# New Toy!



## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Well, I finally got to a point where I was having trouble with some of my projects with my old analog oscilloscope, so I made a trip to eBay and scored this little cutie.

What a pleasure to work with today's technology, it's already helping me find out stuff working on a TMCC interface.


----------



## sstlaure (Oct 12, 2010)

Awww MAN....I thought it was going to be a new bang stick 

Nice O-scope.


----------



## broox (Apr 13, 2012)

Do you use an oscilloscope often? Cant say i've ever had a need for one :laugh:


----------



## Southern (Nov 17, 2008)

I use one on the cars at work. I wish I had one like that for home. good score John


----------



## plandis (Oct 5, 2011)

thats a nice one. I have a tectronix dual trace digital memory 100MHz. portable!!

hey John- what is a good tvs for loco protection? 30V bi-directional?


----------



## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

broox said:


> Do you use an oscilloscope often? Cant say i've ever had a need for one :laugh:


In my consulting gigs, I've used some of the big-buck stuff that I didn't have to pay for, but for $350, this one is a very nice addition. I use a 'scope pretty regularly, especially when I'm working on development of electronics stuff.


plandis said:


> thats a nice one. I have a tectronix dual trace digital memory 100MHz. portable!!


I'd like a Tectronix one, but I just can't justify the extra expense. Storage 'scopes have come down in price a bunch since I looked at them about a year ago, then the same capability was over $1000!


> hey John- what is a good tvs for loco protection? 30V bi-directional?


For an O-Scale TVS, I use a 36 volt one, still good protection, but a bit more headroom before clamping.

I use this one from Mouser. 1.5KE36CA.

Digikey also has the same part for a few cents more, but the shipping is cheaper, so if it's the only thing you're ordering, you may like their total price a bit better: 1.5KE36CA.


----------



## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

Glad to see you have a steady heartbeat there, John!

 

TJ


----------



## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

That is what it looks like.

Beep......Beep.....Beep.......Beep.....

Nice toy John, what do you do with it?


----------



## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Thanks guys. I use it for development, I'm working on a TMCC interface project and I finally figured it was time to invest.  Yes, for that picture it was just connected to a couple of signal generators. 

I'm building an interface to allow me to trigger stuff from reading the TMCC data stream. This will allow me to do all sorts of things in a locomotive or rolling stock, or even in an accessory, using the TMCC/Legacy remote.

Obviously, the 'scope also allows you to capture what's on the screen, and even has a computer interface to do data analysis on what you capture and updates if necessary. Here's an example, this is the trace of a bell command coming to the RailSounds board.


----------



## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

Thanks Doc.
Now I know what you do with it.:dunno:

Are they expensive?
Can you read your heart with that if you had the right wire hookups?


----------



## broox (Apr 13, 2012)




----------



## plandis (Oct 5, 2011)

that looks scary!


----------

