Gentlemen, I thank you for the input. At this point, I think I will attempt to employ the sampling route as far as is possible. I am aware of some of the limitations such as the requirement for attenuating larger signals, and the fragility of the inputs on the old sampling plugins. I had not considered however, that these old systems were only good with repetitious signals, and did not catch and display the odd, one time or occasional phenomena. That is something I need to think about.
There may indeed be a 7000 series 'scope in my future. I have sort of looked at them over the years, but never felt I would ever have the need of one. Given the limitations of the 1960's technology I possess, my desires may have to be overridden by practicality.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On 5/8/22 12:37, Tom Gardner wrote:
Old sampling scopes that have a diode sampler at the front end manage to avoid problems associated with more modern scopes.
A problem with scopes with amplifiers (and/or ADCs) is that they take a long time to recover from overload. The usual rule of thumb is therefore to ensure the entire signal is visible on the display, not off the top or bottom of the display.
That is a killer problem when trying to measure small perturbations on large (i.e. > the display) signals. A classic example of that is measuring the 0.1% settling time of an opamp, where you are trying to measure deviations that are only 1000th of the signal.
Diode ring samplers avoid the overload problem, because their operation is to detach the scope's amplifiers from the signal except when the signal is being sampled. Hence earlier large signals don't reach the amplifiers/ADCs, and hence they are not saturated.
Most people won't have such requirements, but when you have them you need to avoid non-solutions.
On 08/05/22 17:08, JOE wrote:
Vintage sampling scopes can provide capabilities that are pretty amazing given the technology available at the time.?? However,? they can be tricky to set up, are only usable with repetitive signals,? and are definitely tricky to maintain and repair.
I'd suggest a SS analog scope to use to work on the units you collect.?? There are many to choose from.?? My preference for every day work is a 7K mainframe with an assortment of plug-ins.? Personally I use a 7904A.? I also have sampling systems,? modern digital scopes.?? They all have their uses. If you do go with a modern digital scope I'd suggest a DPO.? They better mimic displays you're accustomed to with an analog scope.
