Oscilloscope selection for Office

[Muttley Snickers]

Whilst searching for information on a particular silly scope I came across a few of his recent posts on another forum, I forget which forum it was now but the discussion was in relation to one of the a Siglents.

[mikeselectricstuff]

There is something new coming from R&S this month which, based on the model number, may be a rival for the MSOX3000.
Don't know any more than that but have been promised one.

[tautech]

Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)

I didn't know that.  That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...

Even though he gave Siglent plenty of shite, some of it justified, he said it like it is and had sufficient experience to back it up.
Certainly a good source and wealth of knowledge on LeCroy gear and if nothing else he'll be missed for that.

He was called out by Simon and Dave and threw his toys for a few months but came back and contributed for a while until he rattled someones cage once too many times and it was for Dave the last straw.
I looked back through his posts and couldn't spot anything too controversial but there must've been something that tipped the balance.
Last I heard he was to beta test the new Siglent SDG6052X IQ 500 MHz AWG.

A loss to the forum IMHO.

[2N3055]

There is something new coming from R&S this month which, based on the model number, may be a rival for the MSOX3000.
Don't know any more than that but have been promised one.

When  I spoke with them some time ago, complaining about RTB2000 being nice but not quite there (no 50 Ohms, etc, etc..) they hinted that if I'm not in a hurry, I might wait for 1st quarter, because they are planning to release a new scope a bit above RTB2000... I guess it would be replacement for HMO3000 series....
If they make it on the same platform as RTB2000 but a bit "upgraded".. that would be serious problem for MSXO3000 series.....

Regards,
Sinisa

[tautech]

Whilst searching for information on a particular silly scope I came across a few of his recent posts on another forum, I forget which forum it was now but the discussion was in relation to one of the a Siglents.

There's a few hits on Google and it seems he's active here:
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/members/wuerstchenhund.471615/

There's some stuff on LeCroy's there too if you go looking.

[rsjsouza]

A loss to the forum IMHO.

Agreed. He used to split hairs here and there, be somewhat on the rough side but overall he provided quite good source of information.

Whilst searching for information on a particular silly scope I came across a few of his recent posts on another forum, I forget which forum it was now but the discussion was in relation to one of the a Siglents.

There's a few hits on Google and it seems he's active here:
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/members/wuerstchenhund.471615/

There's some stuff on LeCroy's there too if you go looking.

Thanks for sharing. That is good to know.

[yashrk]

Thanks for the update on R&S guys!

[nctnico]

There is something new coming from R&S this month which, based on the model number, may be a rival for the MSOX3000.
Don't know any more than that but have been promised one.

When  I spoke with them some time ago, complaining about RTB2000 being nice but not quite there (no 50 Ohms, etc, etc..) they hinted that if I'm not in a hurry, I might wait for 1st quarter, because they are planning to release a new scope a bit above RTB2000... I guess it would be replacement for HMO3000 series....
If they make it on the same platform as RTB2000 but a bit "upgraded".. that would be serious problem for MSXO3000 series.....

I doubt that. The RTB2000 still has several bugs left to fix almost a year after it was introduced and no real hurry to fix them. R&S = Rigol & Siglent 
On a more serious note: R&S scopes tend to get very expensive if you add a few options. The base price is low but it is easy to add 100% of the base price by adding just a few options.

[2N3055]

I doubt that. The RTB2000 still has several bugs left to fix almost a year after it was introduced and no real hurry to fix them. R&S = Rigol & Siglent 
On a more serious note: R&S scopes tend to get very expensive if you add a few options. The base price is low but it is easy to add 100% of the base price by adding just a few options.

I only repeated what I was told... And RTB2000 is completely new platform, I think they will fix it eventually..
I do agree with you they are not as professional about it as you would expect from a tier 1 brand...

And yes, on a more serious note, you sound like Keysight gives their options for free.. They all do this stupid extortion game....
It annoys me to no end...

Regards,

Sinisa.

[mikeselectricstuff]

There is something new coming from R&S this month which, based on the model number, may be a rival for the MSOX3000.
Don't know any more than that but have been promised one.

When  I spoke with them some time ago, complaining about RTB2000 being nice but not quite there (no 50 Ohms, etc, etc..) they hinted that if I'm not in a hurry, I might wait for 1st quarter, because they are planning to release a new scope a bit above RTB2000... I guess it would be replacement for HMO3000 series....
If they make it on the same platform as RTB2000 but a bit "upgraded".. that would be serious problem for MSXO3000 series.....

I doubt that. The RTB2000 still has several bugs left to fix almost a year after it was introduced and no real hurry to fix them.

None of the bugs at release were particularly serious, and most of them were fixed in the last release, though that did take a while to appear.
I would hope that any higher-end model has hardware that can provide a faster UI, but would expect it to be based on the same software platform. There is plenty of space inside the RTB2000 case.

March is traditionally Keysight Scope month - I wouldn't be surprised to see something new - maybe they will have something new. The existing ASIC is starting to show its age on the memory front (no, I've not heard anything, just seems like something ought to happen in the not-too-distant future)

[KE5FX]

The MSO3000T is a very fast scope with a nice interface but I cannot justify the max 4Mpts of memory interleaved, it is just too small (@ 5GSample/s it is just 800us of data).

If your use cases are typical, you will care about that maybe 5% of the time.  Other scope manufacturers may brag about having a zillion gigasamples of acquisition memory, but extensive usability and performance compromises are often necessary in order to make that happen.

[nctnico]

The MSO3000T is a very fast scope with a nice interface but I cannot justify the max 4Mpts of memory interleaved, it is just too small (@ 5GSample/s it is just 800us of data).

If your use cases are typical, you will care about that maybe 5% of the time.  Other scope manufacturers may brag about having a zillion gigasamples of acquisition memory, but extensive usability and performance compromises are often necessary in order to make that happen.

There are more issues with the way Keysight's ASIC works. For example the next to useless reference traces. If you pull the curtain up a bit further there are more problems to be found. I used to own a MSO7104A so I'm familiar with the limitations of the architecture.

[Howardlong]

Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)

I didn't know that.  That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...

A loss to the forum IMHO.

For some balance on this, while I am sure he is exceptionally knowledgeable, I found his manner opinionated and condescending. He has the dubious honour of being one of only two people I’ve ever put on a forum ignore list. The last straw for me was an unnecessary and divisive political ad hominem he added to his sig, and a few days later he went on my ignore list: I already knew from previous experience of him that engaging and suggesting he remove or change the sig would be a waste of time.

Over time I’d also come to the conclusion that he must be insufferable to work with, knows it all and makes sure you know he does too. He asked me for some help once in a PM for his scope, rather than on the board iitself, I assume he used a PM to avoid being exposed as someone who had that terrible weakness of not knowing everything adter all.

For the avoidance of doubt I hadn’t complained or reported him to the moderators. Not to put to finer point on it, to my mind he’s probably a first rate engineer, but comes across as a second rate human being I’m afraid.

[KE5FX]

There are more issues with the way Keysight's ASIC works. For example the next to useless reference traces. If you pull the curtain up a bit further there are more problems to be found. I used to own a MSO7104A so I'm familiar with the limitations of the architecture.

Agreed, that's a definite weak point. 

[tautech]

Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)

I didn't know that.  That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...

A loss to the forum IMHO.

For some balance on this, while I am sure he is exceptionally knowledgeable, I found his manner opinionated and condescending. He has the dubious honour of being one of only two people I’ve ever put on a forum ignore list. The last straw for me was an unnecessary and divisive political ad hominem he added to his sig, and a few days later he went on my ignore list: I already knew from previous experience of him that engaging and suggesting he remove or change the sig would be a waste of time.

Over time I’d also come to the conclusion that he must be insufferable to work with, knows it all and makes sure you know he does too. He asked me for some help once in a PM for his scope, rather than on the board iitself, I assume he used a PM to avoid being exposed as someone who had that terrible weakness of not knowing everything adter all.

For the avoidance of doubt I hadn’t complained or reported him to the moderators. Not to put to finer point on it, to my mind he’s probably a first rate engineer, but comes across as a second rate human being I’m afraid.

FWIW
While I somewhat agree with your POV's (and I was going to address them individually), ones online persona doesn't always represent the person behind the keyboard.
I had only a couple of incidences of PM's to and fro and I found personal contact with him entirely civil.

Not that it makes any difference now......consigned to history.

[nctnico]

Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)

I didn't know that.  That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...

A loss to the forum IMHO.

For some balance on this, while I am sure he is exceptionally knowledgeable, I found his manner opinionated and condescending. He has the dubious honour of being one of only two people I’ve ever put on a forum ignore list. The last straw for me was an unnecessary and divisive political ad hominem he added to his sig, and a few days later he went on my ignore list: I already knew from previous experience of him that engaging and suggesting he remove or change the sig would be a waste of time.

For the avoidance of doubt I hadn’t complained or reported him to the moderators. Not to put to finer point on it, to my mind he’s probably a first rate engineer, but comes across as a second rate human being I’m afraid.

This is going wildly off-topic but I want to add this:
I can imagine you feel that way but on a forum you have the choice to engage or not to engage with certain people depending on the topic (and certainly when a discussion goes round in circles). Wuerstchenhund appearantly couldn't do that and I'm under the impression some people where keeping circular discussions alive on purpose. Which leads me back to the choice people have to engage or not. It takes two to tango.

[Helix70]

The MSO3000T is a very fast scope with a nice interface but I cannot justify the max 4Mpts of memory interleaved, it is just too small (@ 5GSample/s it is just 800us of data).

If your use cases are typical, you will care about that maybe 5% of the time.  Other scope manufacturers may brag about having a zillion gigasamples of acquisition memory, but extensive usability and performance compromises are often necessary in order to make that happen.

There are more issues with the way Keysight's ASIC works. For example the next to useless reference traces. If you pull the curtain up a bit further there are more problems to be found. I used to own a MSO7104A so I'm familiar with the limitations of the architecture.

What is wrong wit the reference traces?

[nctnico]

The MSO3000T is a very fast scope with a nice interface but I cannot justify the max 4Mpts of memory interleaved, it is just too small (@ 5GSample/s it is just 800us of data).

If your use cases are typical, you will care about that maybe 5% of the time.  Other scope manufacturers may brag about having a zillion gigasamples of acquisition memory, but extensive usability and performance compromises are often necessary in order to make that happen.

There are more issues with the way Keysight's ASIC works. For example the next to useless reference traces. If you pull the curtain up a bit further there are more problems to be found. I used to own a MSO7104A so I'm familiar with the limitations of the architecture.

What is wrong wit the reference traces?

You can't move, seperate or scale them. Most other DSOs have up to 4 seperate reference traces you can (at least) enable/disable. Moving, scaling and using the reference trace as input for math are very usefull additional features. On the Agilent MSO7104A you get a white line on screen and that's it and I doubt it is any different on the current Megazoom ASIC based scopes.

[HalFET]

The Lecroy scopes are always nice in hardware, but I've always found the UI somewhat clumsy, looks pretty but it never quite seems to work out right. Definitely ask for a demo unit if you're planning to buy one.

[yashrk]

Guys, we have new scopes from R&S, see a comparison below.
Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?

[abraxa]

Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?

That depends on your application.

[yashrk]

Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?

That depends on your application.

Yes, and as I mentioned before that I want to use it mainly for embedded application decoding serial lines (say spi, i2c, can) and some general electronics work, looking at analog sensor data, etc.

It will be helpful if you could give me examples where deep memory or sampling rate will be important.

[JPortici]

Wavesurfer 3054 perhaps?
http://teledynelecroy.com/oscilloscope/oscilloscopemodel.aspx?modelid=8558&capid=102&mid=504

According to Jportici this one is also dog slow. And like every Lecroy: no peak detect and that will bite you in the ass sooner or later.

Personally I'm waiting for Keysight and/or Tektronix to release new oscilloscopes based on faster platforms. Currently there is nothing out there which offers a significant upgrade over what I have now.

Couple of months ago i was demoing a wavesurfer and a keysight 3000 and 4000 (because the rep had that one available).
The lecroy was much more advanced that the keysights.. histograms, the math options, the persistence options, the ability to add decoders after the acquisition many of the things you could do with the lecroy you could do them with the keysight 6000 series

however,
-touch screen was a resistive type piece of shit, felt very cheap and was completely inaccurate even after calibration, also had a very laggy response. meaning that you must use the scope with a mouse, there are things you cannot do easily with buttons
-once you enable longer memory traces the UI slows down a lot. more and more lag between pressing a button and getting the feedback, this for me was already enough to give it back.
-since the scope is clearly underpowered, wavescan was also a joke. wfm/s dropped down to the tens (acquire, scan all the waveform for the pathetic list of events available then rearm the trigger) and you can do the same things in other scopes, because it's a castrated version with few options
-the decode options were the usual ones, what we really needed was available on the HDO4000+ scopes (3 times the base price)
-the awg was a complete joke, you can get a better one for a tenth of the option price

the keysight on the other hand..
- 4000 series has a bigger screen BUT it's only bigger, resolution is the same because the waveform area is drawn by the ASIC. 4000 series also has 2 AWGs IIRC
- Touch screen on these one was.. WOW. a proper capacitive screen. and THIS is a scope with an interface designed for touch.
- The AWG is perfecty usable on this scope, it's more or less equivalent in frequency and resolution to what you could get for the same price. Plus, it's completely integrated in the scope and with a couple of steps i can save an acquisition and replay it, also the FRA. I call this a good compromize
- The amount of decoding options. which of course has also what we needed.
and for the bad stuff:
- Keysight frontend is very noisy
- Short memory
- can't decode data after the acquisition (however i can with infinuum software, but that's another whole lot of money)
- math is somewhat limited but not as much as other scopes in this class
- no histograms
- persistence is meh, i prefer the hot-cold type

i didn't even consider Tek or R&S for a second, because i would get a newer TDS2000 -in terms of options, math, etc- for the same price as the keysight.. pass. I already have a TPS2000 in the lab, don't need a new one without the isolated inputs

In the end i found the keysight to be a good compromize between all aspects (UI,AWG,Options versus memory,math) and during the evaluation period that scope was atually used to do real work wether the lecory almost just stayed there and look pretty.
Consider also that to me 100 MHz bandwidth is enough, i can live with slower samplerate (hence the 1MS memory can be enough) but i want the advanced options and math that still comes with higher bandwidth scopes only.
Basically what we needed was a more advanced all-rounder. The keysight was the perfect fit. if we need something special, we can always ask for a loaner for a couple of weeks/month

i was really disappointed because i like lecroy a whole lot, at home i have an older model (which i'm looking forward to sell and get a waverunner 2 or something newer if i can afford one)
I wish lecroy would make a GOOD scope for us, but apparently they don't care for this segment, which is understandable. they are replacing everything with the -much more expensive- 12bit HDO line, leaving out only the scopes they don't care about

[Markus@RohdeScopes]

Guys, we have new scopes from R&S, see a comparison below.
Which is more important deep memory or sampling rate?

Hi,

good comparision, but one short correction. The sampling rate of RTA and RTM is 5 GSa/s.

Markus

[Ice-Tea]

Member Wuerstchenhund (now banned)

I didn't know that.  That sucks, I always enjoyed his posts...

A loss to the forum IMHO.

For some balance on this, while I am sure he is exceptionally knowledgeable, I found his manner opinionated and condescending. He has the dubious honour of being one of only two people I’ve ever put on a forum ignore list. The last straw for me was an unnecessary and divisive political ad hominem he added to his sig, and a few days later he went on my ignore list: I already knew from previous experience of him that engaging and suggesting he remove or change the sig would be a waste of time.

Over time I’d also come to the conclusion that he must be insufferable to work with, knows it all and makes sure you know he does too. He asked me for some help once in a PM for his scope, rather than on the board iitself, I assume he used a PM to avoid being exposed as someone who had that terrible weakness of not knowing everything adter all.

For the avoidance of doubt I hadn’t complained or reported him to the moderators. Not to put to finer point on it, to my mind he’s probably a first rate engineer, but comes across as a second rate human being I’m afraid.

I have had quite some dealings with him, both on and off the forum and never found him to be anything but helpfull and very correct. Perhaps this is because over the years I have learned to deal with ..ahem.. high-performance, high-maintenance engineers but... yeah: a loss to the forum.