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Tried an older oscilloscope I found at a surplus sale last month
Picked up a Tektronix 465 from a government surplus auction for $40. Figured it would be a nice backup for basic waveform checks. Hooked it up to a faulty Garmin G1000 display controller and it actually showed me a glitch in the power rail that my fancy digital scope was smoothing over. The old analog CRT caught a 60Hz ripple that the digital one missed entirely. Now I keep it on my bench for initial power supply checks before pulling out the digital gear. Has anyone else run into situations where older test gear found problems the newer stuff missed?
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garcia.charles2d ago
Oh man, yeah that 60Hz ripple is a classic analog scope thing. I've caught the same issue on power supplies where a digital scope just averages it out and makes you think everything's fine. The 465 is a beast for that kind of stuff, I'd keep it around too.
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the_miles2d agoMost Upvoted
Buddy of mine fixed a noisy amp with an old Tek scope and found ripple a digital missed entirely.
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