My scope probe went bad and I wasted 3 hours chasing a ghost signal

I was trying to fix an old amplifier from the 80s last weekend and kept seeing this weird 60Hz ripple on the output. Spent like 3 hours swapping caps, checking grounds, even pulled the transformer to test it. Finally grabbed a different probe out of my drawer and the ripple was gone. The old probe had a broken ground clip that was just dangling there. Made me feel like an idiot but hey, at least I learned to check my tools first from now on. Has anyone else gotten burned by bad test leads or probes before?

2 comments

2 Comments

jennifer_west29d ago

Three hours on a broken ground clip?

holly_gonzalez6129d ago

Oh come on, 3 hours isn't that bad for stuff like this. I've spent entire weekends chasing down a bad solder joint that was barely visible. A broken ground clip on a scope probe is pretty basic stuff to miss. But I get it, you get tunnel vision when you're deep in troubleshooting mode and forget to check the simple things first. Honestly, if 3 hours is your worst loss from bad test gear, you're doing pretty good compared to some of the stories I've heard.