End of Year Purchases

[Steve W]

I know that we couldn't survive without our table saw. One with a good table and a blade that cuts aluminum.

Priceless!

We also bought our first battery load tester. Get item to have.

[KenWittlief]

I accquired a nice piece of electronic test equipment on ebay recently that I have fallen in love with

its a Tektronix portable (battery powered)2 channel digital oscilloscope with a built in digital Volt / ohm meter (with a graphing function). It looks very much like a tricorder from the original Star Trek series!

The one I have is the THS710A (60MHz). I think tek discontinued this one and only sell the more expensive THS720A (100MHz) and THS730A (200MHz).

It has struck me that this instrument would be an excellent tool for any FIRST team, for anything from checking the voltage on batteries, ohming out connections, to testing/ demonstrating how the PWM signals work on the robot controller, victor outputs, measuring the loop time of the SW program, testing wheel encoders...

and since it runs for about 2 hours on its nicad battery its great for mobile equipment, like free-range robots.

I have seen them on ebay for $500 to ~$900 (used) with two probes and a good battery. New they go for $3k to $4k (depending on which model you get)

The basic model (THS710) should meet all the needs of a FIRST team.

If you have been thinking of getting a digital oscilloscope for your team, this one gets five thumbs up from me :^)