So I was browsing randomly for test equipment one day, and saw this on Valuetronix: a Tektronix TDS 310 50MHz 200MSa/s dual-channel digital oscilloscope.
The price was a little hard to believe: $60 (US of course, but the CADUSD exchange rate is recovering after the dip). It did say refurbished on the ad, so I assumed it can't be seriously FUBAR. Out of cal, perhaps, maybe old, dirty, and beat up - but not DOA. I couldn't resist - I had to order the thing. One can never have too much test equipment, you know.
It arrived the other day and I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of 100MHz x10 probes, a manual on CD, and an extra power cord included. Best of all, when I plugged it in, it passed all self-tests and had no issues displaying the internal calibration signal (you know, that 1kHz 5Vpp square wave). Upon further testing and inspection, this thing looks and acts like a brand new 'scope - it's clean and new-looking, and I couldn't find any problems with the timebase, front end, or measurement accuracy.
Not bad for a basic 'scope - it doesn't have option 14, so no RS-232 or GPIB, the only way to get data out of it is to take a picture of the screen...but that's OK, I have my TDS 510 for that. (Also the LeCroy 9850AM if I can ever solve the offset cal issue - I suspect the DAC.)
-mark.
The price was a little hard to believe: $60 (US of course, but the CADUSD exchange rate is recovering after the dip). It did say refurbished on the ad, so I assumed it can't be seriously FUBAR. Out of cal, perhaps, maybe old, dirty, and beat up - but not DOA. I couldn't resist - I had to order the thing. One can never have too much test equipment, you know.
It arrived the other day and I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of 100MHz x10 probes, a manual on CD, and an extra power cord included. Best of all, when I plugged it in, it passed all self-tests and had no issues displaying the internal calibration signal (you know, that 1kHz 5Vpp square wave). Upon further testing and inspection, this thing looks and acts like a brand new 'scope - it's clean and new-looking, and I couldn't find any problems with the timebase, front end, or measurement accuracy.
Not bad for a basic 'scope - it doesn't have option 14, so no RS-232 or GPIB, the only way to get data out of it is to take a picture of the screen...but that's OK, I have my TDS 510 for that. (Also the LeCroy 9850AM if I can ever solve the offset cal issue - I suspect the DAC.)
-mark.
