i have an ancient oscilloscope (an eico 460 i think its tube powered regardless) and i just nabbed a couple of signal generator programs earlier this week. now, the oscilloscope doesnt take modern oscilloscope probes, it uses ones similar to the ones on a DMM i think (they work anyway). is there a beginners guide to oscilloscope usage somewhere bearing in mind the age of my scope that would help me? like what kind of probes do i need? how do i calibrate it? how do i know if it needs calibration?
For most guitar needs, you don't need calibration. You want to see that you are getting a sine wave or not, noise on the line or not, mostly qualitative not quantitative. Does it have 2 banana plug ins or is it a large screw-in jack like some old microphones? If the latter, you can be sloppy with a shielded cable and use an alligator clip to the outer braid and solder the core to a probe point. This is dirt cheap, not very accurate but heck you can see something wtihout much investment.
From there, you can get probes that work with that scope, e-bay and hamfests would be the way.
it actually has 6 or so banana plug ins (v-in + and -, h in + and -, and a couple of others i dont remember off the top of my head) i will try to post pics tonight or tomorrow.
I don`t know if the conector is a good indicator of the age.
I have a 75khz RCA with BNC and a 500khz heathkit with bannana (both all tube)
I don't mean to hijack the thread in any way but....
I would appreciate the same info as asked by freak scene. I have just been given a Telequipment D33 (i think) loaded with Mullard valves. The scope is identical to this pic I found....
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a218/Night0wl/d33.jpg)
I haven't used an oscilloscope before and would appreciate any help/info on using these old types.
Thanks,
Shane
>is there a beginners guide to oscilloscope usage somewhere bearing in mind the age of my scope that would help me? like what kind of probes do i need?
Buy a BNC adaptor then use modern probes. For hobby stuff you don't need good probes, just get ones that aren't too fragile.
Probably use a PL-239(I think) to BNC, see WJ908 (available from many places)
http://www.electrovision.co.uk/cat/CAT_PAGE/wj_section/adaptors_bnc_plso259_ntype.htm
i didnt get a picture of it, but i found one. this is exactly what i have.
(http://tasha.eecs.umich.edu/Antiques/misc/EICO_460.jpg)
look very old but good for guitar stuff.
the problem with bannana is that if you put a electromagnetic field near the bannana conectors the noise will rise up.
what is the maximum frecuence?