[Xakepa]

For sometime we have a plastic, cheap-looking Tektronix 3032 scope in our lab, which I never used and considered a beater instrument for our undergrads. But when the scope I'm using (Sweden-made Hameg) died, I started looking into this one, and oh my - on ebay it sells at 3300$. And they claim these are their "lowest priced" models

3 grand "lowest priced"??? Why's that? What's that special about those scopes...how could a relatively common industrial instrument be so expensive...not that I know anything about those scopes, but the price astounded me.

 

[Clutz]

Well, for starters - what is the scopes maximum resolution for, say voltage? If you wanted to be able to accurately measure voltage in the millivolt range - and be able to measure fluctuations from millivolts - you'd need a power supply that produces less ripple than microvolts I would think - and I'd imagine making a power supply that quiet would be pretty complicated and expensive...

 

[tangent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xakepa For sometime we have a plastic, cheap-looking Tektronix 3032 scope in our lab, which I never used and considered a beater instrument for our undergrads.

All modern scopes are cheap and plastic-looking. That's "progress", dincha know?

Quote:

on ebay it sells at 3300$. And they claim these are their "lowest priced" models

Uh, no. A glance at the Tek site shows that this is right in the middle of the range.

Their lowest priced models are the 1000 series. Now there are scopes I would expect to see in a college lab. Perfectly fine for hobbyist use, too. They start at $850.

Quote:

What's that special about those scopes...

The main thing is that it's a DPO, not a DSO. That means it has the horsepower to show a real-time phosphor-like effect on the screen, overlaying multiple samples to show the signal's changing behavior over time.

It's also a 300 MHz machine. That doesn't sound all that impressive in these days of multi-gigahertz PCs, but it's a lot faster than anything you're ever likely to build at home. Most microcontrollers top out well under 100 MHz.

 

[Garbz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xakepa how could a relatively common industrial instrument be so expensive...

Look at the price of bench LCR metres, bench DMMs, high end lab powersupplies, function generators, timedomain reflectrometres, etc and you'll see this isn't very much money at all on an industry level.

 

[dcheming]

I was just checking out a Tektronix CSA8200 in one of the Laser labs at OSU tonight. Check out the price sometime on this bad-boy!

 

[JahJahBinks]

well, it has very high bandwidth and sampling rate. Precision instruments are always on the pricy side.

 

[lini]

Xakepa: A Hameg from Sweden? Are you sure? Afaik, Hameg is German - with production & development in Germany and France...

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini

 

[Blind Tree Frog]

if you don't need much, this might work
http://www.mitedu.freeserve.co.uk/Prac/winscope.htm
http://www.mitedu.freeserve.co.uk/Do...s/download.htm

(stumbled across it while looking for info on converting old tv's to oscilloscopes)


But yeah, percision instruments tend to have a nasty habit of being expensive. Fortunately, the manufactures sometimes think that the customer wants a little something more when they are spending that much and does an excellent job of presentation and packaging (cherry cases for example). This doesn't seem to happen so much with lab equipment though.

edit:
actually with that scope and something supplying source signals (like sweepgen -- http://www.satsignal.net/) that should be more then enough for someone getting into this hobby. Well, need a DMM still, but still, not a bad way to start since it's all free.

 

[Xakepa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lini Xakepa: A Hameg from Sweden? Are you sure? Afaik, Hameg is German - with production & development in Germany and France... Greetings from Hannover! Manfred / lini

All apologies, my bad "Made in Frankfurt, Germany", HM1507-ver. 3.02.

I always thought it's swedish...dunno why...btw, their manual is HORRIBLE, I know only how to get to the settings I need.