Every electrical/electronic or physics teaching lab has a set of core requirements. These are generally satisfied by the following equipment:

• Voltage, Current and Resistance meters. Typically a digital multimeter.
• Current limited bench power supply.
• Two channel oscilloscope of at least 50MHz bandwidth.
• Ability to view modulated RF spectrum via Oscilloscope FFT or low cost Spectrum Analyser.
• Audio frequency waveform/function/pulse pattern generator.
• RF signal generator.

In modern instruments many of these functions have merged together into single devices.

Oscilloscopes that include FFT functions or full Spectrum Analysers built in as standard

Arbitrary Function Generators that have RF SigGen, Audio SigGen, Pattern/Function Generator functionality and more.

Digital multimeters, of course, have always had multiple functions but now they may include temperature measurement, data logging and dual measurement capability.

The requirements of a Physics Lab may differ slightly from a more general electronics lab, particularly on the capabilities required of the Oscilloscope. A pure physics lab may not need some of the additional features such as serial protocol decoding or mixed signal analysis. Otherwise the requirements are essentially the same and can be satisfied with a single set of equipment.

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