But what if you just remove the mains earth connection to any equipment while you are probing. Wouldn't that isolate it from mains referenced earth making it isolated?
It would, most of the time (if the equipment uses isolated transformers inside for its power supplies).
But them using this piece of equipment can become dangerous, because it's no longer earthed, whereas you still are. Even if you put on thick shoes and think you are otherwise isolated, you could still get a minor shock when you touch something live, because of body capacitance. I've experienced that on 220/230V mains and it still hurts a bit. On 110/120V, you probably won't feel it.
In any case, this IS still dangerous, regardless of line voltage. One wrong move (touching something earthed/grounded while also touching live equipment/lines) and you will get shocked quite badly.
Please watch this eevblog video before going anywhere near a CRT monitor or Switch mode power supply with the scope.
It is very very important to know about the dangers of an oscilloscope before using it.
That was very interesting and I must admit i never thought about the earth and mains referebced earth being differnt. But what if you just remove the mains earth connection to any equipment while you are probing. Wouldn't that isolate it from mains referenced earth making it isolated?
Thats why you need an isolation transformer when working on the hot side of a smps, on the cold side of this monitor you will be fine.
Even some of the early crt tv's had a completely hot chassis, so you had to be carefull and not have any ground touch the chassis when the set was open. touch a grounded cable and bang out went the bridge and fuse at a minimum. the cable input was actually isolated.
Please watch this eevblog video before going anywhere near a CRT monitor or Switch mode power supply with the scope.
It is very very important to know about the dangers of an oscilloscope before using it.
i wasnt sure what probes too get for mine as my scope is only 20mhz i got these like you I had no info on what the input resistance or capacitance of this scope was mine was about £6.00 delivered https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/P6020-Hig...item41df7233d4
Thanks for that info Stj. I didnt get any probes with it and may have just ordered the wrong ones. I bought these ones as they looked like the best fit for this scope buty from what ive read I may be wrong. I have no info on what the input resistance or capacitance of this scope is. Ive seen on manuals for other ISO-TECH models of this scope that the input impedances are 1mΩ - 20Pf if that makes sense.
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Anyway hope these ones i ordered will do for now
That scope looks like it will work just fine, I would'nt worry too much about the deposits on the high voltage leads, clean it off of you like, It looks like this scope was used in a humid/salty environment. That would not deposit on the leads unless it was in use.
I just had to lift the cover & take a peek inside. Its prety clean except for a kind of white soft almost chalky coating over the HT lead. It might be from damp where it was kept in his garage. I didnt want to remove it in case it was a special anti-static coating that meant to be there. I am sure its not conductive. Take a look.. As soon as those probes arrive I can get back onto fuixing my monitor which I tried again yesterday and it definitely has no picture. Its a EGA monitor and I think its the only computer and monitor that I have here that uses EGA so cant test it on anything else. I cant see the PC being at fault so sure its the monitor.
Hopefully this Scope wil now give us an answer.
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