Traditional scopes can be tricky to use when measuring higher voltages, you may need to use things like X10 or even X100 probes in order to drop the voltage to a level the scope can measure. I wouldn’t advise it for someone not familiar with how they work, though the fluke scopemeters are good for this type of thing as they can handle a wider range of voltages than a normal bench scope - bit spendy for an occasional user though.I thought I needed one of these recently and was quite pleased at the general prices on ebay. Turned out it was actually a spectrum analyzer which was not quite as affordable. From the minimal research I done they both look great learning tools and I wonder if a sillyscope would help me tinkering with all this 3phase stuff for my rotary converter. I understand better when I can visualize![]()
Nor me but I've always thought them interesting so looked for a use.Thanks for the replies chaps, it’s definitely something I know I won’t need
Scopes have many uses. They produce a visual display of voltages or currents, especially those that vary rapidly with time, being able to display and thus allow the measurement of electrical circuit events lasting many seconds down to only billionths of a second, which a multimeter will not be able to display. They're useful for teaching and learning about electronics. On vehicles, they can, for example, be useful for displaying the varying voltage signal from a Lambda sensor, the pulsed supply voltage to a fuel injector, signals coming from sensors, or the data on a canbus, and the observations made can help to trace and diagnose faults, or improve performance. A knowledge of electronics is needed to use them and to understand what they're telling us, but they can also help to develop that knowledge of electronics in the first place.
Here is a useful link:
http://autoditex.com/page/how-to-choose-an-automotive-oscilloscope-61-1.html
And another:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscilloscope