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Author Topic: home made oscilliscope test leads  (Read 725 times)

2E0DED

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home made oscilliscope test leads
« on: November 11, 2018, 04:17:37 AM »

i brought a scope yesterday second hand and want to play around with it whilst waiting for a decent set of test leads to land.

can i just set up a bnc plug with two cables soldered on to it, and then run an old set of DMM leads from it?

its only crude measurements so i dont have to worry about perfect resualts

or are the bnc plugs started with coax? and if so 75ohm or 50 ohm and is there a set length for it to be f?irst before the splitter
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W9IQ

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RE: home made oscilliscope test leads
« Reply #1 on: November 11, 2018, 05:13:42 AM »

If you are just trying some basic experiments with it, the test lead method will work for you. You may pick up extra hum and RFI but it will get you started. The calibration won't be right but it doesn't sound like that is your interest at the moment.

Most test gear is based upon 50 ohm load impedances but that also won't matter if you are just futzing.

- Glenn W9IQ
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- Glenn W9IQ

God runs electromagnetics on Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the wave theory and the devil runs it on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday by the Quantum theory.

NZ4ZN

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RE: home made oscilliscope test leads
« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2018, 05:16:53 AM »

Be careful about overloading your o'scopes front end. Many commercial probes offer attenuation (1:10) along with their high impedance and can help prevent damage.
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N7EKU

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RE: home made oscilliscope test leads
« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2018, 07:34:14 AM »

Hi,

Give this a good read-through: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-use-an-oscilloscope/all

It gives a very good general description of oscilloscope and probes and their operation.

73,


Mark.
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Mark -- N7EKU/VE3

2E0DED

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RE: home made oscilliscope test leads
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2018, 11:32:22 AM »

cheers all
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KC9NVP

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RE: home made oscilliscope test leads
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2018, 04:46:23 PM »

What is the make and model of the scope?  Some of the earlier scopes that have a bandwidth of 5 MHz, regular meter probes/leads are find, where as going higher in bandwidth, say 20 MHz and higher, coaxial scope probes are better suited.  If you can tell us the make and model we can give you better information on what works.

Good luck and happy learning.

David
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