for a DMM, but the Meterman 38XR is pretty decent too. I understand your pain when it comes to finding one that does exactly what you want. It ain't happenin' ;-)

Reply to
Anthony Fremont

On 3/2/2007 4:35 PM, The digits of John Larkin's hands composed the following:

Thanx for the advice. I'll look into that. As for E-bay. I am with you. Power Supplies, VARIACs, Signal Generators I try ham-fests first (because I like to touch, see and try first) and E-bay second. A 20 y/o HP Power Supply at a ham fest for $100 is usually a better quality supply than a new $1000 one one I can get anyway.

VOMS, LCRs and other things that I want accuracy on and are relatively inexpensive I usually purchase new.

The big exception is Scopes. For lab scops (like Tex 2465/2445A analog or 2440/2430A Digital or cheaper stuff even) I get them from a retired Tektronix person I know who refirbs them and sells them for an amazing price. They come calibrated and he gives me a 1 year warranty. 2465 for example tend to be $500 or so. Perhaps 1/2 my lab is furnished from tis person, when he truly retires half the engineers in North Carolina and Georgia will be at a big loss (he is in his 70s now) Unfortunately he does not get in to TDS and other nicer stuff.

My problem is I can't afford $30k for what I need. Right now I need about a 2-4 mega sample 500Mhz 4 channel with active FET probes. I can find something decent used on E-bay for $5k that meets my needs but new is way out of my price range. The problem is my TDS 500 series (forget the name) which is all that but only 1 MS almost meets my needs, but on some things I just can't get enough resolution - esp when I am looking at the output of a 54Mhz CCD pixel. I'm not sure if I should get what I need now (2ms) or try to spring for what I might need in a few years (4ms)

Oh well Charlotte ham fest is next week ;)

Hawker

Reply to
Hawker

Hawker wrote:

Depending on your comfortable travel radius and the span till the next fest, this might prove useful:

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"Yes sir. This baby stayed in the R&D Lab and never moved more than 6"

--just enough to clean around it." ;-)

We take these old farts for granted, then one day they aren't around any more. 8-(

Reply to
JeffM

The Foothill College Electronic Flea Market used to be legendary around here, but it seems like ebay has almost killed it off. It moved to a smaller site, but it had already degraded to junky stuff.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

I want a spectrum analyzer, but something we can do rough emi tests on, so I was thinking one of those Anritsu or equivalent portable LCD tablet things, most of which go to about 3 GHz. We have an old bathroom we could hack into a small screen room, and there are some nice emc-like log-periodic antennas around for $300 or so, enough to arguably put together a CE emi file.

It sure seems like somebody could do a little LCD spectrum analyzer for under $1k, or a usb laptop adapter for a lot less.

Hmmm, "usb spectrum analyzer" gets half a million hits.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Probably not just EBay that killed it but also the utter lack of hobbyist activity among the next generation(s). They fist-fight each other over some Wii game console and then after graduating from college they still don't have a clue how a transistor amplifier is built.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

We buy (rent more). I just google on a model, get like Continental, Electro-rent, for uWave stuff:SMElectronics. Google hits alot and the price differences can vary alot. look out for ebay, you buy it, you own, might have to fix it.

Reply to
sdeyoreo

These guys do:

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The web site is a bit, ahem, sub-optimal. Doesn't allow direct page links but they do have an English option somewhere. One of the posters in the German NG is on the design team and he is really smart.

BTW, I've had some real issues with a top notch Agilent unit once. The source of the noise was its own LCD (!).

Only 51 hits here and it's scopes with FFT function. That doesn't cut it.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Or you might not be able to fix it.

Ebay is where the junk goes to get resold to the next unlucky owner.

Let's be careful out there......

TMT

text -

Reply to
Too_Many_Tools

It's so much cheaper to teach CS than real engineering. No labs, no machinery, no test equipment, no skilled teachers. Just make each kid buy his own laptop and aim a cheap C++droid TA at them.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

I've been very lucky buying gear on ebay. The occasional problem is more than overcome by the price advantage. Established sellers hate negative feedback, so you have a lot of clout if you're not happy.

I've bought maybe 10 big Tek sampling scopes and 30 heads on ebay, list price maybe $600K or so, for a few percent of that.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

We've had good luck with BellNW here. Low cost with a reliable guarantee.

Their only problem is their selection isn't as great as others.

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The other low cost but reliable outfit we've dealt with is:

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We've dealt with Tucker and MetricTest as well and they were OK but more expensive.

Robert

Reply to
Robert

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