4 channel scope options

[KTP]

I am considering taking advantage of the Agilent special (free upgrade of fun. gen and dvm) to get a 4 channel scope.  I have searched around the forum a bit and know a little about what is out there, but I may have missed a scope or two.  I have a Rigol modded DS1052E, a TDS210, 2465A, and even a 7000 1ghz mainframe!   The last two are really a pain to carry around, and I tend to grab the DS1052E over the 2465A even when I could use more than 2 channels.

So....I am thinking of splurging a bit and getting either the Agilent DSOX2000 series or 3000 series.  Budgetwise, it would probably be a 200mhz DSOX2014A (with the 4 300mhz probes and upgrade 200mhz) for around $2800 or I could stretch and go for the 100mhz DSOX3014A for $3500.

Probably the 2014A would be a huge enough upgrade.  The 200mhz bandwidth upgrade is $300 cheaper on the 2000 series than the 3000 series.  Would miss out on the arbitrary waveform gen...sad. 

What 4 channel would you buy for $3000 to $3500 max?

[Berni]

I was looking for a good digital scope just as the new Agilent X series came out and was really thinking of getting a 4 channel X3000. But then in the end went for a cheaper second hand Agilent MSO6034A. The 300MHz bandwidth and 8Mpts of memory is nice. Otherwise the 6000 series is nearly the same thing as the x3000 but the scope is huge because its still the old design with the main board laying down flat on the bottom of the case. I dont mind the size so much since its fixed one spot, but you will centrally be bothered by it if you often carry it around.

I think its worth spending a bit extra cash on the X3000 series since a scope is one of those things that you keep for a very long time. If you have that big 1Ghz rack mount unit you probably dont need a heap of bandwidth since you can pull that out when needed. Bandwidth upgrades can get very expensive indeed on scopes.

[EEVblog]

Have you considered the Hameg?
By all account a decent value for money name brand scope.

Dave.

[KTP]

Have you considered the Hameg?
By all account a decent value for money name brand scope.

Dave.

I haven't looked at them closely, but are they not 2500wfs vs 50,000 or OMG 1,000,000 on the Agilent?

I just watched your review of the 3000...it didn't even have the AWG when you did the review and you still seemed to like it a lot.  Now you get the AWG for free (and the FG for free) with the 3000 series, the insane 1,000,000 wfs...

I am kind of really leaning toward a 4 channel 3000.  Even though the bandwidth upgrade is software, it looks like if you order it at the same time as the scope you get 300mhz probes...what comes with the scope standard 100mhz bw?

[free_electron]

If budget permits : go the x3000 route.
Throw the other scopes on fleabay. And recup some money. The tds210 and the 2645 should net you a couple hundred alone...

[KTP]

If budget permits : go the x3000 route.
Throw the other scopes on fleabay. And recup some money. The tds210 and the 2645 should net you a couple hundred alone...

This is true.  I don't see ever using the 2465A or the TDS210 (it was sometimes used along with the Rigol 1052A to ghetto display more than two channels on some projects by triggering both from same source...but very annoying and clunky).

So....I have now ordered the DSOX3024A 200mhz 4 channel.  I wanted the MSO but absolutely can't let the cost go that high right now...sad though, because it would be so usefull.

I know I didn't spend a ton of time researching this like I usually do, but I have a project that is very annoying right now using 2 channel scopes.  I think I will trust you guys that the Agilent 3000 series doesn't suck too much.

[T4P]

Trektopnix...

I wonder what tektronix is doing in their lab nowadays...

If budget permits : go the x3000 route.
Throw the other scopes on fleabay. And recup some money. The tds210 and the 2645 should net you a couple hundred alone...

This is true.  I don't see ever using the 2465A or the TDS210 (it was sometimes used along with the Rigol 1052A to ghetto display more than two channels on some projects by triggering both from same source...but very annoying and clunky).

So....I have now ordered the DSOX3024A 200mhz 4 channel.  I wanted the MSO but absolutely can't let the cost go that high right now...sad though, because it would be so usefull.

I know I didn't spend a ton of time researching this like I usually do, but I have a project that is very annoying right now using 2 channel scopes.  I think I will trust you guys that the Agilent 3000 series doesn't suck too much.

Leave it to a true LA instead of a MSO

[Berni]

Congrats on your new purchase.

The MSO functionality is not that great really since you rarely need that many channels and agilent being agilent they want a lot of extra money for the serial decode on it. If you work with digital stuff i recommend you pick up the saleae logic analyzer. The 8bit version sells for 130€ and its just awsome sauce for debugging digital. You get all the common serial decodes built in to the simplistic but very well designed user interface that works really fast.It uses your PCs RAM for storage along with compression so it can record for minutes. It does have a down side of only sampling at 24MHz and there is no serial decode triggering, but for that price thats still a lot vale for money. I constantly use it instead of the scope.

[free_electron]

The problem with salae 8 bit , usbee, et-al is that they rely on the throughput of USb which is no where near a constant . works for low speed spuff. do high speed stuff and kiss it goodbye.
The salae 16 is a better option then since it has an extra fifo block in the cpld.
The chronoworx also has extra memory. so do the intronix designs.

[Berni]

The saleae logic does have a fifo but its only a few bytes large, so if you plug it in trough a hub that has a lot of other stuff on it the software might come up with a error that your USB port is too slow and stops the capture.I think i only saw it 2 times and i constantly use it trough a 7 port hub on my bench. And yes as i said the 24MHz sample rate can be a issue at times, but its good enough to look at most serial communication buses. This thing is not a complete replacement for a real logic analyzer but it does the job like 90% of the time.

What im saying is that a cheep USB logic analyzer will cover most of his digital needs instead of dishing out for the expensive MSO option. Saleae logic is just a very good one from the cheep ones.If you find the need, you might buy a serious USB logic analyzer later (Depends on what sort of stuff you work on)

[KTP]

Thanks for the suggestions via the LA.  I think I can get by for now with the four channels...can sort of do mixed signal if I think of the scope as a 2 channel analog plus 2 bit digital 

At least with the LA kit  for the 3024A you do get some very nice probes...it isn't *just* switching on a software option like if you bought the serial decoding (yow that stuff is expensive!).  I bet they use the expensive stuff and not just ribbon cable...

There is always Christmas to ask Santa for the LA...it pays to still believe in Santa.

[EEVblog]

If budget permits : go the x3000 route.
Throw the other scopes on fleabay. And recup some money. The tds210 and the 2645 should net you a couple hundred alone...

Yeah, I'd second that.
There are still people who pay big money for both, get it while it lasts!
Well, they are worth more here in Oz than overseas maybe.

Dave.

[EEVblog]

So....I have now ordered the DSOX3024A 200mhz 4 channel.  I wanted the MSO but absolutely can't let the cost go that high right now...sad though, because it would be so usefull.
I know I didn't spend a ton of time researching this like I usually do, but I have a project that is very annoying right now using 2 channel scopes.  I think I will trust you guys that the Agilent 3000 series doesn't suck too much.

It doesn't suck, you'll almost certainly never regret it. Enjoy.

Dave.

[caroper]

I love my USBEE.
The Scope software sucks but I bought it for Protocol analyses and it works well in that role.
We hardly ever ( well I hardly ever) use address and data buses anymore, so being able to analyse I2C, SPI and RS232 is not impacted by USB speed.
I do run it as the only USB device, and preferably on a dedicated laptop if I need speed, but general it runs along side my ICD3 on the development box.


It payed for itself the week I got it, I had it monitor an RS232 input, an SPI channel to an external Flash, a PWM output to an op-amp and the resultant analogue output to an actuator simultaneously. I could pin down the timing error glitch in seconds after the programmers and hardware designers had been blaming each other for weeks.

[hans]

I've personally been looking at some scopes too, and the Agilent 3000 series seems a very nice device, but it has the price tag.

Alternatives I looked at were some Hameg's and Rigol's.

The Rigol seems not too bad; the rigol DS4024 is about 2400 euro's , 4 channel 200MHz. It claims 110k wfms/sec, 140MPts memory (wow!). It said it has triggering from serial (SPI, RS232, I2C, CAN?) stock, but I don't know if this is done in hardware. I also don't know whether you can capture 140MPts at the claimed 4GS/s.
The problem is, if you want to get extra's like a function generator, more math tools, it probably doesn't have it. For me , it certainly seems interesting.

Hameg's HMO2022 is apparently a bit cheaper, (2180 euro's on the site), but it includes more features you have to buy separately. The user panel seems cramped, (probably more compact scope though), only having 1 vertical knob.. It's A-D is not 4GS/s (?), 'only' 2MPts of memory (same as Agilent)

Basically, it's a very competitive market I'd say, and I am not ready yet to spend 2k+ euro on a scope. But I am pretty sure the high update rate and triggering stuff of the Agilent is good.

[nctnico]

Throw the other scopes on fleabay. And recup some money. The tds210 and the 2645 should net you a couple hundred alone...

I see people are still paying over $300 for a TDS210... I guess they have internet access in the looney bin. The TDS210 is a piece of crap and the 2645 is getting really old.

[poorchava]

IMO currently you can't beat Agilent Infiniivision series in terms of functionality/price ratio.

[KTP]

Throw the other scopes on fleabay. And recup some money. The tds210 and the 2645 should net you a couple hundred alone...

I see people are still paying over $300 for a TDS210... I guess they have internet access in the looney bin. The TDS210 is a piece of crap and the 2645 is getting really old.

I was actually quite shocked to see the TDS210 models listed on ebay go for so much.  I searched completed listings and see many sell for $300 or more WITHOUT probes.  My TDS210 is single owner, with orginal probes, user manual and power cord.  I will feel guilty getting $300 for it when I know you can get the Rigol for about the same money.

The 2465a on the other hand is going for less than $200 on ebay, and even then not as many buyers (several completed auctions have no bids).  This is a 350mhz 4 channel analog scope (but with some readout abilities) that was over $20,000 new (of course I bought it a few years ago for much much less).  Kind of funny that the TDS210 has declined about 70% in price over 14 years but the 2465a has dropped in price by 99%!  I think my 2465a was made in 1990? so is about 9 years older than the tds210.

[T4P]

Tooooo bad the rigol lacks lots of functionality like example that does not permit searching of the WIDEEEEEEEEEEE memory
Still, a nice scope to have in addition to a DSOX3000, which is an all rounder that isn't priced WAYYYYYYYYYYY higher than a hameg.
2K$ higher i understand. 4K$ for a POS I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY (LeCrap.)
At least you can upgrade the memory on the X3000 and it's just worth paying the money for the waveform acquisition rate and i'm not kidding
Still, much better than a tek
But i like Hameg scopes too

[free_electron]

The reason for the old tds2xx fetching money is that there is demand.
These were apparently widely used in some automatic test setups, that are still running today. If one dies ( and they do. .. Burned out ccfls in the unobtainium lcd) you need a replacement...

[M. András]

as i see on the rigol accessories it seems lack differential active probes etc for few hundred volts current probes etc, and i seriously doubt the other brand ones will work, maybe they share the probe interface protocols?  both for the rigol 4k series and the infinivision agilents its serious money to buy, then  memory upgrade on the 3kx series agilent if you want more, for both the serial decodes cost tons of money

[KTP]

Well, maybe bad timing turned into good timing.  It seems the distributor was out of stock for a few weeks on the DSOX3024A, so they are giving me a discount on the MSOX3024A.  I guess I will end up with a mixed signal scope after all...

[Berni]

Now that is quite a neat coincidence, just hope they wont want too much money for it even with the discount.(That MSO option is not that cheep)

[KTP]

Now that is quite a neat coincidence, just hope they wont want too much money for it even with the discount.(That MSO option is not that cheep)

$300 more than the DSO, seemed worth it even if I have feature creeped a bit past my original price point  .

[EEVblog]

$300 more than the DSO, seemed worth it even if I have feature creeped a bit past my original price point  .

Hook, line, and sinker! 
Enjoy.

Dave.