Does anyone know these scopes? And are they any good?
Voltcraft 2040 dual trace 20MHz oscilloscoop
-Coupling: DC - AC - GND
-Vertical: 5mV/div -5V/div
-CH1 , CH2, ALT, CHOP, ADD, INV
-Hold Off
-Time/div : 1µs - 2s
-Trigger select: 1, 2, 1/2, EXT
-Triggercoupling: AC, DC, LF, HF
-Triggerlevel adjestment
-Time delay
-Component test
-Beam find
Don't know the age of the thing...
Marc
Voltcraft 2040 dual trace 20MHz oscilloscoop
-Coupling: DC - AC - GND
-Vertical: 5mV/div -5V/div
-CH1 , CH2, ALT, CHOP, ADD, INV
-Hold Off
-Time/div : 1µs - 2s
-Trigger select: 1, 2, 1/2, EXT
-Triggercoupling: AC, DC, LF, HF
-Triggerlevel adjestment
-Time delay
-Component test
-Beam find
Don't know the age of the thing...
Marc
Figures don't tell the whole story...
It's a strange thing, but oscilloscopes are personal things. The reason that many people like Teks is that the triggering has (traditionally) been better. But its difficult to put a number to good triggering. Similarly, some CRTs give a clearer trace than others.
At the 20MHz level (very basic), there probably isn't much between one oscilloscope and another. I would guess that this Voltcraft oscilloscope is fairly recent because of the inclusion of holdoff and delay, but component testing is a gimmick.
Unless you absolutely need the facilities of a new oscilloscope, second-hand oscilloscopes are much better value.
It's a strange thing, but oscilloscopes are personal things. The reason that many people like Teks is that the triggering has (traditionally) been better. But its difficult to put a number to good triggering. Similarly, some CRTs give a clearer trace than others.
At the 20MHz level (very basic), there probably isn't much between one oscilloscope and another. I would guess that this Voltcraft oscilloscope is fairly recent because of the inclusion of holdoff and delay, but component testing is a gimmick.
Unless you absolutely need the facilities of a new oscilloscope, second-hand oscilloscopes are much better value.
That Voltcraft is sold for 140€.
A good price. At least I think so.
I think I have seen the brand before, but (if my memory is correct) about fifteen to twenty years ago.
Marc
A good price. At least I think so.
I think I have seen the brand before, but (if my memory is correct) about fifteen to twenty years ago.
Marc
Windows PC : AltGr + e
Should work if you have one of the famous patches installed...
Marc
PS Do not confuse with the pound sign...
Should work if you have one of the famous patches installed...
Marc
PS Do not confuse with the pound sign...
Perhaps Ken L (who bought one earlier in this thread) can help? You could try Tek, but they may not support a product more than ten years old. Second-hand equipment dealers are often able to provide photo-copies of manuals.
Salut Bricolo
Are you looking for a service manual, or an operators manual? This guy sells a scanned service manual for about $24: http://www.aa4df.com. I have never dealt with him, but it's not much of a risk.
I also have some experience with the 2232, and it's predecessor the 2230. Let me know if you have a specific question about using it. I might be able to help. If I haven't fried too many braincells in the meantime.
Cheers, BC
Are you looking for a service manual, or an operators manual? This guy sells a scanned service manual for about $24: http://www.aa4df.com. I have never dealt with him, but it's not much of a risk.
I also have some experience with the 2232, and it's predecessor the 2230. Let me know if you have a specific question about using it. I might be able to help. If I haven't fried too many braincells in the meantime.
Cheers, BC
Re: Salut Bricolo
I'm looking for the operator's manual.
The questions I have for now are
-what is the "select waveform" button?
-why, when I use both timebases in store mode, don't I see the selected part of the curve in the second timebase? (I see another part of the graph)
-can I connect it to a computer to get data?
BC108man said:Are you looking for a service manual, or an operators manual? This guy sells a scanned service manual for about $24: http://www.aa4df.com. I have never dealt with him, but it's not much of a risk.
I also have some experience with the 2232, and it's predecessor the 2230. Let me know if you have a specific question about using it. I might be able to help. If I haven't fried too many braincells in the meantime.
I'm looking for the operator's manual.
The questions I have for now are
-what is the "select waveform" button?
-why, when I use both timebases in store mode, don't I see the selected part of the curve in the second timebase? (I see another part of the graph)
-can I connect it to a computer to get data?
I found that for the basics of audio a used B&K from e-bay for about $75 filled the bill. Any oscillation problems that a DMM can't detect show up and I can see any nasties when clipping. There are other things that might be nice but these have been the important on's for me. If I had the cash to be shopping in the $500 range, I would consider a Pico-Tech or Velleman unit that uses the PC monitor for a display but uses an external module so you are not limited to the resolution of a sound card. Both come with FFT soft ware which is a big plus.
Oh no! For $500 you can do much better than that! A used Tek or HP will be far better. FFT is nice, but oscilloscopes don't have much bit depth, so don't expect to be able to use it as a distortion analyser.
For my own edification, what would be considered adequate bit depth. The newest Pico-Tech units claims 16.
Meant to add, that's with a 333kS/s sample rate. I'm not that familiar witnh what that implies for scopes used for audio.
16 bits is great. Trouble is, you also need a good sample rate for an oscilloscope. 20MS/s is adequate, but more is better. Digital only approaches analogue when the sample rate is really high. A 5GS/s oscilloscope makes a pretty good stab at looking like analogue.
sam9 said:
It means that if your input signal has anything above half that rate, it will be completely distorted. You now have a bandwidth of 167kHz. You might think that's enough, but it's not nearly enough. You need at least 20MHz.
Point taken. Same principle as bit rate in audio recoding - 2x the highest frequency. That definiately would not have identified some osciliation problems I've had.
Don't waist you time with pc scope. you loose all of the portabillity and won't have the resolution. A nice Tec 465 can be had on Ebay for $300. I went a little cheaper and got a B&K for $60 (only 20mhz) Works great and came with owner and service manual.
Lots of people talk about 7XXX tecs, but I would thing about size and weight if you don't have a permanent audio workbench like me.
Lots of people talk about 7XXX tecs, but I would thing about size and weight if you don't have a permanent audio workbench like me.
A B&K for about $60-70 is what I've actually got. In terms of benefit/$ it's about the best piece of gear I've got. I had an "oscillation situation"ot long ago that I would not have been aware of (until smoke appeared!) with the limited bandwidth of a PC scope. I was thinking more of augumenting it with affordable FFT capability even of limited to the audio band plus a little more.
For that use, one might be nice to have. Expecially if you also have some toher real time soundcard based speaker testing software on a machine dedicated to stereo stuff. If your talking about miked speaker test (or whole system test) a full duplex sound card can test speakers while ignoring room interaction. And it makes a decent function generator too.
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