Oscilloscope needs probe!

Thread Starter

Mike Nelson

Joined Dec 30, 2014
6
Hey,

I have a 1010A Ballentine scope that needs a probe. I have a probe for a 585a tektronix but don't know if they are compatable. When I hook them up to a 9V I get like a slight bump up on the crt on 10V per div. Does anyone know where I can get a probe?

Thanks,
Mike
 

Thread Starter

Mike Nelson

Joined Dec 30, 2014
6
Ah cool beans. I'm in for today so I'll just use some wire? The tektronix probe has all this caps and res. stuff and idk what that does. Just learned about transistors. Thanks man!
 
A "typical" scope probe is x10. Some Tek scopes have a tab, that changes the V/div otherwise you have to mentally do it.

Scope probes have what they call "compensation". You use the calibrator on the scope and adjust the "screw" somewhere on the probe so the wave is square.

There are probes which are switchable x1/gnd/x10

I don't even want to go into compensation for now except to say, it renders the effect of capacitance of the cables to nearly nothing.
 

BillB3857

Joined Feb 28, 2009
2,570
If you have an adjustment screw AND you have a switch between X1 and X10, the screw will only have an effect on the X10 function. Doe your scope have a CAL test point? If so, it should be providing a square wave output for you to look at with the scope. In the X10 position of your probe, the adjustment will help to make the square wave appear properly. One way, it will round off the rise and fall times and the other way it will cause overshoot of the rise and fall times. Adjust until the corners are square. That is called compensating the probe to match the input of the scope.
 
The V/div is way to low. The intensity is way to high. The trace isn't focused either. You need a decent trace and you don't have one.

I don't like his
explanations, but the end result is OK. Which is the effect of bad compensation.

He did a bad job of explaining how it works. In simple terms, we want to voltage divide the scope's input Z with the probes Z and not have any capacitance left over.

An insulated piece of wire will likely give a square edge. A piece of Coax may not.
 
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