Having a good oscilloscope is also of great importance in electronics design and diagnostics. Here I was more budget
minded but also wanting to get the most for my investment. Research on the web led me to the Rigol DS1052E
Digital scope. By default it is a dual trace 50mHZ with storage. Web research also reveals many of these model
can be made a 100Mhz model with a simple software patch. I will maintain the 50Mhz for the time being as it
is sufficient for my needs.
My old Hickok DMM is wearing out and losing accuracy so here I decided on the newer B&K Precision 2709B DMM.
It includes frequency and capacitance measurements to compliment the Blue ESR above.
I found interesting reviews of the Rigol and B&K here on EEVBlog.
For more information Email Don
© , 2009, 2010, 2011 - 2030 Last edited:12/13/2010, Last edit 04/01/2018 by Don Lewis
A few years back I built an observatory with a ten foot diameter rotating dome with automatic shutter/window. It did not come with a controller so I designed one from the ground up. This Dome Controller worked out perfectly for both in dome and remote use of the observatory.
Test Equipment:
I work a lot on computers and monitors (particularly newer LCD flat screen type). I found my antique test
equipment was lacking and slowing me down. I didn't even have a simple capacitor or inductor tester. I always
enjoyed doing things for myself so I looked into my options. Shortly I came across (NOW DEAD LINK)
ANATEK Corp. and found two
kit instruments I wanted to try out. I selected the Blue ESR and Blue Ring Tester. These two instruments work very well to evaluate
a electrolytic capacitors ESR
Diagnostics / Repairs:
Recently I replaced the four Cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) in a large HP-W2207h display. This LCD monitor
has certain nice features such as portrait / landscape by physically rotating the screen.