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Help on testing/picking an oscilloscope

My friend found for me what appears to be a cheap oscilloscope on sale at a used parts place. He took down some details for the Tektronic scope's three modules

5110 (the 2 chan thingy?) 5A14N (4 Chan amplifier??) 5D10 (Waveform Digitizer???)

The 5A14N has four inputs but he couldn't get four traces on the screen no matter what. It seems broken since according to him, the scope would display two traces from the other module.

The working bit with two channels seem to be ok. I think he missed out the part number for this, but it's the most recognizable piece to me from his description of what clearly are the two analog voltage setting dials

But without any sort of input, Chan 2 appears to be faulty as there are signals around half the screen in amptitude when he turned it to the smallest voltage level 1mv, viewing at 100usec.

The last piece is the triggering piece 5D10 I think (my friend forgot to note down the position of the modules)

So our problem is how do we tell if the scope is working sufficiently to be worth the $100 the shop is asking for? We don't have any sophisticated instrument to test with and the scope doesn't come with any leads/probes. Are there some ways to conduct a quick on the spot test with some very basic items?

Is it even worth considering or way too old to spend any money on? I'd like to have 10Mhz to 20Mhz, this is only 2Mhz according to the web but for the price, neither of us have found anything close to it yet.

thanks!!!

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Reply to
The little lost angel
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a?n?g?e? snipped-for-privacy@lovergirl.lrigrevol.moc.com (The little lost angel) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.singnet.com.sg:

It's called a Mainframe,needs one vertical and one horizontal plug-in to work.

Vertical plug-in

First,for the 5A14,you can't use the scope without a B series timebase plug-in. I don't recall if the 5D10 has it's own timebase to provide horizontal deflection.

I don;t consider the 5000 series TEK scopes to be of much use. The 5110 is only a 2 Mhz bandwidth mainframe.I also believe you are not experienced enough to evaluate or repair this used scope system,thus it would not be a wise buy.

Better scopes would be a 400 series scope such as a 465/475,a 2200 scope such as a 2213/15/35,or a 7000 series scope such as a 7603,7704A,7904/A with 7A26 and 7B plug-ins.They may cost a little bit more than $100,though.

I worked for TEK for 21 years as a field service technician repairing and calibrating TEK test equipment such as these scopes.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik-at-kua.net
Reply to
Jim Yanik

Not worth it. Check eBay. I picked up a 465B (100MHz, probes, bag, manual, perfect condition) for $99 plus $25 or so shipping. That would be infinitely better than this old dog you're looking at.

Reply to
dh

I know... but the last time I found a suitable scope for a good price on ebay... it would had cost about 2x the price to ship it halfway across the world to me :(

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Reply to
The little lost angel

Thanks! Though I guess I will just have to keep looking :(

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Reply to
The little lost angel

I bought some books that way and it cost 3 times the price to ship.

They were heavy though and locally would have cost over $800 new and got them for $150.

It was still a bargain.

Books are one thing but unless you know how to service these things I wouldn't be buying on unless I see it working - properly.

Reply to
Jan Pompe

:)

L. Angel,

I don't know where on planet earth you are, but you may want to watch your local newspapers and want ads. In my case, I searched for a scope for about

6 months, and finally,I found a local cable company liquidating some old test equipment. I was able to get my tek 465b for US $150 (IIRC), or maybe it was $125. Anyway, none of the scopes had probes or manuals, but I brought a little homemade circuit built out of a 555 that would output different frequencies with 2 output leads hanging off it to test the scopes they had. The 465b also has a calibration connector on the panel to check it . The scope still works, that was about a year ago.

hth, Joe

Reply to
Joe

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