Saelig Company, Inc. announces the Aim-TTi I-Prober 520, a unique, compact hand-held current probe for use with any oscilloscope, unlike any other current measurement device available. The current flowing in a pcb track can be observed and measured, allowing measurements by merely placing the insulated tip of the probe on to the track.

Calibrated measurement of current flow normally requires current to be passed through a closed magnetic loop using some form of split clamp device. While this is suitable for individual wires, it is of no use for measuring current in pcb tracks. Conventionally, current can only be measured by either breaking the circuit to insert a shunt resistor. However, breaking the circuit is impractical in many circumstances, and, in the case of pcb tracks, may be impractical.

I-prober 520 can uniquely observe and measure currents flowing in pcb tracks and other conductors where conventional current probes cannot be used; this includes captive wires, components, integrated circuit pins, and pcb ground planes. It does not require breaking or surrounding the conductor, and is even usable on high voltage conductors and in high temperature areas.

The device is a high-accuracy general purpose H-field probe based on the well-established fluxgate magnetometer principle, and, for the first time, allows track currents to be measured over a wide dynamic range: from 10mA to 20A (pk-pk), with a bandwidth of d.c. to 5MHz. I-Prober 520 contains a special, custom-made miniaturized precision sensor to form a practical current measurement probe. The high-excitation-frequency sensor within the probe provides levels of positional accuracy, sensitivity, bandwidth, and dynamic range previously unavailable. To achieve a calibrated measurement, the field sensor maintains a precise distance from the track; to achieve good sensitivity, this distance is very small, since field strength reduces with the square of distance. I-Prober 520 has a low noise equivalent of <6mA rms at full bandwidth, and presents minimal disturbance to circuit conditions due to its very low insertion impedance and stray capacitance.

Saelig Company, Inc.
www.saelig.com