DSO Reliability

[nanofrog]

It was especially nice to hear that Rigol seems to pay attention to their user community.

This is actually a recent occurrence, as there's been unresolved bugs in the 2000 and 4000 series scopes for ~2 years, according to owners.

So to play it safe, you do your research as best as you can, try/buy one and see if you can live with the bugs (any brand, any product). In the case of expensive products like T&M equipment, it may cost you some money to return it when it's not a good fit (shipping and possibly restocking fees), but it's cheaper than eating the entire cost for a product that's unusable for you.

In the recent events regarding Rigol, hopefully it's a sign of serious improvement regarding firmware fixes in a timely manner, and perhaps even customer service in general. But it may also just be an anomaly due to all the attention it's obtained recently as a result of the DS1054Z's sales volume (2000 & 4000 series bugs didn't get as much attention).

[TunerSandwich]

My experiences with Rigol CS, over the last 2 years, has been less than stellar.....specifically Rigol NA

[J-D-H]

Thanks for the explanation.  It was especially nice to hear that Rigol seems to pay attention to their user community.  Would that all mfgrs did that!

This thread has filled at lot of gaps in your knowledge of DSO's.
However your last assumption is just that.

All manufacturers come unstuck at times with failures in design, firmware, QC, poor componentry etc.........

Only careful selection of an established brand/model can minimise a buyers risk.
IMO manufacturers support via the many dealers here is not to be overlooked.

Why should you a new buyer have to possibly struggle with manufacturers over warranty or firmware issues with a distant manufacturer or supplier. Build a relationship with your local supplier, it will pay off in the end.
Chasing a distant purchase for savings of a few dollars is a another case in point.
Any possible issues are difficult, costly and time comsuming to rectify.

We are lucky with EEVblog as a great resource of knowedge, especially when it comes to oscilloscopes.
This thread alone may not decide for you the right DSO to buy, however the many others on DSO's will likely.

I've had my fill with overseas suppliers after purchasing computer parts and then having problems.  So far I've noticed two apparently decent sources for DSOs -- Amazon and TEquipment.  I called the later company and found them to be very helpful (and BTW, for my purposes they recommended a Siglent DSO).  Between this forum and TEquipment, I expect I'll be able to make an informed purchase.  Thanks to all who've helped here.....!

[J-D-H]

My experiences with Rigol CS, over the last 2 years, has been less than stellar.....specifically Rigol NA

However, once again, to your knowledge no other company stands head and shoulders about the rest in this regard?

BTW, I don't understand the significance of the trailing CS and NA.....

[Wuerstchenhund]

My experiences with Rigol CS, over the last 2 years, has been less than stellar.....specifically Rigol NA

BTW, I don't understand the significance of the trailing CS and NA.....

I guess "CS" = "Customer Service" and "NA" = "North America".

[TunerSandwich]

My experiences with Rigol CS, over the last 2 years, has been less than stellar.....specifically Rigol NA

However, once again, to your knowledge no other company stands head and shoulders about the rest in this regard?

BTW, I don't understand the significance of the trailing CS and NA.....

CS = customer support and NA = north American division.....

Tek, Agilent, Lecroy, Fluke and most other companies I have dealt with have far superior support.  Rigol website is lacking and they are unresponsive to email......I would go so far as to say that most other companies in T&M and electronics supply have been head and shoulders above Rigol, in that regard. 

The numerous, ongoing posts, in this forum and various others...seems to mirror my experiences

[coppice]

My experiences with Rigol CS, over the last 2 years, has been less than stellar.....specifically Rigol NA

However, once again, to your knowledge no other company stands head and shoulders about the rest in this regard?

BTW, I don't understand the significance of the trailing CS and NA.....

CS = customer support and NA = north American division.....

Tek, Agilent, Lecroy, Fluke and most other companies I have dealt with have far superior support.  Rigol website is lacking and they are unresponsive to email......I would go so far as to say that most other companies in T&M and electronics supply have been head and shoulders above Rigol, in that regard. 

The numerous, ongoing posts, in this forum and various others...seems to mirror my experiences

I only see it as positive when I have no clue how good a vendor's customer service people are, because I have needed so little interaction with them.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I only see it as positive when I have no clue how good a vendor's customer service people are, because I have needed so little interaction with them.

That's not really positive. Yes, it's great when their product works flawlessly, but with every complex product there's always the chance that you will need support sooner or later, and only then you'll see if the vendor stands behind its product or not.

This aside, there are other differentiators like product maintenance (i.e. availability of firmware updates, not just for bug fixing but also for general improvement and new features) or things like user support (i.e. if you own a LeCroy scope then their application engineers will help you for free if you need advice or have to solve a complex measurement problem).

Then there's after warranty support. What happens if your older scope needs repair, or you need some spare parts. There are huge differences in how vendors support their older products.

There's a lot more to it than just delivering a product that works.

[coppice]

This aside, there are other differentiators like product maintenance (i.e. availability of firmware updates, not just for bug fixing but also for general improvement and new features) or things like user support (i.e. if you own a LeCroy scope then their application engineers will help you for free if you need advice or have to solve a complex measurement problem).

Not providing firmware updates for download is pretty unpleasant behaviour, but other support costs. Big names rebrand Chinese scopes with huge markups. If you want support you don't have to pay for directly, you have to pay in the purchase price. When a 100MHz scope from Tek or HP cost most of a year's salary, for 10% on the price they could give you a month of someone's time for support. For instruments that cost 1 or 2% of a year's salary, they can't offer you very much.

Then there's after warranty support. What happens if your older scope needs repair, or you need some spare parts. There are huge differences in how vendors support their older products.

A lot of people used to provide excellent support until long after warranty had run out. Even in the consumer space, a few companies (and only a few), like Philips, could get you a service manual and any special parts for years after your TV or Hi-Fi was purchased, and mail them to you at low prices. These days you won't get that, but its OK. The plastic cases they use now will have become brittle and disintegrated well before this matters. The instrument world isn't a lot different. I don't see as many plastic instrument cases disintegrating right now, but I do see lots of sections of instruments (mostly embrittled plastics) that crumble after just a few years. People won't be renovating 40 year old scopes from today in 2054, as people on this site are doing now with 1970s scopes. Is this a bad thing? Well, do you really want things to cost a year's salary, or 2% of one. If the instrument lasts as long as a computer the accountants have written it off, and we move on. They'll be making houses this disposable soon. 

There's a lot more to it than just delivering a product that works.

Of course.

[TunerSandwich]

Part of Rigols price point, IS the "lack" of support.  Also the lack of traditional marketing venues, and fancy trade show teams etc. 

I run a manufacturing company, and as anyone with any similar experience knows, the value of the commodities you use to build you product typical equals a VERY small percentage of the overhead rolled into the MSRP.

The majority is, after sales support, marketing and distribution costs. 

There is simply no way we should expect Lecroy or Agilent (or any other big fish) support network....or even sales force/availability.  Not from a product that competes with other products at triple the cost.

If Rigol spent the same marketing and support resources into a product like the 1000Z series, AND offered the build quality they do....they would be selling product at a loss, with the current MSRP.

STILL the reality of that issue remains.  Rigol doesn't even have complete accessory and service part listings.  The majority of their gear is lacking information, and good luck talking to an engineer.  Obviously reviewers and other higher profile customers, who can help in a small companies "guerrilla marketing" campaing, are going to tell you the opposite of most basic customers...in terms of support experience. 

I am sure that the numerous forum discussions and youtube videos about Rigol (low end) scopes can prove that marketing model.  What cheaper way to sell hobby level gear, than to have it positively reviewed on a forum or youtube channel, that caters to hobbyists? 

I believe the support structures follow suit.  It's only logical that they would, and we shouldn't expect more for the price we pay? 

HOWEVER....Rigol NA support has been, in my experience, outstandingly lacking.  For example, why do i have to submit any requests, when I am already a registered owner?  I mean for simple things, like documentation, firmware, parts....hell even licenses and accessories.  Have you seen how lacking and BAD rigols descriptions are of their software licenses, "upgrades" and accessory parts?  It's laughable....

for instance....http://www.rigolna.com/products/digital-oscilloscopes/ds2000a/ds2102a-s/

look under the accessories and software tabs....under accessories there are NO descriptions of what the product really is (forget technical datasheets).....and under software...why do I have to "request" firmware?  I am a registered user, and half the time I request via the form, I get no reply....I have to send in multiple requests. 

Quite the opposite on lecroys support pages.....any firmware I want is a click away....

I could go on and on, but I think my point is made?

Bottom line is the Rigol stuff I have owned has been great....love my DM3068 and DS2102A-S.....BUT the support (lack of) is shockingly bad....and YES some of that should be expected, for the price point.  OK, Rigol isn't Agilent or LeCroy.....BUT when basic things like "firmware request forms" and ZERO documentation of parts or accessories dominates the pitifully undescriptive website?? 

C'MON Rigol....these basic things don't cost any significant resources.....just require some logic 

[Wuerstchenhund]

Not providing firmware updates for download is pretty unpleasant behaviour, but other support costs. Big names rebrand Chinese scopes with huge markups. If you want support you don't have to pay for directly, you have to pay in the purchase price.

Yes, of course the customer pays for it somehow, and as you say its priced in.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that, just because some vendor does not provide proper support, its products will automatically be cheaper by an amount equivalent of the vendor's cost savings for the lack of support. In most cases it just means that the vendor pockets more money for profit.

When a 100MHz scope from Tek or HP cost most of a year's salary, for 10% on the price they could give you a month of someone's time for support. For instruments that cost 1 or 2% of a year's salary, they can't offer you very much.

Not really. Aside from the fact that its no longer 1969 and even a Tek or Keysight 100MHz scope no longer costs the equivalent of an engineer's annual salary, you're very much oversimplifying things. In general, the more expensive a scope is the smaller the numbers that are sold. WIth cheaper scopes it's the numbers that bring in the bakon, not the margins.

A lot of people used to provide excellent support until long after warranty had run out. Even in the consumer space, a few companies (and only a few), like Philips, could get you a service manual and any special parts for years after your TV or Hi-Fi was purchased, and mail them to you at low prices. These days you won't get that, but its OK.

Is it? You really think it's ok when complex kit like a scope is designed to be thrown away if it fails, because there's no support for it by the vendor and no spare parts? I don't think that's ok, in fact, I think it's utterly retarded.

But thankfully the major brands do support their products, even long after the warranty period. I'd rather pay a bit more (or save money by buying used kit) than paying money for producing even more shortlived landfill.

The plastic cases they use now will have become brittle and disintegrated well before this matters. The instrument world isn't a lot different. I don't see as many plastic instrument cases disintegrating right now, but I do see lots of sections of instruments (mostly embrittled plastics) that crumble after just a few years.

I noticed the same, mostly with cheap China crap. However, at least Rigol and Siglent seem to use a bit better plastics, which I would expect to survive for a lot longer.

People won't be renovating 40 year old scopes from today in 2054, as people on this site are doing now with 1970s scopes. Is this a bad thing?

What makes you so sure that this will be the case? After all, thinking back on all the analog scopes I've used over the decades and the various weak points (i.e. mechanical switches, tons of potentiometers, phosphor tube with limited life) they had, and then look at something like my now 11yr old WaveRunner2 scope where the only weaknesses should be the LCD backlight (which can be replaced by LED strips easily) and the rotary encoders, I really can't see any reason why a modern scope should not be able to survive 40 or more years.

DSOs in general should be much more reliable than most old analog scopes, so if an analog scope can survive 40 years than a DSO should be able to as well.

Well, do you really want things to cost a year's salary, or 2% of one.

Again, we're no longer in the 70's, and even the better 100MHz scopes from the big brands don't cost anything close to an engineer's one year salary. A 100MHz Keysight DSO-X2k for example is less than $2000, and a much more advanced 200MHz DSO like the LeCroy WaveSurfer 3022 is around $3k, and they all come with excellent support. For example, for me each of the price tags of these scopes amount to less than a week of work. And ff your annual salary amounts to some 4digit $ equivalent then I'd assume you'd have more pressing problems than the cost of scopes.

$2k is obviously more difficult to splash out for a hobbyist. But especially when buying a scope amounts to a large sacrifice it's pretty important to know that the product will serve for many years and that if there are problems that the vendor is there to help.

For what they do, such scopes are still dirt cheap. Do I really want to squeeze the price further at the cost of losing support? Certainly not.

If the instrument lasts as long as a computer the accountants have written it off, and we move on.

Well, aside from the fact that test kit doesn't necessarily have the same short write-off cycles as computers, without support you can only hope that the product survives the time until it has been written off. If not (well, shit happens), then you suddenly become dependent on the support the vendor may or may not give you. And without support it means the item has to be written off early as a loss (which is, in real terms, a financial loss).

They'll be making houses this disposable soon. 

Unfortunately I have to say that Britain probably pioneered disposable houses. Just look at the housing stock over here   

[Precipice]

Again, we're no longer in the 70's, and even the better 100MHz scopes from the big brands don't cost anything close to an engineer's one year salary.

You keep saying this, but it's really not a valid comparison. Many of the things scopes are used to debug have got a lot, lot faster than the 70's, 80's and 90's. Sure, audio is still audio, but...
 100MHz isn't fast any more, the 6GHz scope on my desk cost a good year's salary, and it's the baby of the family.
http://www.tek.com/oscilloscope/dpo70000-mso70000

[coppice]

Again, we're no longer in the 70's, and even the better 100MHz scopes from the big brands don't cost anything close to an engineer's one year salary.

You keep saying this, but it's really not a valid comparison. Many of the things scopes are used to debug have got a lot, lot faster than the 70's, 80's and 90's. Sure, audio is still audio, but...
 100MHz isn't fast any more, the 6GHz scope on my desk cost a good year's salary, and it's the baby of the family.
http://www.tek.com/oscilloscope/dpo70000-mso70000

The picture is more complex than you describe. In the 70s most people needed at least a 100MHz scope to develop any digital equipment. All the signals were exposed, and all needed probing. Now most of us are working on much faster circuits, but typically all the fast stuff is going on inside a big chip, and we can't get access to probe it (or even want to). What happens outside the chip is relatively slow in the great majority of cases. So, today the great majority of people working on digital systems need nothing more than a 100MHz scope to probe those relatively slow external analogue and digital signals. Anything faster than 300MHz has a rather narrow appeal.

[tautech]

Wuerstchenhund is sort of right, be we often forget the newbies, the budding EE's of tomorrow whose desire to see the waveforms in their pet projects blinkers them to grab the cheapest/first scope available.
Often it will be a quality CRO of yester-year.
It's an exercise most of us have been through and the experience has taught us heaps and/or bitten us.
But is does not take long to become aware of the shortcomings of a CRO, then they hanker for a DSO.
It is a massive step up in additional functionality, storage capability, USB connectivity, maths etc etc.
IMO let them go through it and experience the subject of this thread: reliability.
The modern DSO's are just soooo much more reliable.
Most reasonable 100 MHz DSO's will assist the EE "student" well into their career IMO.
Then as need requires, upgrading begins. 

[Wuerstchenhund]

Again, we're no longer in the 70's, and even the better 100MHz scopes from the big brands don't cost anything close to an engineer's one year salary.

You keep saying this, but it's really not a valid comparison.

I'm pretty sure it is.

Many of the things scopes are used to debug have got a lot, lot faster than the 70's, 80's and 90's. Sure, audio is still audio, but...

There's still a lot of stuff below 100MHz, i.e. SMPS, or lots of the external logic signals of common FPGAs.

100MHz isn't fast any more,

100MHz may not be as exotic as some decades ago, but it still covers a lot of the most common EE requirements.

the 6GHz scope on my desk cost a good year's salary, and it's the baby of the family.

The 100MHz equivalent of the 70's is probably a 500MHz scope these days, certainly not a 6Ghz highend scope. And again, a good 500MHz scope costs far less than an average EE's annual salary.

http://www.tek.com/oscilloscope/dpo70000-mso70000

Well, the DPO/MDO7k Series is Tek's current highend Series. The MSO70604C is listed with $74k which I guess for some EEs would probably represent a year's worth of salary (although these scopes generally sell for a lot less than MSRP, with often very large leeway for negotiations, and even more so when considering Tek's current desperation to sell anything; I'd be surprised if someone really pays more than $55k for that thing).

However, this is certainly not a common bench scope these days, or an equivalent to a 70's 100MHz scope.

[TunerSandwich]

There's still a lot of stuff below 100MHz, i.e. SMPS, or lots of the external logic signals of common FPGAs.

An interesting side note.  The current SMPS/POL I am working on requires bandwidth well beyond 100MHz.

One very common, modern, implementation is a programmable digital filter on the feedback loop.  The trick on these modern, more efficient, POL/controllers (heavily used in ASIC development and implementation) is the resonant tank effects of the external filters (passives), against the on-board filters. 

We can see ringing out to around 1000MHz in the step response.  This becomes a HUGE problem when driving a processing block, that requires sequenced turn-on/off stages. 

Where this get's really tricky, is when you factor in the Plane impedance of the PCB/traces.  In these highly critical systems 100MHz isn't going to get us very far.  Especially when thermal/efficiency factors come into play.  In highly dense, mobile, applications things get a bit "wild" 

Granted this probably doesn't apply to 99% of hobby applications, BUT with the IoT/Mobile onslaught...being crammed down the throat of the "hobby market" it's a consideration. 

That's probably a bit far off-topic, but holds some validity to potential DSO buyers.  Obviously the clocking signals and data streams don't go much past 1MHz, but those modern processing blocks are really VERY sensitive to those step responses, especially when you run them on the ragged edge.....

food for thought....

[coppice]

There's still a lot of stuff below 100MHz, i.e. SMPS, or lots of the external logic signals of common FPGAs.

An interesting side note.  The current SMPS/POL I am working on requires bandwidth well beyond 100MHz.

One very common, modern, implementation is a programmable digital filter on the feedback loop.  The trick on these modern, more efficient, POL/controllers (heavily used in ASIC development and implementation) is the resonant tank effects of the external filters (passives), against the on-board filters. 

We can see ringing out to around 1000MHz in the step response.  This becomes a HUGE problem when driving a processing block, that requires sequenced turn-on/off stages. 

Where this get's really tricky, is when you factor in the Plane impedance of the PCB/traces.  In these highly critical systems 100MHz isn't going to get us very far.  Especially when thermal/efficiency factors come into play.  In highly dense, mobile, applications things get a bit "wild" 

Granted this probably doesn't apply to 99% of hobby applications, BUT with the IoT/Mobile onslaught...being crammed down the throat of the "hobby market" it's a consideration. 

That's probably a bit far off-topic, but holds some validity to potential DSO buyers.  Obviously the clocking signals and data streams don't go much past 1MHz, but those modern processing blocks are really VERY sensitive to those step responses, especially when you run them on the ragged edge.....

food for thought....

Why did you put hobby before applications? It applies to 99% of professional work too. I happen to know people developing various forms of high efficiency resonant power supply. I don't even see them using exotic scopes most of the time. They have a lab full of simple scopes, and maybe one fancy one for the few occasions when its needed. High performance scopes are even a niche market in those labs.

[coppice]

When a 100MHz scope from Tek or HP cost most of a year's salary, for 10% on the price they could give you a month of someone's time for support. For instruments that cost 1 or 2% of a year's salary, they can't offer you very much.

Not really. Aside from the fact that its no longer 1969 and even a Tek or Keysight 100MHz scope no longer costs the equivalent of an engineer's annual salary, you're very much oversimplifying things. In general, the more expensive a scope is the smaller the numbers that are sold. WIth cheaper scopes it's the numbers that bring in the bakon, not the margins.

Volume only works if you are making a margin. If its small then even small amounts of support take you into loss. Sure you can provide some real support for guys buying 100 units for a large lab, because its spread across all those units. You can't do much more than provide basic warranty support, and downloadable material for people buying one. I suppose you do realise that the higher reliability of electronics now versus the 1970s was not driven by customer satisfaction concerns, but by the crippling cost of repairs within warranty.
[/quote]

A lot of people used to provide excellent support until long after warranty had run out. Even in the consumer space, a few companies (and only a few), like Philips, could get you a service manual and any special parts for years after your TV or Hi-Fi was purchased, and mail them to you at low prices. These days you won't get that, but its OK.

Is it? You really think it's ok when complex kit like a scope is designed to be thrown away if it fails, because there's no support for it by the vendor and no spare parts? I don't think that's ok, in fact, I think it's utterly retarded.

You chopped what I said to distort it. I was saying this didn't matter because bigger factors are at work. What I think is OK is irrelevant, anyhow. This is what is happening.

But thankfully the major brands do support their products, even long after the warranty period. I'd rather pay a bit more (or save money by buying used kit) than paying money for producing even more shortlived landfill.

If you bought an early Rigol scope you would have seen quite a long period of support by now, because they are still making those early scopes, and the parts are still current. A lot of the perception of long time support for expensive instruments comes from the same thing. The models aren't changing every year. Try getting support from the maker just a few years after production stops and see what happens. All those specialised instruments (i.e. Bluetooth 1.0 testers) which aren't flexible enough to move on (e.g. to a Bluetooth 2.0 tester) loose their support very quickly from any maker I know of. Buy a Tek scope in their end of life sell off of an old model, and you might find support ends quite quickly. It certainly used to.

The plastic cases they use now will have become brittle and disintegrated well before this matters. The instrument world isn't a lot different. I don't see as many plastic instrument cases disintegrating right now, but I do see lots of sections of instruments (mostly embrittled plastics) that crumble after just a few years.

I noticed the same, mostly with cheap China crap. However, at least Rigol and Siglent seem to use a bit better plastics, which I would expect to survive for a lot longer.

More China bashing. Get real. The experts in crumbling cases just outside warranty are western companies. The Chinese are amateurs at this, although they might be the experts at horribly discolouring plastics. In the late 90s US Robotics got really good at this - a child of JIT manufacture. Their cases starting cracking up just outside warranty. Without a well controlled JIT supply chain from the plastics moulder to the customer they would have been cracking within warranty. If you taped together one of their cracked modems, and carried on using it, the plastic actually started to powder after a few years. Cisco/linksys VoIP devices are pretty bad. One of the nastiest I have had was an Ariston washing machine, made in Europe, where every visible plastic part became fragile in under 2 years. In well under 3 years we had to dispose of it. I suspect they have changed to longer lasting plastics now, as I see they give longer warranties.

Unfortunately I have to say that Britain probably pioneered disposable houses. Just look at the housing stock over here   

The UK is listed as having one of the longest average lifetimes for its houses. I suspect that might be historic, as so many of these string and sealing wax houses and being built now. If you want to see bizarre disposability, come to Asia. People build in steel and concrete (no wood, because of termites) and pull things as young as 10 year old down to build something else.

[TunerSandwich]

There's still a lot of stuff below 100MHz, i.e. SMPS, or lots of the external logic signals of common FPGAs.

An interesting side note.  The current SMPS/POL I am working on requires bandwidth well beyond 100MHz.

One very common, modern, implementation is a programmable digital filter on the feedback loop.  The trick on these modern, more efficient, POL/controllers (heavily used in ASIC development and implementation) is the resonant tank effects of the external filters (passives), against the on-board filters. 

We can see ringing out to around 1000MHz in the step response.  This becomes a HUGE problem when driving a processing block, that requires sequenced turn-on/off stages. 

Where this get's really tricky, is when you factor in the Plane impedance of the PCB/traces.  In these highly critical systems 100MHz isn't going to get us very far.  Especially when thermal/efficiency factors come into play.  In highly dense, mobile, applications things get a bit "wild" 

Granted this probably doesn't apply to 99% of hobby applications, BUT with the IoT/Mobile onslaught...being crammed down the throat of the "hobby market" it's a consideration. 

That's probably a bit far off-topic, but holds some validity to potential DSO buyers.  Obviously the clocking signals and data streams don't go much past 1MHz, but those modern processing blocks are really VERY sensitive to those step responses, especially when you run them on the ragged edge.....

food for thought....

Why did you put hobby before applications? It applies to 99% of professional work too. I happen to know people developing various forms of high efficiency resonant power supply. I don't even see them using exotic scopes most of the time. They have a lab full of simple scopes, and maybe one fancy one for the few occasions when its needed. High performance scopes are even a niche market in those labs.

then they either aren't telling you the whole story, or they aren't shooting for highly efficient control over devices, that have sequenced power cycling.....or they aren't working with devices that have a highly critical step response.....if they aren't using high bandwidth, and aren't utilizing advanced math functions and operators, then they are missing the boat, and/or doing far too much guess work.....

example.....here is a chart generated (see image attachment) showing the step response characteristics of a POL (these are all real values not guesses.....)  in relation to Impedance vs Frequency....

It would have been impossible to characterize these components and generate this data, with a 100MHz tool....

This was analyzed because of a problem in a POL/Control filter/feedback loop.....the HF resonance tanks created by wandering/UN-characterized capacitance was causing the POL to overheat and run out of it's efficiency range.....

I don't know what your associates are working on, BUT like I said, if they aren't able to gather this kind of information...they are missing the boat....

Most modern processing cores, with stepping technology (dynamic frequency scaling), will simply not function with overshoot in the POL step response.....the number one cause of that overshoot are HF resonant tanks....especially when the V sense loop is referenced to the feedback of the POL.....

These problems aren't isolated to complex switchers....they come into play with even the most simple of non-linear devices.....and these more complex devices rule the market more and more each day.....look at any modern computing platform and they are all employing stepped power regulation technology (even the cheapest modern mobile device)....

100MHz is going to get you only so far, and then your design team is going to have to look to someone else to solve these potential problems, if they don't have the tools to characterize the root of said problem....

If you want to see these concepts in action, you don't need to look any further than the power regulation on the computer you are using to type here 

[Wuerstchenhund]

Volume only works if you are making a margin. If its small then even small amounts of support take you into loss. Sure

you can provide some real support for guys buying 100 units for a large lab, because its spread across all those units. You can't do much more than provide basic warranty support, and downloadable material for people buying one.

With volume I didn't talk about if a single buyer buys one or 100 scopes, volume is over a production run. In the big picture it does not matter much if you sell 100k units to 100k customers where each one only buys a single item, or one buyer who buys all units.

And in generall product support is not dependent on how many units an individual customer buys. You don't get better support just because you buy more scopes.

I suppose you do realise that the higher reliability of electronics now versus the 1970s was not driven by

customer satisfaction concerns, but by the crippling cost of repairs within warranty.

That's not true. The higher reliability of modern elecktronics primarily comes from improvements in manufacturing processes (ISO9000 et al), tighter integration, and the move from complex mechanical components (i.e. the rotary switches in old analog scopes) to simpler, contact-less alternatives (i.e. rotary encoders) or to electronic controls (i.e. calibration, old days with potentiometers to modern day parameter stored in a ROM).

Some of these improvements were driven by the intention to cut costs (warranty costs, yes, but mostly production costs), but a big part of it was the natural consequence of technological progress.

But thankfully the major brands do support their products, even long after the warranty period. I'd rather pay a bit more (or save money by buying used kit) than paying money for producing even more shortlived landfill.

If you bought an early Rigol scope you would have seen quite a long period of support by now, because they are still making those early scopes, and the parts are still current.

I'm not up to date with what Rigol does but as far as I'm aware there were several revisions of the DS1000, all with different board layout. The later ones are are obviously still made, but to my knowledge not the earlier revisions. But this aside, support is not when a product is made over a longer period of time. Support is what happens (or doesn't happen) when the product fails.

With Rigol, you can send it in during the warranty period, and they will fix it (obviously). This can take anywhere from a few days to well over a months. You might even get a loaner (apparently they do this for the more expensive scopes, i.e. DS2k and up). However, this is pretty basic.

The question is what happens when the product is out of warranty. Can you send it in for repair? Probably. Can you get spare parts? Siglent seems to sell them while Rigol doesn't. Can you get calibration?

Then there's product maintenance. Will problems be fixed? Just look at the Siglent SDS2k scope which still seems to suffer from a large number of bugs. Will they fix them, some of them, none? Who knows. Same with Rigol. The DS2k did get a lot of bug fixes but what about the DS4k and DS6k which both still suffer from many bugs that have long been fixed for the DS2k?

What about end user support? Does the manufacturer provide help if I have problems with how to use the product? Can I get reliable(!) specifications, and does the manufacturer document the limitations of its product?

There's a lot more to support than just making the product a while longer.

A lot of the perception of long time support for expensive instruments comes from the same thing. The models aren't changing every year.

That's nonsense. As I said before, support has nothing to do with how long the product is available.

Try getting support from the maker just a few years after production stops and see what happens.

What do you think? LeCroy for example fully supports all its scopes for 7 years after the last one of a series is made. After 7 years they still offer "best effort" (because at some point some parts may no longer be available) repair for all their scopes. In fact, they still repair the old 9300 Series scopes for which production stopped in 1998. That was 16 years ago. If I have a problem with my LeCroy scope, even if I'm just not using it correctly, I can talk to one of their application engineers who will spend time to help me to solve the problem - for free. And it doesn't matter if I bought their latest highend scope or just have a old model.

Keysight also supports most of its kit for several years after end of production, aside from other support offerings. So does R&S including Hameg. And TTi. And NI.

Don't know about Tek but they're Danaher now so it may well be that support has seen the same cuts as other parts of Tek.

All those specialised instruments (i.e. Bluetooth 1.0 testers) which aren't flexible enough to move on (e.g. to a Bluetooth 2.0 tester) loose their support very quickly from any maker I know of.

Well, for example the old CATC Bluetooth Protocol Analyzers from LeCroy have been supported until not too long ago (IIRC 2011), and they were made in 2004.

Buy a Tek scope in their end of life sell off of an old model, and you might find support ends quite quickly.
It certainly used to.

As I said before I don't know about Tek as I have no more recent experience with them, as I find their current products unattractive and their sales staff annoying (they must be really desperate).

More China bashing. Get real.

Maybe you missed the memo but these days China is undoubtly the major source of crap. That some stuff like Siglent or Rigol kit is actually very decent doesn't change that the majority of China made and China labelled stuff is just plain crap.

I've nothing against China, and I'm sure at some point in the future the label "Made in China" might even be associated with high quality products as it is today with Japan (which has also started with producting crap). But today they're the major global source of cheap crap.

The experts in crumbling cases just outside warranty are western companies. The Chinese are amateurs at this, although they might be the experts at horribly discolouring plastics.

Not in my experience. I've rarely seen crumbling pastics on products from reputable western companies, but I've seen that often from (careful, here comes "China bashing" again) China. Which isn't a major problem per se as the products usually did cost a few bucks and have to survive for a short time only.

But while I haven't seen much crumbling plastic on western products, I did notice that the overall quality feel of plastic certainly has decreased over the years.

In the late 90s US Robotics got really good at this - a child of JIT manufacture. Their cases starting cracking up just outside warranty.

Funny you mention USR, were I worked we used lots (hundreds) of USR modems (2k4bd to V.90), and while some have seen some physical abuse I can't recall having seen any plastics crumbling as you describe.

The UK is listed as having one of the longest average lifetimes for its houses. I suspect that might be historic, as so many of these string and sealing wax houses and being built now.

The old buildings are indeed of much better build quality, but anything built after the 60's is just awful. I guess the problem is that unlike say Germany (where many people built their own home or have it built after their specification) in the UK large patches of land are sold off to a single developer who then squeezes as many houses as legally possible and at the lowest costs possible onto that land, and then flogs it off.

I guess that's why so many old (100+ years) buildings are still standing.

If you want to see bizarre disposability, come to Asia. People build in steel and concrete (no wood, because of termites) and pull things as young as 10 year old down to build something else.

Just curious, why is that? Is it the climate that affects the buildings, or are they just poorly built?

[pickle9000]

Hantek's version of cutstomer support. It's ugly but I don't hate it.

http://www.hantek.org/asken/

Rigol and Siglent are close to being the same (lack of customer service) but I think Siglent wins if only because you can find firmware upgrades without pulling your hair out.

I think is critical to know the limitations / faults of equipment. All equipment has it and it's a problem that many buyers seem not to understand. The current issue with the Rigol ds1054z is a good example. Of course it's better to have a perfect scope but all scopes have issues it's just a matter of if the features outweigh those issues.

[J-D-H]

My experiences with Rigol CS, over the last 2 years, has been less than stellar.....specifically Rigol NA

However, once again, to your knowledge no other company stands head and shoulders about the rest in this regard?

BTW, I don't understand the significance of the trailing CS and NA.....

CS = customer support and NA = north American division.....

Tek, Agilent, Lecroy, Fluke and most other companies I have dealt with have far superior support.  Rigol website is lacking and they are unresponsive to email......I would go so far as to say that most other companies in T&M and electronics supply have been head and shoulders above Rigol, in that regard. 

The numerous, ongoing posts, in this forum and various others...seems to mirror my experiences

Given my price range, the customer service comparisons effectively become reduced to Rigol vs. Siglent vs. Owon (and maybe a few more in the ~$400 area).

[tautech]

Given my price range, the customer service comparisons effectively become reduced to Rigol vs. Siglent vs. Owon (and maybe a few more in the ~$400 area).

OK entry level models then.
Now it become a comparison of specs, value for money, required features and little else as it is not a large investment. Maybe the location of your supplier for support also.
Come back to us with your findings.

[pickle9000]

I'd bet serial decoding would win against waveform update rate in a sub 400 dollar scope.

[J-D-H]

Given my price range, the customer service comparisons effectively become reduced to Rigol vs. Siglent vs. Owon (and maybe a few more in the ~$400 area).

OK entry level models then.
Now it become a comparison of specs, value for money, required features and little else as it is not a large investment. Maybe the location of your supplier for support also.
Come back to us with your findings.

Recent discussions have been mostly about customer service, however much of this has had to do with comparisons between low priced manufacturers and several higher end makers (Tek, LeCroy, etc.).  Since I'm shopping only at around the $400 price point, unless I buy something used, I'm more interested in comparisons between the entry level scopes made by Rigol, Siglent, Owon, etc.  No one has mentioned Owon customer service, but comparisons have been made between Rigol and Siglent.  So while Rigol scopes (especially the DS1000Z series) may be great in many ways, if Rigol doesn't reply to emails, doesn't make firmware upgrades convenient to get, doesn't sell parts (did I understand that correctly?!), all this sure makes me hesitant about them.  And is it correct that Siglent's customer service is better in all these areas?  Being able to get help from the scope dealer (like TEquipment) instead of the scope maker might moderate these concerns, but I have no idea how much support the dealer can provide (certainly not firmware upgrades).  If Siglent and maybe Owon do all the things which Rigol does not do, that's a ~major~ factor for me.  Thanks to those who brought up these factors....