Re: TDS 1002 to read high voltage

first of all,i've got to thank you.I learnt a lot by reseaching this
stuff after your colorful reply :)
Plus 10 kohm resistors that can stand repeated 6 kV pulses are LARGE
expensive & not readily available.
So far as i know ,resistors DO NOT have a maximum voltage rating.They
ONLY have a MAXIMUM POWER rating.
For a given value of current ,the maximum voltage is given by (Power
Rating/Current)
Therefore you can have a large maximum voltage(for a given power
dissipation) simply by decreasing I appropriately.
If a voltage divider is used with R1=10Mohm and R2=100Kohm ,then the
ratio of voltages is 1000:1.
the current is approximately V/(total Resistance)=(5000V)/
(10.1Mohm)=0.5ma(approx)

** Will drastically load down the 6 kV pulse generator and totally *****
the measurement.
A current of 0.5 milliamperes is unlikely to do that,though a current
of 0.5 amps might.The resistance values are therefore to be
incresed.In this respect you were right.
The power dissipated is VxI=5000x0.0005=2.5W
resistors with 2.5 watt power dissipation are not rare.

He is talking about short duration pulses.I am not sure exactly how
short the duration is ,but if the input source is a car battery,its
got to be very short duration indeed.

** Complete DRIVEL !!!!!!!!!!

In such a case,the parasitic resistance of the 10 100pf capacitors
might prevent the final capcitor from charging fully.

** Absolute BOLLOCKS !!

Capacitors DO have parasitic resistances.And they DO take time to
charge and discharge,unlike resistors which respond to voltage changes
instantaneously.Therefore for signals lasting for very short
durations ,capacitors are not the ideal solution .Because of this
parasitic resistance there will always be a time delay between the
output and input of a capacitor network,which becomes significant for
input signals of very short duration.
And this is not "bollocks".It is basic circuit theory.

So a better idea may be to use a voltage divider that divides the
voltage in a 1:100 ratio(say 10ohm and 10Kohm).it would do exactly the
same thing as the above,but has 2 advantages
1)requires only 2 components to do the same job
2)this scheme would work even if the pulses have very short duration

** It won't work at all, you pig ignorant moron.

as shown above,it can very well work,after increasing the values of
the resistors appropriately.

I never said that you were wrong.
I merely said there was another way of doing things,which might be
better in this situation.

.