So I bought an oscilloscope... hmm how'd I do?

[Ray Gianelli]

That's a fine scope for your application. Clean front panel without a lot of controls for functions you'll rarely if ever use. Don't know how familiar you are with scopes but that helps when you're getting started.

Like Restorer-John said, Kenwood makes (made?) good test equipment. I have a Kenwood sine/square wave generator. It's a nice analog unit with knobs, which is what I want when I'm troubleshooting.

I think you'll be happy with it, and if you ever feel the need to upgrade you should have no trouble getting your money back out of it.

Oh, and it looks like the service manual is widely available. That's a plus.

 

[arts]

I built a DSO shell and frankly I'm impressed with it for what it does. However it's just not convenient to hold while you test. I wanted to get my feet wet with it and just a few days after FINALLY getting it to work I found the Kenwood and decided it was too much of a steal to pass up. I work on stereos and some guitar amps and build pedals. I think this will serve me well.

$74 bucks shipped and tested working by the owner.... https://www.ebay.com/itm/163001138088

Looks very clean and gently used. Dual trace and I'm giddy. (unless you guys think it sucks LOL) I've read on other forums that these are reliable but I'm not sure how repairable they are? Proprietary parts or common? How'd I do?

Oops,I never answered your question;got sidetracked as usual

Kenwood made fine quality test equipment that can rival most brands in terms of performance and long-term reliability.Their products are just not as common or as popular,especially in North America,where Tektronix and HP have traditionally ruled the roost.Good unit,and 20mhz is more than enough bandwidth for audio work.

Construction is thru-hole,generic dinosaur solid state,no weirdness. May need some electrolytics at this stage of the game,although parts quality is generally very good in these units.I would say fire her up and let her run for a day on the bench.

Owners manual: http://www.cieri.net/Documenti/Kenw...26 - 20 MHz Dual Trace Oscilloscope (Eng).pdf

Service manual: https://elektrotanya.com/kenwood_cs4025_sm_oscilloscope.pdf/download.html

 

[audiodummy]

Yeah that's a plus having easily attainable parts and service manual... I wish my 20MHz scope (Vu-Data) had its service manual easily available -- it uses regular off the shelf parts, through hole design.

The Tektronix scopes I have? Too many custom parts :-( At least (mostly) through hole and the service manual is available, but I've already blown and replaced a few custom parts...

Problem for all of my scopes: vacuum tube. Once the vacuum tube goes, the scope is gone. I've replaced one already after improperly servicing it. That costed an arm and a leg...

And yes these old scopes, if you know how to use them, they work just fine for most analog stuff one may run across. It's all these weird digital stuff with one off events that may require the special features, and a mixed signal scope or logic analyzer better fits the bill. And even with these tools, making heads or tails still can be a challenge with encryption or obfuscation...