Hi everyone,
I want to share my thoughts coming in my mind when I´m observe the market what current probes for scopes concerns.
First thought, it seems that probes for scopes aren´t much desired by customers - passive probes, active probes, differential probes for voltage are more than enough there.
But current…?
Either they´re for AC measuring only, because of it´s simple design you can get a couple of them on the market, no big deal.
Or they´re for DC and AC measuring.
Then a hall sensor is used.
You can get it from hantek for a few bucks, or from owon, or by some brands using the same thing ( pintek = rigol = siglent = lecroy = keysight = rohde&schwartz).
It starts from appx 50 bucks and ends at 1000 bucks, depending from the bandwith and the brand itself.
But all have in common, they aren´t much precisely, in higher current ranges measures failures lies up to 15% and much more.
Also by the 1000 bucks probes
You can buy a hantek cc-65 probe for 50 or a rohde&schwartz for 1000....differences between them are not so much as you would expected by the spending money.
Yes, a little deviation occurs, bandwith is a little bit better, noise level also.
But in general, it was crap.
To get a proper probe, you must take a huge step what pricing concerns.
4000, 5000, 6000 bucks...
These probes can therefore costs much more than your scope itself, wtf?!
And there is nothing between - Either you spend up to 1000 for a "crap probe" or you must take the big step and spend minimum 4000.
Why?
OK, to be honest, probes must have a proper supply, real noiseless for the small outputlevel. ( Think about good old tektronix system : Inputlevel must be 10mV on scope)
And to avoid saturation of the core element ( the reason why "cheap" probes have such a great measure failure on higher currents) you must have a compensation circuit for it.
Proper power supply and compensation circuits, OK, this can´t be cheap to realize.
In the 1970´s....
But we have 2020 now and it seems, today it can´t be affordable also.
Why ?
Can´t believe it...
Martin