Philips scopes - opinions - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: fenclu
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2012, 11:43:39 am
content: HiI found a bargain Philips PM3234 scope for 190 PLN (arround 50 USD). That's pretty unusual because a cheap Tektronix in Poland costs at least twice as much.So that got me thinking - are they any good the Philips scopes?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2012, 02:50:26 pm
content: Philips are pretty good. They are reasonably well built. Philips made scopes from before the time the germans came over to your country for a cup of tea...To well in the 1990. Then they sold the division to fluke. And it got killed.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2012, 03:09:08 pm
content: I've never been particularly fond of Philips gear,as they have very idiosyncratic ways of doing things.This is mainly a case of "what I was brought up on"---If I was from The Netherlands I'd probably love them!They are fairly solidly made,good performers,& are reasonably easy to work on.Also,being in Europe,even if you need special parts,they don't have to come from the other side of the world!

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2012, 03:28:37 pm
content: I have a PM3382 (2+2 channel 100MHz combiscope) which I use as my day-to-day 'scope and on the whole I'm pretty happy with it. The digital side isn't all that great (2x 100Ms/s and fairly short buffer) but the analogue side is good - in fact now I've got a faster sig gen I discovered that it will trigger up to about 500MHz! There's sod all gain left at that point, but you can get a stable trace.The main disadvantage is that they are fairly large and heavy and not exactly light on power consumption at about 120W.In general any of the PM338x (100MHz, combiscope), PM339x (200MHz combiscope), PM3082 (100Mhz analogue) or PM309x (analogue 200MHz) scopes are fairly good - I think these were among the last of the Philips 'scopes before they went to Fluke.The slightly earlier 'scopes with LCD readouts the PM3055/PM3065/PM3070 etc are also worth having.I have a couple of earlier models the PM3264's (100MHz 4 channel) but I need some time on the bench to get these going. All I can say is that they are even more "substantial" in their construction than the later 'scopes.There are also several Philips 'scopes that aren't really worth having. The early digital models have very low sample rates and aren't, I understand, all that easy to get going if they fail. There are also a lot of low bandwidth Philips 'scopes kicking around on ebay which aren't very interesting - I'd be inclined to put the 3234 in this category as it is only 10MHz.You should be able to do better for 50 euros or so.

author: david77
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2012, 05:02:52 pm
content: I'm not a big fan of Philips consumer products but the test equipment seems fairly decent.I've got the PM3212 2 channel 25MHz scope that I had to fix some time ago. There's very little unobtanium in there, as long as the HV side works these scopes should always be repairable.This particular scope is interesting as it's mains isolated and can even be powered from 12VDC. So no need for an isolation transformer wich could be handy in some situations.I wouldn't bother with a 10MHz scope though, I bet you could find something better.

author: fenclu
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2012, 06:04:45 pm
content: God, this is so frustrating. It's hard to find a sweet test gear in Poland. There are a lot of Tektronix scopes but they are very expensive. The only scopes you can find cheaply and easily are the russian ones (pretty stereotypical, eh?).I'll have to look longer, but i might have to get the 10MHz one. Maybe on german or english ebay?

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2012, 08:17:09 pm
content: Probably German ebay - not that they're especially cheap there but postage to Poland won't be as high as from the UK.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2012, 08:59:27 pm
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on June 10, 2012, 03:09:08 pmI'm from NL but I never liked Philips equipment for no good reason at all. Maybe its because it doesn't really stand out or the brown color depresses me.

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2012, 09:47:15 pm
content: I'll second the comment about the colour - the brown really is rather drab & 70'sThe one I have is a much less depressing cream.They all seem to be built like brick outhouses though, if they stop working as 'scopes you reallycoulduse them as boat anchors.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2012, 02:52:21 am
content: Quote from: fenclu on June 10, 2012, 06:04:45 pmDon't discount the Russki stuff,though.There was a thread earlier,on where a guy from Lithuania was looking for an Oscilloscope.I suggested there may be some old Soviet made stuff around cheap.Another poster was of the opinion that they would mainly be junk by now.When I Googled,I found quite a few that were still in service,& most of the people who had them were quite happy with them.They're not up to Tektronix or HP standard,but are in the same class,or slightly better than the later generations of Telequipments,etc.They do use some special bits,but there are workarounds on the 'Net,so if you can pick up an old Russian one "dirt cheap" ,it may be the way to go.If the Philips was a bit cheaper,I'd say "go with it",as you can still do a lot of good work with a 10MHz 'scope,but it does seem expensive for what you get.I never realised how spoilt we are in Australia for good old Teks,etc---I bought my 7613 for $A135 a few years back,& could have picked up a Philips PM3055 for the same price,or a Tek 7704 for $A150 at a local mini-hamfest,a month or so back.That's an idea,too,look out for Hamfests in your area.Hams are known for "having short arms & long pockets",so they may be able to point you at some cheap gear.The downside is you may get the "bug",become a Ham,& spend all your money on Radio stuff!

author: fenclu
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2012, 01:35:38 pm
content: Oh, it's the currency as well. 50 bucks may be not that much in the US or Australia but here it's about 200 PLN which is pretty much. And most scopes here cost arround 600 PLN. We'll see.Oh, what do you think about Grundig scopes? Cause you can actually find one at the same price as that Philips.

author: krivx
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2012, 02:18:20 pm
content: I bought a PM3217 for about 75euro. 60Mhz, 2 channel, delayed timebase and very heavily built.