Need advice on a new scope...

[martin martin]

My Tek 2236 is nearly 30 moons old and no longer stays on for more than a few minutes.  I am sure it's fixable, but on the other hand maybe time for a new digital!

What do you guys suggest for general use and of course clock fixing?

[gregebert]

I'm really happy with my HP16500A, and they are reasonably priced if you shop around. About 10 years ago I got mine with two dual-channel cards (100Mhz/200msps) and two logic analyzer cards (OK, dont laugh....50Mhz / 80 channels) and probes, pods, and manuals, for about 250 USD including shipping. It seems like a weird scope because it only has 1 knob, and uses a touchscreen. I remember when it first came out around 1989, and it was THE scope to have.

Digital scopes are a must-have so you can trigger/capture single events. There are better versions (16500B, 16500C) that have hard drives and allow you to login via Xwindows.

None of my designs run faster than 50Mhz, so the scope/logic analyzer works fine for me. I bought a second unit as a spare, but found enough good cards at low cost to have a second 4-channel scope + logic analyzer. 

For nixie work, and especially CRT/NIMO work, get a set of 100x probes.

That said, your Tek scope probably just has a dried-out electrolytic cap in the power supply.

[J Forbes]

that 2236 is so much nicer than my 2215, you really ought to fix it....   :)

[Nick Sargeant]

I have an HP54502A which has been my daily driver for years. Unfortunately that ceased to function one day, and I had to go and find another scope to fix it. (gnarly power supply issue) Now, I happened to have an HP16500A around the place, and by luck I found a 1GHz scope card for it, so after much shenanigans involving buying a small Dell computer with a floppy drive, installing FreeDOS on it so I could use LIFUTIL to write diskettes from images, I got the 16500A working. Then I got the HP54502A working - the one-shot capability of the 16500A to spot what was going on at power on was instrumental in the fixing (after replacing all of the big caps of course - YMMV but I'd also vote for just doing a cap job on the power supply of your fine machine)

The HP16500A is the superior beast technically as a scope, but it makes too much noise to be the replacement daily driver, so I reverted back to the HP54502A - which is also more like a 'real' scope in terms of the user interface. However, I still have an old analog 20MHz Hameg HM203 which was given to me, just because it's silent in operation, for some things a pure analog scope works better - and it takes up very little bench room. 

[Joe Croft]

My Siglent 1202X-E is a real nice scope for a digital scope. 200Mhz, 2 channels.

-joe

On Thu, Apr 20, 2023 at 10:44 PM martin martin <mcve...@gmail.com> wrote:

My Tek 2236 is nearly 30 moons old and no longer stays on for more than a few minutes.  I am sure it's fixable, but on the other hand maybe time for a new digital!

What do you guys suggest for general use and of course clock fixing?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/c712398f-d2c6-4bf2-a344-e579c55e9d3en%40googlegroups.com.

[Richard Scales]

At the risk of being thrown out of the group - for all fixing and related activities I got a £140 dual channel 'Hantek' scope from Aliexpress and it has been rock solid for the 5 years I've had it.

The current equivalent would be something like this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001845215723.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.89.79a739d44I0AEE&algo_pvid=8e4801c6-632d-48d6-946b-80ea3ee2baae&aem_p4p_detail=202304210536336849592695710280000384012&algo_exp_id=8e4801c6-632d-48d6-946b-80ea3ee2baae-44&pdp_npi=3%40dis%21GBP%21287.48%21155.23%21%21%21%21%21%402145279016820805933988046d0715%2112000017827964326%21sea%21UK%21720874442&curPageLogUid=0ARjNYpxmHuE&ad_pvid=202304210536336849592695710280000384012_9&ad_pvid=202304210536336849592695710280000384012_9

There have been occasions when I wished for just one more channel but I got over it!

 - Richard

[martin martin]

Thanks all!

I am going to try to fix the old girl and also explore new scopes.  I have read good things about Siglent and Hantek also!

~

mcve...@gmail.com

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/49aec248-c9a5-482a-a443-a34b27daf625n%40googlegroups.com.

[Adrian Godwin]

I went though a series of digital scopes before I found one I was really happy with. All were second-hand.

I had a 16500A, later upgraded to a 16500B. I didn't ever get the LAN option. On the positive side, it's a proper logic analyser with loads of inputs, clock and state triggering :  the mixed-signal scopes don't usually have enough inputs to deal with an Z80/68000 era bus. But the scope part is 400MS/s, 6 bits and a bit clunky. The whole thing is huge and noisy. 

I bought a cheap Owon with a TN screen. It was awful. Got rid of it.

I bought an early Rigol. Didn't like the very small screen. Sold it.

I bought an Agilent DSO7014A then upgraded it for free to MSO7054A spec (mixed signal, 500MHz, 4GS/s). It's great and even though it's obsolete now I will be using it for a long time. The 5000 and 6000 series are similar (see reviews by Mike's Electric Stuff) and can have a VGA screen attached for a larger display.

I also have a Hantek similar to the one Richard describes ut an MSO. It's not in the class of the Agilent as you might expect at 1/10 the price, and the digital inputs in particular are poor (no trigger) but it's useful as a portable. My feeling is that of the chinese scopes, Siglent and Rigol are the best of the bunch but I'm going mostly on hearsay - the one I owned is not representative of current models.

I think it's worth making cheap mistakes  to learn what you want, and worth spending a lot more if you use a scope every day as I do. And it took me 6 months to properly shift to using the Agilent from an analog Tek so do be patient and don't assume it will be instantly familiar if you have a long history with analog scopes.

The earliest ones in this list really just added one-off waveform capture. But the Agilent tries hard to be 'as good' as an analog scope along with all the digital bells and whistles. It's not an easy thing to do but there's a reason the frontrunners eventually stopped making analog scopes at all. However, the early ones don't match up so although I didn't buy new, I did learn what would be disappointing and used only as an alternative. 

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/49aec248-c9a5-482a-a443-a34b27daf625n%40googlegroups.com.

[theold...@gmail.com]

I have in my basement an unbuilt Heathkit 5 MHz scope! (Flea market find!) Interested? 😊 (I was thinking of using it to build a scope clock, but the thing will be huge)

 

If you are not used to a digital scope, they do have a learning curve although the number of on-screen measurements and hold functions are awesome. Yet I still often go back to one of my analog scopes, especially when working with low frequency stuff. Whatever you do, try to fix the old scope, and keep it handy.

 

I have as my main scope a 300MHz Tektronix TDS3250 scope, now 13 years old. It died recently. Turns out is has a Dallas (Clock / ram) chip with integrated battery. The battery died, the Dallas chip is unobtanium, and is very efficiently soldered into the board. No parts to be had. I found a chip in China, but since it is old stock, I have no idea how long that one will last. (I got the old chip out with my Hakko desoldering rig, and put in a socket)

 

There is a lot to be said for the old scopes!

 

Bill v.

--

[Kevin A.]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256029480775

On Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 11:44 PM martin martin <mcve...@gmail.com> wrote:

My Tek 2236 is nearly 30 moons old and no longer stays on for more than a few minutes.  I am sure it's fixable, but on the other hand maybe time for a new digital!

What do you guys suggest for general use and of course clock fixing?

[Paul Andrews]

The shipping seems a bit expensive 8-)

[Mac Doktor]

On Apr 21, 2023, at 1:47 PM, Paul Andrews <pa...@nixies.us> wrote:

The shipping seems a bit expensive 8-)

Subtract it from your offer. 8D

Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor"

https://www.astarcloseup.com

"There is no Main Street anymore except at Disneyland—and try and buy a gun there"—Hank Hill