DIY Solder-In Oscilloscope Probes - Workbench Wednesdays 50

When you cannot get an oscilloscope probe into a tight spot, can you just use a piece of wire? Sometimes. When signal integrity matters, you CAN use a low-cost DIY solder-in probe. These probes attenuate the signal and use an oscilloscope’s high-bandwidth 50-ohm input. James shows how to build some solder-in probes when they work and when they do not work in this video. Special thanks to Shabaz on the element14 community for the guide used here.

Supplemental Content:

Bill of Material:

Product Name	Manufacturer	Quantity	Buy Kit
RF / Coaxial Cable Assembly, SMA Plug to SMA Plug, RG174, 50 ohm, 3.3 ft, 1 m, Black	MULTICOMP PRO	1	Buy Now
SMD Chip Resistor, 953 ohm, ± 1%, 125 mW, 0805 [2012 Metric], Thick Film, Precision	PANASONIC	1	Buy Now

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Jan Cumps over 4 years ago
There is a popular type of probes that opens up another avenue of options: the HP-9100.
These are generics, sold by several companies under their brand name (bitscope, or like mine: Velleman).

What's specific about them, is that you can remove the tip - just by pulling - and it exposes a coaxial connector:

If only we find a fitting counterpart, this could turn into a probe that's easily customisable.

Some measurements:
- the coax is 300 Ω
- the existing tip, in x10 mode, is almost 9 MΩ
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Jan Cumps over 4 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

I'm working on an alternative alternative :). Just finished building this - a bit frankenstein, turns the probe in a solder-in one, without phusically altering it.
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baldengineer over 4 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

Yes! THIS is exactly what I pictured when I saw your picture. There are so many connections where a square-pin style header is good enough (and very quick to do.)
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baldengineer over 4 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

Yes! THIS is exactly what I pictured when I saw your picture. There are so many connections where a square-pin style header is good enough (and very quick to do.)
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Jan Cumps over 4 years ago in reply to baldengineer

Here's my take on the design. Thanks for the inspiring Wednesday!
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Jan Cumps over 4 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

… same measurement on the Arduino UNO crystal:
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