Cheap oscilloscope

[cosminprund]

What should I look for in an cheap oscilloscope? Can an cheap oscilloscope help with MCU programming? I'll hopefully run MCU's as high as 20Mhz but the scope would probably be used for other things (watching an servo signal, an rs232 output, I can't think of anything else). I'd love to see links to actual products but unfortunately I'll need to find the scope in Romania so actual links might not be what I need  The only scopes I found so far in Romania are too slow (under 1Mhz) or too expensive. This is for a hobby so cost is a big issue. I allready spent too much on this

Cheap is an oscilloscope that's $750 or less including taxes and shipping.

[kd5kfl]

I would look for the words "Tektronix" or "Hewlett-Packard".

I would look for a Tek 400 series ( I have a 454 ) like the 422 on eBay now for ~$240.

i would look for an HP 1700 series ( I have a 1725 ).

You probably won't find them in Romania, because these were products of the Cold War era. But they do what I need for a very low price ( in the USA )

[cosminprund]

Thanks for the tip. Looking on ebay I can see lots of interesting oscilloscopes for $400 or less. Unfortunately I can't get it off ebay - scopes are heavy and shipping is expensive. I've looked on the Romanian market again: they're sloooow or they're hi-tech. The middle segment seems to be missing (acceptably good but not the latest technology).

How about an USB scope?
http://www.picotech.com/picoscope2000.html

Again, on the Romanian market I've only seen PicoScope 3000 series and 5000 series. The 3000 would be + $1000 if I add the European sales tax (that's 19% for Romania).

[mihies]

Check out this one:
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1223639021

It is dirty cheap and looks usable. I haven't tried it though.

[Admin]

I'll hopefully run MCU's as high as 20Mhz

Unless you are measuring the clock, you won't need 20MHz. I typically find myself measuring servo signals, PWM, serial BAUD rate, and power supply noise. That's closer to 1 or 2MHz.

You want to measure at about 10x+ the speed of the signal you want to see.

The USB oscilloscopes, although cheap, tend to operate at fairly low frequencies.

Of potential interest to you:
http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=1378.0
http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=1822.0

[want2learn]

I'd recommend the pds5022 from owon (only because i'm getting one after new year). Nice n cheap but still usable.
Affroman recommends this in his tutorial too.
http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=6105.0
Way cheaper than $750 and it's a proper scope not reliant on a pc.

[Admin]

fyi, Afroman told me his oscope is a cheap chinese fake, but that he was happy with it.

Here is where he got it:
http://www.saelig.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PSSA002&Category_Code=

And if you want to go real cheap, but still have a lot of features:
http://www.dpcav.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16330&cat=0&page=1&featured

[want2learn]

That scope from dpc isn't that bad for £50 postage included

[cosminprund]

I've watched Afroman's oscilloscope tutorials here: http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=6105.0 and I now know I want an "digital" oscilloscope. I want to be able to see serial transmissions (as in the video), I need to watch electrical noise and uC output. Considering I've never seen an oscilloscope and considering the price point on an scope I'd like to ask your opinion on this two scopes. I just don't want to risk misinterpreting the specs and finding out I got some piece of equipment that's not usefull for me:

Portable: http://www.metrafo.ro/info.html?cod=457652
Bench-top: http://www.metrafo.ro/info.html?cod=702253 (the 100Mhz column in those specs).

The bench-top one seems good but the portable one looks allot more interesting. Space is a real problem for me: I've got an 4 year old kid that thinks everything's his toy. Hi's allready playing with my multimeter, trying to "measure stuff" An oscilloscope with it's nice display and multitude of knobs and buttons would be iresistable.