Rigol probe issues

[Steve]

Hey all,

For others with Rigol probes I wonder if you also have problems... recently one of my probes stopped working, I as assuming the worst, I watched some videos where people were repairing the end-piece that clips on etc. Then the other night I was watching Adrians Digital Basement (A1200 restore) and guess what, he had the same problem as me. Turns out it's the ground clip that's faulty, not the entire probe... and sure enough I checked mine and yes, the ground clip is the culprit. Anyway, thought I'd share in case people are thinking they need to replace their entire probe like I originally thought:

[stephen_usher]

The ground clips are always a problem on cheap probes.

On the Hantek I have it's the connection between the clip and the probe which is the issue, with the "C" clip no-longer reliably making contact with the barrel of the probe.

[Steve]

You say cheap probes, but look how much a Rigol probe costs to replace.. about £100. Cheap knock-off probes go for around £40.

[stephen_usher]

For oscilloscope probes £100 is still at the cheap end.

[exxos]

I gave up paying "lots" for probes. I mostly break them before I get much use anyway. Or they don't last long etc.

I started buying these.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002586807848.html

Cheap as chips.. I've paid from like £20 to £100 for a probe..can't say quality is any good on any of them. But it was costing me a fortune in probes over the years. So I just buy the cheap china ones now. If they only last a year, then no big deal.

[ijor]

You say cheap probes, but look how much a Rigol probe costs to replace.. about £100.

Really? Are you talking about an active probe, or a high bandwidth one? As far as I can see the basic Rigol passive probe costs about 40 USD, or I miss something?

[mikro]

I was also like "wait, what?" -- I paid such money for really good probes (https://sensepeek.com/pcbite-probes, thanks @agranlund!).

Time to change your supplier, Steve. ;-)

[Steve]

I was also like "wait, what?" -- I paid such money for really good probes (https://sensepeek.com/pcbite-probes, thanks @agranlund!).

Time to change your supplier, Steve. ;-)

Ohh they look great @mikro I'll check them out :)

[ijor]

I paid such money for really good probes (https://sensepeek.com/pcbite-probes, thanks @agranlund!).

No idea that something like this was available. Does the "hands free" mechanism really works? Can you use it for probing PLCC chips, like Blitter? Or this is mostly for probing on board traces?

[agranlund]

No idea that something like this was available. Does the "hands free" mechanism really works? Can you use it for probing PLCC chips, like Blitter? Or this is mostly for probing on board traces?

I think they are crazy good (to be fair, I don't have much experience with other ones to compare with)
I've probed socketed as well as directly soldered PLCC's without trouble with them.

You can pretty much stick them on anything, tiny legs on fine-pitched smd's included, and they generally stay put even if you accidentially bump them a little bit.


EEVblog did a bit on an older version of the probes: