Monday, June 19, 2017

Current Clamp Probes for DSO6014L

Looking for clamp-on current probes compatible with our surplus Agilent DSO6014L rack-mount scopes. Agilent makes a wide range of current clamp probes, but many use an ungainly external power supply to achieve sensitivity, others are not the right type or too cheap, leaving just a couple of good candidates.

The basic probe is this 100MHz 15A range model. It is compatible with a wide range of Agilent oscilloscopes including ours. It has contacts for Agilent's proprietary "auto probe" system, which seems great except I later noticed that our 6014L's seem to be an antique revision that don't have the contacts so I'm not sure how this probe feature will work for us. The datasheet avoids revealing the probe's sensitivity as far as I can tell, but the range is about right for what we need it for. At $3.8K it's pretty expensive. http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-1912832-pn-N2893A/100-mhz-15a-ac-dc-current-probe
Agilent apparently makes a cheaper version of the 100MHz probe which is apparently only sensitive up to 50MHz which still isn't too bad. It's only $2.4K. http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-2202912-pn-1147B/50-mhz-15a-ac-dc-current-probe
There is a series of Agilent clip-on current probes which go up to quite high current ranges, which we wouldn't need, but these are the ones that require the external power supply. The lowest range probe out of this series has a 15A range similar to the basic probe, and interestingly its datasheet reveals that the lowest DC current that it can measure is 5mA. http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-2029388-pn-N2783B/100-mhz-30-arms-ac-dc-current-probe
This probe is the equivalent 50 MHz probe with a single BNC connector and external power supply.http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-2029380-pn-N2782B/50-mhz-30-arms-ac-dc-current-probe
Here is the power supply module for these current probes. Oddly, it has three outputs, and even odder it has $1000 price tage: http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-1062115-pn-N2779A/power-supply-for-the-n2780-83a-b-current-probe
These probes seem to have great sensitivity, but reading a little closer reveals that they are actually inline shunt probes, not clamp-on: http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-2229629-pn-N2820A/3-mhz-50ua-high-sensitivity-ac-dc-current-probe-2-ch?pm=PL
Rohde&Schwartz makes current probes, but they're mostly for high current ranges and are also fantastically ugly! Here is the basic probe that's closest to Agilent's. Also their specs for the probe don't make much sense as it is rated in V/A which is impedance?: https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/product/rtzc15b-productstartpage_63493-158914.html
The cost for the Agilent current clamp probes was a little hard to bear, so looking into cheaper options, Agilent makes a 100kHz probe (with a k) that's a mere $600. But it apparently has terrible sensitivity specs. It also doesn't have the fancy "auto-probe" feature, which makes it basically generic: http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-2329609-pn-1146B/100-khz-100-a-4-current-probe?nid=-32553.1066112&cc=US&lc=eng
Similar to the Agilent cheap probe, BK precision. makes one with about the same specs and price.http://www.newark.com/b-k-precision/cp62/current-clamp-probe-ac-dc-100a/dp/08X6498
Here's the cross-reference of probe compatibility to oscilloscope modelhttp://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/5968-8153EN.pdf
For some reason, here's a fancier catalog of probes, probably updated for newer scope lines: http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/5968-7141EN.pdf
Here is the online tool for comparing and contrasting probes. It doesn't seem to yield the same results as the documents, which calls its accuracy into question: http://www.keysight.com/en/pc-1000000101%3Aepsg%3Apgr/oscilloscope-probes?cc=US&lc=eng&pm=SC

One day I noticed that our surplus Agilent DSO6014L rack mount scope was lacking the "autoprobe" contacts that the basic current probes seemed to use. Clearly the current probe needs to be supplied with power to operate the sensor. So it seems that the basic current probe might not be compatible with the scope.
Interestingly, the photos of the DSO6014L in Keysight's catalog presently do show that it seems to have the autoprobe contacts. http://www.keysight.com/en/pdx-x202272-pn-DSO6014L/low-profile-oscilloscope-100-mhz-4-analog-channels
The datasheet for the DSO6014L has an answer buried deeply in the "Performance Characteristics: , where it says that the 500 MHz and 1 GHz models have "Auto probe sense and AutoProbe interface" but the 100MHz has just "Auto probe sense". Presumably this is not enough to support the N2893A and 1147B current probes. http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/5989-5470EN.pdf

interestingly, there exists a kit for adapting an auto-probe to a simple BNC scope using an adapter, as shown in this drawing, but it's a full $3000 of extra stuff, and supposedly this won't work for me anyhow because it's for 50 ohm impedance rather than 1M ohm: http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/E2696-92000.pdf
Here's more on the probe adapter: http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-155489-pn-N1022A/probe-adapter