I am looking to purpose a PC Scope and need to know which unit would be the best for my applications. I want to be able to measure voltage, current and the spike or spikes which occur during an electrical arc. I will be monitoring inrush currents, voltage spikes and the waveform the voltage spike causes. The testing has to do with the current spike a circuit breaker would see during an electrical event.
Thank you in advance for any assistance you can give me.
What size voltages are you looking at? If the voltage is going to go above ±20V then you will need to use an attentuating probe to bring it into range.
Do you have a desired spectrum bandwidth, or resolution that the scope should be?
I can't be sure, but it seems as though the poster is testing breaker limitations. Maybe durations of high current when "trip" takes place? Like you mentioned, the voltage is a major consideration here. I'm wondering myself if mains are involved.
With a bandwidth of 30MHz you would really need to use the PS3205 or PS3206 as these are the only scopes which would be able to see a 30MHz signal. Both of them have ±100mV ranges and above and so would be able to see a 0 to 0.1V signal.
I am not sure what FastFrame mode is, can you give me some more information as to how this works? I can then advise as to whether our products can do this. The software will certainly enable you to perform FFT.