DIY Oscilloscope Leads - I made it at TechShop

I picked up an old oscilloscope at a garage sale, and thought I would make some simple leads to go with it. In this instructable, I will show you how to build some decent and usable oscilloscope leads from parts you probably have laying around anyway. They're not perfect, but neither is my old oscilloscope, so it works just fine for me :)

I made these cool test leads at TechShop Pittsburgh, which is just completely awesome. They have several locations, and you should seriously consider paying them a visit and taking a tour if you want access to more powerful tools or want to take classes and learn new useful skills. Check out all the cool stuff they do and the amazing equipment they have at http://www.techshop.ws/

Materials:
Alligator clips (2)
Short pieces of wire, about 6 inches long (2)
BNC cable (or coaxial cable with BNC adapter, etc.)
Electrical tape or shrink wrap tubing

Tools:
Soldering equipment and supplies
Wire cutter and/or knife

First we will prepare the BNC cable by cutting and stripping the end of it. We want it to be a reasonable length, so it your cable is very long you may want to cut it down to a more sensible length of 4 feet or so. Coaxial cable is a bit more difficult to strip than your average wire, so take your time and be careful.
First cut off about an inch and a half of the outer layer of coating using the knife or wire cutters. Be careful to only cut through the outer plastic coating.
Now use the wire cutters to cut off the braided wire and foil, if your cable has it. It doesn't have to be perfect, but try to keep it neat.
Next we cut off a section of the inner plastic coating.
We now have access to both conductors of the cable, so we can move on to preparing our clips.

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