Broken probe?

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rsandru
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Joined: Tue Mar 14, 2017 4:56 pm

Broken probe?

Post by rsandru »

Greetings everyone,
I've recently had one of my probes start behaving erratically and finally not showing a signal anymore unless I switch it to the 1:1 attenuation mode.

To the best of my knowledge, the probes I have (basic 60Mhz type, similar to https://www.picotech.com/accessories/pa ... cope-probe) are entirely passive so the only thing I can come up with is that the 1:1 - 1:10 switch has somehow gone bad. As I almost never use it, they're on 1:10 all the time, this would be surprising.

Any thoughts about a way to fix it or at least investigate where the problem is coming from?

For information my second probe of the same model works just fine. I did try swap them to both scope inputs and I've ruled this part out: it's really the probe itself.

Given that they are quite inexpensive it looks like I will have to buy another one but I'm still a bit puzzled...

Any suggestions welcome :-)

Regards,
Robert

Martyn
Site Admin
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Location: St. Neots

Re: Broken probe?

Post by Martyn »

It does sound like the switch, or the connections to the 9MOhm resistor that is switched inline when on the x10 setting. Maybe the contacts are dirty or corroded, operating the switch a few times can sometimes solve this, otherwise the best course of action would be a replacement.
Martyn
Technical Support Manager

rsandru
Newbie
Posts: 0
Joined: Tue Mar 14, 2017 4:56 pm

Re: Broken probe?

Post by rsandru »

Hi Martyn,
that's what I thought as well. I tried to "clean" it by moving it several times back and forth without any results.

In the end I went ahead and bought replacement probes.

Best regards,
Robert

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