Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes - Questions/Comments? Let me know!

[Detzi]

Hello again,
when i have connected both Logig Probes (RT-ZL03) to my DUT, and are powering the scope up after powering the DUT, the Logic probes will not turn on at all or just one of the two and i can't make them. If i power the scope first it's all fine, both probes turn on, both probes are measuring fine. Whats the cause of this? It is quite anoing.

Every probe head has its own ground connection per testpoint (16 in sum), i am using Firmware 2.000 and the scope is powered via an isolation transformer.

Edit: Scratch that. The adapter i used to quick connect the head was the culprit. Completely my fault  .

[matseng]

I just treated myself with a nice RTB2004 bought from Farnell Sweden. What was not so nice that the scope that turned up at my doorstep was a used one. It had been sold to some customer in France in April that had RMA'd it back then.

The lazyass guys at Farnell didn't even bother to factory reset the unit so it was set to French language, and they didn't even remove the RMA paper from inside the box with all the previous customers info.

Tomorrow I'll make some noise about this, I really can't accept to pay full for an used device that's not even refurbished properly.

One thing that I was thinking of as well is the demo licenses. Most scopes today have some time-based licenses to test out all fancy add-on features. Should this scope have them as well? In the licenses settings all three sections was empty.

[tautech]

I just treated myself with a nice RTB2004 bought from Farnell Sweden. What was not so nice that the scope that turned up at my doorstep was a used one. It had been sold to some customer in France in April that had RMA'd it back then.

The lazyass guys at Farnell didn't even bother to factory reset the unit so it was set to French language, and they didn't even remove the RMA paper from inside the box with all the previous customers info.

Tomorrow I'll make some noise about this, I really can't accept to pay full for an used device that's not even refurbished properly.

One thing that I was thinking of as well is the demo licenses. Most scopes today have some time-based licenses to test out all fancy add-on features. Should this scope have them as well? In the licenses settings all three sections was empty.

You'd have to wonder why test equipment specialists are not the only outlets for a unit that isn't entry level. 

Sounds like the previous owner did what he needed to with it and used up all the licensing and then just returned it saying 'this is no good !'.
Wonder if he's ordered another one planning to do the same scam ?

Resetting to factory is not hard....if you know how.
Restoring trial licenses is entirely another thing !

Unless a substantial discount is forthcoming, send it back !

[hwj-d]

Sounds like the previous owner did what he needed to with it and used up all the licensing and then just returned it saying 'this is no good !'.
Wonder if he's ordered another one planning to do the same scam ?

But that does not work. R&S license keys are not transferable, bound to serial number of one scope. You don't become second ones for an other scope, before you register them. Without online registering to your scope, where you get the real installable codes for your only scope, you can't use them. If you lose these, you're out of luck!

[matseng]

But, should there be trial licence codes included with the scope or not?

[matseng]

Well, the issue got resolved after a nice call to Farnell. They were more than happy to immediately send me a brand new scope and have UPS come and pick the other one up. That's really good level of service.

[rosin232]

Hi Rich

I'm looking at RTO series scopes and was curious what are the real differences between RTO1000 and RTO2000?

From what I seen online RTO2000 have:

AWG option
USB3 ports
Windows 7 ( RTO1000 can be upgraded to Win7 )

Thanks!

[Hydron]

Hi Rich,

I saw this suggestion in the Siglent SDS1x04X-E thread, and agreed with tautech that it was a rather good idea, so thought I'd post it here in-case there's interest from R&S:

[Suggestion]
Suggestion for new SDS1104X-E/SDS1204X-E feature:

For Measure: in addition to channels CH1, CH2, CH3 and CH4 add an additional channel named Current.
Current is the currently selected channel (selected via the Channel Buttons).

This way Measured Items can be simply displayed for each channel by simply switching the currently selected channel via the channel buttons, without having to change the source and having to add items for that source each time.

Similarly, when setting Source to Current and selecting 'All Measure On', it should display all measured items for the 'currently selected channel' (the channel selected via the channel buttons).
This makes it possible to quickly switch the source channel via the channel buttons, without having to change the channel via 'Source' in the menu (which is slow and does not allow to quickly switch between measurements per channel).

Very good idea. 
All 3 of your suggestions have been forwarded to the X-E product manager.

If Selected was used instead of Current there could be less resultant confusion.

This would be especially handy with the RTx2/3/4000 series that have the knobs lit with the current channel (and it could help reduce the impact of the 4-measurement-limit on the RTB2k by making it quicker to switch channels, though the existing interface is already better than most).

[mtdoc]

Hi Rich,

I saw this suggestion in the Siglent SDS1x04X-E thread, and agreed with tautech that it was a rather good idea, so thought I'd post it here in-case there's interest from R&S:

[Suggestion]
Suggestion for new SDS1104X-E/SDS1204X-E feature:

For Measure: in addition to channels CH1, CH2, CH3 and CH4 add an additional channel named Current.
Current is the currently selected channel (selected via the Channel Buttons).

This way Measured Items can be simply displayed for each channel by simply switching the currently selected channel via the channel buttons, without having to change the source and having to add items for that source each time.

Similarly, when setting Source to Current and selecting 'All Measure On', it should display all measured items for the 'currently selected channel' (the channel selected via the channel buttons).
This makes it possible to quickly switch the source channel via the channel buttons, without having to change the channel via 'Source' in the menu (which is slow and does not allow to quickly switch between measurements per channel).

Very good idea. 
All 3 of your suggestions have been forwarded to the X-E product manager.

If Selected was used instead of Current there could be less resultant confusion.

This would be especially handy with the RTx2/3/4000 series that have the knobs lit with the current channel (and it could help reduce the impact of the 4-measurement-limit on the RTB2k by making it quicker to switch channels, though the existing interface is already better than most).

Yes! That would be excellent for the RTB2K. Please consider this.

[nctnico]

On the RTM3000 it is very easy to change the measurement type and channel without needing to erase a measurement. Actually you can't erase measurements on the RTM3000; only enable/disable displaying the measurement. I suspect the RTB2000 works the same.

[2N3055]

Please don't call it "Current channel" ... Use "Selected channel"..

[Hydron]

I agree with both of the above - "selected" is a much better idea than "current" (this has even been changed since in the original post), and the RTx series does have a much better interface for changing measurement channel than any other scope I've used.
I often find myself doing a set of measurements on one channel then having to change each one to a new channel though, so I thought it would be handy even given the good existing implementation. That said, I certainly could name a few things higher on my RTB2k wish list (eg more measurement slots, math functions).

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Hi Rich

I'm looking at RTO series scopes and was curious what are the real differences between RTO1000 and RTO2000?

From what I seen online RTO2000 have:

AWG option
USB3 ports
Windows 7 ( RTO1000 can be upgraded to Win7 )

Thanks!

Hi rosin232 - sorry for the slow reply.  Here's a more complete list of differences:

• RTO2000 Add 3GHz and 6GHz model options
• Larger, higher resolution display (12.1" capacitive touch vs. resistive touch, WXGA vs XGA
• Additional improvements to the UI, including more dedicated sidebar navigation (makes it easier to set up measurements, FFTs, etc)
• Standard memory increases to 50M/ch, 200M on a single channel.  Memory options up to 2GSa.
• Additional triggering capability, including Zone trigger option (works in both time and frequency domain - the frequency domain is super cool IMHO)
• In addition to the USB3.1 type A ports, added a USB 3.1 type B
• Display port output
• Faster processor
• SSD standard
• A number of additional trigger/decode options available

Hope this helps.

-Rich

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Hi Rich,

I saw this suggestion in the Siglent SDS1x04X-E thread, and agreed with tautech that it was a rather good idea, so thought I'd post it here in-case there's interest from R&S:

[Suggestion]
Suggestion for new SDS1104X-E/SDS1204X-E feature:

For Measure: in addition to channels CH1, CH2, CH3 and CH4 add an additional channel named Current.
Current is the currently selected channel (selected via the Channel Buttons).

This way Measured Items can be simply displayed for each channel by simply switching the currently selected channel via the channel buttons, without having to change the source and having to add items for that source each time.

Similarly, when setting Source to Current and selecting 'All Measure On', it should display all measured items for the 'currently selected channel' (the channel selected via the channel buttons).
This makes it possible to quickly switch the source channel via the channel buttons, without having to change the channel via 'Source' in the menu (which is slow and does not allow to quickly switch between measurements per channel).

Very good idea. 
All 3 of your suggestions have been forwarded to the X-E product manager.

If Selected was used instead of Current there could be less resultant confusion.

This would be especially handy with the RTx2/3/4000 series that have the knobs lit with the current channel (and it could help reduce the impact of the 4-measurement-limit on the RTB2k by making it quicker to switch channels, though the existing interface is already better than most).

Hi Hydron - if I understand this correctly, would our Quick Meas button do something similar already?

-Rich

[David Hess]

Please don't call it "Current channel" ... Use "Selected channel"..

You can find all kinds of gems like this in old test instrument design.  Like Tektronix labels input channels 1, 2, 3, etc. and sweeps and triggers A, B, C, etc. to maintain consistency and avoid confusion.

[Hydron]

Hi Rich,

Quick meas does do this (and shows more measurements at the same time), but at the cost of only seeing one waveform on the screen. An extra "channel" option on the normal measurements would make the normal measurements more flexible without limiting it to one waveform on screen. Given the quick-meas function and the good interface for measurement modification I don't think it's critical for these scopes (and as I mentioned would not be top of my new-feature wish-list), but at the same time did seem like a useful and simple idea when I saw it in the other thread.

[Detzi]

Is there a way to make the labels for the "Logic" bigger? If there are 16 signals it's okay that they're small but im gett'in kinda old and my vision's not best anymore so it would be quite comfortable to be able to make them bigger.

[Detzi]

So i ran into another issue.
Changing the slope has no effect on the Triggerpoint at all. How does that come? Am i missing something?

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Is there a way to make the labels for the "Logic" bigger? If there are 16 signals it's okay that they're small but im gett'in kinda old and my vision's not best anymore so it would be quite comfortable to be able to make them bigger.

Hi Detzi - good thought, but no way to do that today.  I'll add it to our list of possible enhancements for the future.

-Rich

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

So i ran into another issue.
Changing the slope has no effect on the Triggerpoint at all. How does that come? Am i missing something?

It looks like there might be glitches on D10.  Can you switch on peak detect or zoom in at the trigger point?  The jitter on the rising edge of D10 with a falling trigger slope says there are two falling slopes at the trigger point. 

-Rich

[Detzi]

Hi Rich,
i made a shot of "D10" with an DS1052E. The edge seems nice enough to me, couldn't catch a glitch either. If there would be that much glitches to trigger the RTB repeatable and only on the supposedly "wrong" edge i would expect the DS1052 to catch them. It does it also not only for "D10", its the same with "CH1". Every 3s or so the scope seems to get unshure where to trigger and toggles between both edges. The 500us/div seem to be the critical thing here, when i scale the time up or down it gets a lot better. I attached both pictures one withe the "toggeling" made from the RTB and one of "D10" made with the DS1052E.

[lem_ix]

Hi Rich,

Could you provide some info about current probe deskew on the RTM3000. Is the fixture necessary, do you have suggested values like Tek? It would be smart to provide clear and easily accessible info about such things, it influences scope purchases greatly.

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Hi Rich,

Could you provide some info about current probe deskew on the RTM3000. Is the fixture necessary, do you have suggested values like Tek? It would be smart to provide clear and easily accessible info about such things, it influences scope purchases greatly.

Hi lem_ix,

We do offer a deskew fixture for making power measurements (I'm guessing this is what you meant?) - it is the ZF20.  This will give the most accurate power measurements.  In addition, each active probe in the probe menu will give you an overview of the probe's characteristics (see attached).

-Rich

[aminor]

Hi Rich,

I just bought two units of RTB-2002. One with MSO upgrade and 100MHz. The other one is a basic unit. I just manage to play with the basic unit at most. I think i have got some bug on the basic unit with latest firmware (02.121) :

• Day 1 - Inverse Brightness : Actually was testing enabling and immediately disabled it. but the signal intensity went very dim and it won't revert back to original state. Situation : 1st time ON device. Solution : secure erase
• Day 2 - Zoom : the vertical scale on zoom windows off by a lot (refer pic) that nothing appear on the zoom window. I need to slide down (Zoom Window) to actually see the zoomed signal while the 'Zoom Square' (Window above) is covering on un-populated area. Meanwhile, pic shown - Zoom window vertical scale start at 150.17mV while the above window start at around -100mV and end at 10mV approx. Situation : 1st time on both channel after trimming the 2nd probe. Noticed it on the square wave gen Zoom, P0. The day before i was playing with FFT. Everything went well with Zoom before this. Problem occur in the morning the other day. I always turn off the Power Source before went to sleep. Solution : secure erase

Sorry I just thought of taking pics when already on my way to 'secure erase' all settings. I need to erase two times in two days in a row after receiving the scope.  problem goes away everytime I 'secure erase' I thought the scope already been a while in the market. why there are too many bugs on my 1st two days?

Please advise.

P/S : Autoset also might be the culprit. I don't know

How do I get previous stable version firmware?

[MikeP]

How do I get previous stable version firmware?

 Previous version has the same problem.