EEVblog 1596 - NEW Digilent Analog Discovery Pro ADP2230 TEARDOWN

[EEVblog]

Teardown of the UNRELEASED Digilent Analog Discovery Pro ADP2230
It will be released on the 29th Feb 2024 for US$695
Featuring the AvE Widlarizer!



00:00 - Mystery Mailbag - The Analog Discovery Pro ADP2230
02:24 - Turns out this won't be released for 2 months!
02:58 - Product comparison with Analog Discovery 3
03:59 - Not even the Beta software has support yet
04:33 - Lower cost Pro model
06:01 - First impression
08:31 - Teardown
10:09 - This calls for the AvE Widlarizer!
11:19 - PCB
14:08 - PCB comparison with AD3
15:57 - Oscilloscope Front End
18:18 - Conclusion

Analog Discovery 3 Review:

[Bud]

Proper tooling applied @10:27 

[SiliconWizard]

Not too shabby design.
(The current price of the XC7S50 is completely nuts. About $87 per 1. Never seen something like this. The Spartan-7 is kinda the "entry-level" FPGA at Xilinx. And the -50 version is not the smallest for sure, but still relatively modest. Sure you may have better deals buying direct, but still. Expect about twice what it would have cost a couple years ago...)

[thm_w]

Hard to know as Digikey FPGA pricing is always off. Grey market has XC7S50 as low as $20 each: https://octopart.com/search?q=XC7S50&currency=USD&specs=0

[berke]

Looks a bit mechanically flimsy to me for that price.  Those funny looking rounded BNC jacks seem to be soldered to the PCB.  I have the AD2, which is nice and useful but doesn't pretend to be some kind of benchtop instrument, unlike this unit which is probably so light that it will go flying across the room as soon as you pull a coax.

[tszaboo]

Hard to know as Digikey FPGA pricing is always off. Grey market has XC7S50 as low as $20 each: https://octopart.com/search?q=XC7S50&currency=USD&specs=0

You can safely ignore FPGA pricing from all the vendors, it has nothing to do with the real pricing of the ICs.
Case in point, NVidia Gsync module for ~100 EUR with a "700 EUR" FPGA on it.

[Bud]

Looks a bit mechanically flimsy to me for that price.  Those funny looking rounded BNC jacks seem to be soldered to the PCB.  I have the AD2, which is nice and useful but doesn't pretend to be some kind of benchtop instrument, unlike this unit which is probably so light that it will go flying across the room as soon as you pull a coax.

Not only that, the case is also like out of a mom-and-pop shop. When i saw it , i was like "really?".

[thm_w]

Hard to know as Digikey FPGA pricing is always off. Grey market has XC7S50 as low as $20 each: https://octopart.com/search?q=XC7S50&currency=USD&specs=0

You can safely ignore FPGA pricing from all the vendors, it has nothing to do with the real pricing of the ICs.
Case in point, NVidia Gsync module for ~100 EUR with a "700 EUR" FPGA on it.

Found this one as well: https://pcper.com/2018/06/asus-rog-swift-pg27uq-27-4k-144hz-g-sync-monitor-true-hdr-arrives-on-the-desktop/2/
$1,500 FPGA in a $2,000 monitor.

[Svannie]

Just like in cars, use plastic pieces to cover the engine. Does Digilent think their customers are incompetent at electronics, so it's best to hide the screws?
Maybe they believe that the buyers are fashion designers who only care about the looks?

A tip for removing stuck metal screws in plastic is to slightly heat the screwdriver and letting the heat transfer to the screw. Also good for removing screws with threadlocker, although with more heat.