X10 Low Impedance Probe

- J
- jerry
  
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posted
18 years ago

Mon, May 30, 2005 2:43 PM

Hi folks,

The other day, I was trying to troubleshoot a 100MHz amaplifier in a piece of equipment ( actually, a Cushman CE-3 Spectrum Monitor ). I was using a 150MHz tektronix scope with a 10X probe. I was getting different results with each measurement, it was driving me crazy.

My friend Bob, the RF guru, said "Your trouble is that you're using the HI-Z input to the scope. For VHF, Hi-Z is crap. It just doesn't work. Especially if you have a pigtail for the ground." Guilty as charged...

He then asked if the scope had a 50-ohm input ( which it does ). "Then just make up a probe with a 450-ohm series resistor, and some little ground clip. That's all you need. It will be stable, and it will work up to about a gig. The impedances in this RF stuff tend to be low anyway, so you don't really need Hi-Z."

Makes sense. Any way to buy a probe like this off he shelf?

- Jerry Kaidor ( snipped-for-privacy@tr2.com )

- M
- mike
  
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posted
18 years ago

Mon, May 30, 2005 6:50 PM

I'll bet Tektronix and HP/Agilent will sell you one, but you don't want to know what it costs. Problem with commercial probes is that they have a rod resistor with a probe point soldered into the end. Lots of stress, easy to break, expensive to fix.

The resistor on the end of a coax is a pretty good solution. Pack it into a ball-point pen. When you break it, replace the resistor.

1/4W carbon composition works well. If you try to use a metal film, you may have to worry about the inductance. Don't know any way to tell without measuring it.

If you want accurate/repeatable measurements at 100MHz. you need to build the measurement point into your circuit. ANYTHING with a ground clip will require an inch or more of wire just to let the probe reach the circuit. Ground inductance is your enemy.

Think of it as a series resonant circuit. The tip capacitance and the ground + tip inductance resonate at some frequency and make a short at your circuit. Obviously, the accuracy decreases rapidly as you approach this frequency. Doesn't take much ground wire to mess things up. mike

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- T
- tekman
  
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posted
18 years ago

Fri, Jun 3, 2005 8:37 AM

..snippety..

A good hint is to downlod the manual from Tektronix website, called "ABC of probes". Gives a lot of basic info.

The "DIY" approoach is nice and will work well.

good Tektronix Probes in the low-Z Area are on2nd hand market like ebay. I am not shure about the correct probe number, AFAIK it is P3056 (10:1 low Z, made in the 1970+). I recommend you look in Tek Catalog for the description , under "obsolete probes" reference page. Probe is subminiature and works well, price was about 15 USD. Specified for up to 3 GHz use, which is more than adeaquate for my Tek 7104/485/2465B scopes ;-)

hth, Andreas