It is amazing how the misinformation about probes keeps floating around, spread by folks who quite obviously never measured the system performance of any scope/probe combination.
PASSIVE probes don't merely stop at 500MHz, and for good reason. They also come in 700MHz variants...
https://www.tequipment.net/Rohde-&-Schwarz/RT-ZP11/Standard-/-Passive-Oscilloscope-Probes/
https://youtu.be/txPxo4TA0i4?t=406
Taking your words deeper, it seems you are basically saying this: "Stop worrying about the probe MHz rating because they are passive probes and therefore are not terribly useful for practical work at frequencies above 100MHz. Be they 100MHz, 200MHz, 350MHz, 500MHz, 700MHz, or 1GHz passive probes, those differences don't matter -- they aren't so useful above 100MHz."
Seriously?
Even the pornograhic probe Dave showed loads the DUT 9.5pf < a significant amount for some circuits.
However passive probes are the everyday tool but you need understand their limitations.
Even the pornograhic probe Dave showed loads the DUT 9.5pf < a significant amount for some circuits.
However passive probes are the everyday tool but you need understand their limitations.Well, my P6139 probes are only 8pF (measured too), so there.
But seriously, there a lot of cases where 8pF is not going to make a huge difference. Much less of a difference than 14-16pF like most 100MHz probes.
Agreed.
However why do all the main brands also offer active probes ?
Most offer high BW and extremely low input capacitance of 2pf or less < there are valid test cases where this matters.
I played around with my new SDS2000X Plus for a couple of days now and I'm really impressed. There are still a few things that are not obvious to me, like the PP215 probes or especially the stuff that gets shipped with the probes.
There are two yellow "locating sleeves". I know them from an unbranded chinese probe set that i own. But other than the unbranded probes, I cannot fit the sleeves onto the probe and have the tip poking through. Either the tip is too short or I cannot put the sleeve far enough down.
I have 4 probes and thus eight of these sleeves. No combination works.
The sleeves from the other set of probes would almost fit. The tip pokes through just the right amount, but they are too wide and slip off the PP215.
Am I missing something or are these sleeves some kind of joke?
(Attachment Link)
Currently there's a QC/production issue with these from Siglent's probe supplier.
Contact your supplier for more probe accessory packs and have them check they will fit too !
Because this thread is primarily focused on the Siglent SDS2000X Plus, I would simply like to reiterate what I said in my earlier post. If you are buying a 200 MHz scope that comes with 200 MHz probes, because those passive probes are not really ideal for the 200 MHz bandwith that scope anyway – they really should be 350 MHz or higher for a 200 MHz scope — if you merely get a free bandwidth upgrade to 350 MHz, those passive probes will become an even more limiting factor and somewhat nullify the benefits inherent to that scope BW upgrade.
In other words, my argument is that a scope bandwidth upgrade alone is insufficient if you’re not also going to upgrade the probes.
Please don’t take this as an excessive criticism of the bandwith upgrade. I simply wish to say that in light of that fact, a rebate/discount would be better than a scope bandwidth upgrade if you’re not also going to upgrade the probes. And that remains true regardless of whether some people come along and say all passive probes are vastly inferior to often prohibitively expensive active probes!
Currently there's a QC/production issue with these from Siglent's probe supplier.
Contact your supplier for more probe accessory packs and have them check they will fit too !
That is troubling information.
So what you’re saying is, if we intend to buy a 2000X Plus series scope from TEquipment, we need to ask them to open the scope and open the probe bags and fit all of the tiny parts to the probe to make sure there’s no issue before they ship to us? That’s especially important for those of us who live outside the US but who still may wish to buy from Tequipment.
I guess the old expression "you snooze, you lose" applies.
I guess the old expression "you snooze, you lose" applies.
In my case, that old expression doesn’t apply because I didn’t even know about the Siglent 2000X PLUS series until this year, well after that significant discount was long gone. If they still offered that discount today, I would get one in a heartbeat. A free bandwidth upgrade is utterly inadequate to compel me to make a purchase. And I say that while fully recognizing the 2000X Plus series offers the best value of all scopes in that price class.
I don’t say this to criticize. I say it in hopes of seeing another significant discount like that again in the near future. Perhaps unlikely when considering the last major discount happened only a few short months ago, but one can still hope.
Why not source locally in Japan from Wavecrest ?
http://wavecrestkk.co.jp/sl/
Price matters.
Price matters.Does Japan charge duties on imported electronic test equipment? Most countries have an agreement on no duties on electronic equipment, but I don't know about Japan.
Japan will tax pretty much everything imported at a 10% rate if the value is over 10000 Yen, unless it is sent as a gift.
But even on the US customs and border control website it says pretty much the same, that anything under US$100 probably won’t be taxed but anything over that probably will be. Whether something is marked as merchandise or a gift probably plays a role as well, although it’s not clear.
It’s interesting how Chinese companies get around this by shipping things with a near zero valuation.
Why not source locally in Japan from Wavecrest ?
http://wavecrestkk.co.jp/sl/
Siglent scope pricing here in Japan from authorized vendors is outrageously expensive. And that expensive price goes beyond the current exchange rate. Admittedly, the higher pricing here is often the result of all of the time and expense required to translate everything to Japanese and offer Japanese support. But I require neither, so I would prefer the product to be discounted accordingly.
On top of that, I doubt that the Japanese Siglent vendors offer significant discounts to the level of the one that took place this past December. That’s been my experience living in Japan for the past 29 years. In many cases, the discounts that appear everywhere else in the world outside Japan never appear here.
Price matters.
Still, your local distributor will not look favorably at warranty for an instrument sourced offshore and some will flatly refuse to help < something you might want to consider.
What I spoke of it’s not a tariff. It’s 10% sales tax.
It is amazing how the misinformation about probes keeps floating around, spread by folks who quite obviously never measured the system performance of any scope/probe combination.
PASSIVE probes don't merely stop at 500MHz, and for good reason. They also come in 700MHz variants...
https://www.tequipment.net/Rohde-&-Schwarz/RT-ZP11/Standard-/-Passive-Oscilloscope-Probes/
https://youtu.be/txPxo4TA0i4?t=406
And even 1GHz variants...
https://download.tek.com/datasheet/TPP1000-TPP0500B-TPP0502-TPP0250-Passive-Voltage-Probe-Datasheet-51W261519.pdf
https://youtu.be/1xicZF9glH0?t=195
So when you say, "A passive high-Z probe isn't terribly useful for practical work at frequencies above 100 MHz, no matter what the bandwidth rating is", that statement seems to knock Dave for using his "not terribly useful" TEK 1GHz PASSIVE probes.
Taking your words deeper, it seems you are basically saying this: "Stop worrying about the probe MHz rating because they are passive probes and therefore are not terribly useful for practical work at frequencies above 100MHz. Be they 100MHz, 200MHz, 350MHz, 500MHz, 700MHz, or 1GHz passive probes, those differences don't matter -- they aren't so useful above 100MHz."
Seriously?
Yeah, considering the premium you pay for faster probes (over $900 for the Tek P6139B) it does seems a little silly to say passive probes are useless above 100MHz.
I know my 500MHz scope benefits from using 500MHz probes over 100MHz probes. The difference is immediately obvious.