I would appreciate any insight into hand held oscilloscope value

We have had good luck with the Fluke handhelds and the AEMC handheld. The only catch has been trying to keep rechargable batteries charged for the next use.

Charles Perry P.E.

Ferme le Bill

I bought the Fluke 199B off Ebay for $1400.I doubt that falls into anyones catagory of cheap.

I also am having battery problems. Not only do the batteries discharge quickly (typically in a day or so sitting idle), the charger almost never works properly.

Sometimes there is power, sometimes there isn't. I have a theory. I think a capacitor is bad. When you first plug it in, so much current flows into the charger you get an over load and it shuts down. If you unplug it and retry often enough it will hold. I leave the charger plugged in all the time now.

I can use some help myself on an other issue. Are there any books that explain in more detail what this tool can do and how to use it? The manual just isn't much help. I spent a lot of money on it and so far I haven't used it much. I wrote to Fluke and their suggestion was to address questions to their engineers. That isn't the same as being able to sit down with a book.

Thank you for any help or pointers you can offer.

Frank

Fluke is p0robably fine, but half an order of magnitude greater than I would like to spend.

Bill

-- Ferme le Bush

oscilloscopes models vary greatly in features and specs. you need to ask yourself "why exactly do i need this tool?"

if is for servicing CBs and ham radio a bandwidth higher then 30 MHz is called for. if its for looking at audio a low cost low spec 'scope should be fine if its for lab grade measurements of microwaves, be prepared to spend a small fortune. do you need storage? dual trace? xy plot? differential input? delayed sweep? probe calibration? what input impedance?

if you can not see that the above questions (and more) are nessessary you need much more than a book.

suggestion on your existing unit: discard batteries and buy new. sounds to me like the nicads are shorted and the charging shock clears then temporarily

I guess you're right about the batteries. It looks like they cost $100. The charger is almost as much. Ouch!

Frank

I am looking for cheap! Circa $200. A bandwidth of 25Mhz would be great. I would spring for higher price for significant performance improvement. Fluke just is out of the question.

Bill

-- Ferme le Bush

you up for building a kit?

wanna convert yor laptop?

try taking the battery pack to a "battery plus" store or similar. i have found they can often build custom packs for much less then a "factory" replacement.

That one is tempting. You got to watch out that the price is in sterling and therefore circa $300.

Bill

One good reason for the hand held is that you do not need to worry about accidental shorts to ground even without using differential amplifiers for looking at 120/240 power conductors. That presumes that there is enough internal voltage blocking.

Bill

-- Ferme le Bush