Brads Electronic Projects Forum

Im a student looking to set up a mini-lab for some hobby/personal projects at home any suggestions on where to find some simple startup level oscilloscopes and DC supplies and such. Nothing fancy Ive seen a couple DC supplies for 60-80$ online and some very decent oscilloscopes for about 250$ something in that range is what Im looking for if you guys know any good stores/sites it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

If you're really hard up, you could use a wall-wart or table-top power supply from Jameco or similar distributor, then add an LM317T (or similar) linear regulator on a little breadboard with a pot to set the voltage. Analog oscilloscopes can sometimes be gotten for free from schools or other places that are replacing them with newer equipment. Note however the extreme importance in getting good oscilloscope probes with/for it. I have more about it in the basic workbench equipment page of my 6502 primer.

You can get some pretty inexpensive USB oscilloscopes on ebay and sites like that. They reduce the cost significantly since they get rid of all the buttons and display and just use the computer screen and interface. I have a low cost UNI-T UT2052CL which is quite good however seems to have a weird noisy display when I am down at the really low period settings. I would recommend checking out reviews of different budget scopes before buying or as Garth said, you may find a second hand one for free or quite cheap. Even analog scopes are perfectly fine.

As for a power supply you can certainly get a budget bench top supply for less than $100 or even less than $50 however you should check reviews first because I dare say that just about all supplies these days are switching power supplies and if not designed correctly, they can give a lot of output ripple.

For me, I am a budget type of guy and normally just buy on ebay or aliexpress.