Keysight MXR 8 channel scope

[Eric_S]

FPGA?

* clicks link *

FPGA.

[srce]

And thank you for putting it next to the S-Series for a size and screen brightness comparison.  I hope the full HD screen makes a big difference in fine details as I had been bugging Daniel for a world class display on the scope without having to attach an external display.

Well, the higher resolution display was one of the features I was most interested in, as the S-series, IMO, can be quite cramped when you have several measurements at once.

Unfortunately, I'm a little bit disappointed. It seems they've scaled the icons and fonts so that they are the same physical size, meaning that it feels just as cramped and I can't see a way to change it.

In the attached pic, I've highlighted in red some of what I consider to be wasted vertical space. The sub-window headers could just be single lines with the docking controls accessible via a menu. The menu bar at the top seems to be bigger that on the S-series because of the addition of the green "Scope" button and the massive font used. If you can read the font used for the axis' labels, it's probably not necessary to have some of the other fonts (Menu and channel settings) twice as large. Comparing the size of the text in the two orange circles, the top size is perfectly readable.) The time/vertical measurement palette could go in to some of the empty space as well, rather than eating in to the horizontal display for the signals, etc.

This might sound like nit picking, but look at the picture and it's only about half the display for the signals. Compare that to the Tek MSO 5/6 series, where the UI seems much less intrusive, IMO.

Show us more of those beautiful signals, please 


edit: Maybe they've made them so big to support touch operation?

[Zucca]

Any suggestions what to measure then? 

Test how noisy the Riglol devices on the bottom are 

[srce]

please let it be not just the FFT function for an hour scopes nowadays have so many functions for an embedded engineer, protocol decoding, power analysis, compliance testing, advanced triggers, no need to turn a scope into a poor SA

Well, the RTSA mode with 400k overlapped FFT/s is one of the new features of this scope. So...

In RTSA mode, you can:

Set Span to 40/80/160/320MHz (Giving a fixed corresponding RBW of 18.31/36.62/73.24/146.6kHz). 
Centre Frequency can be set from 0Hz to 6.3GHz, in steps of 6.25MHz.
Reference level can be set from -38dBm to 36dBm.
The only measurements you appear to be able to make, is by manually placing X/Y markers.
No peak search or peak table.
No waterfall or spectrogram.
You can't save a waveform to memory or disk.
There appears to be no way to zoom in.
In RTSA mode, you can only view the real-time spectrum. You can't view the corresponding time domain signal.
Frequency mask triggering doesn't seem to work. Set up a mask to insect, press single and it immediately goes to stop without capturing anything??
One nice thing you can't do on a spectrum analyser, is that you can capture simultaneously on different channels with different centre frequencies on each. See attached GIF with a 10MHz clock on one channel and packet transfer on another.

I tried to measure the smallest signal it could see above the noise floor. So I set reference to -38dBm and then fed in a signal from a signal generator. If you set the Display scale to 10dB/division, you can just make out a tone at about -120dBm (indicated on my sig gen).
Strangely, if you set the scale to 5dB/division, the signal disappears off the bottom of the screen, and there doesn't appear to be a way add an offset to make it visible. 
Setting the sig gen to -110dBm results in a signal on the scope as -107dBm.
You can then increase the signal power to -35dBm before the ADC clips. So 85dB = ~14bits. 

 

[tv84]

This forum is becoming UNUSABLE to keep track of a conversation because of the attached image problems!!!

        

Once again I can't differentiate the images posted by srce...

[Sighound36]

I wonder if this is a pre production unit, if I recall in the video I posted pretty sure some of the FFT features that SCRE commented about were there?

Would also suggest that like any new piece of equipment the beta testers can not take everything nto account hopefully Keysight will rectify this.

[srce]

I wonder if this is a pre production unit, if I recall in the video I posted pretty sure some of the FFT features that SCRE commented about were there?

They are there for the regular FFT (i.e. the math operation in Scope mode), but they aren't supported in the RTSA mode or DDC mode (which is nothing like as good as the Tek, which can do mixed freq & time domain).

Incidentally, the regular FFT doesn't appear to have much acceleration over the S-series, at least for large amounts of data. E.g. if I do a ~16Mpoint FFT, there's only a small speed increase.

[Sighound36]

Interesting...........

[lukier]

please let it be not just the FFT function for an hour scopes nowadays have so many functions for an embedded engineer, protocol decoding, power analysis, compliance testing, advanced triggers, no need to turn a scope into a poor SA

Well, the RTSA mode with 400k overlapped FFT/s is one of the new features of this scope. So...

Maybe you are right and in this particular MXR scenario it makes sense. It is just every SignalPath scope review video is just FFT, mostly playing with some PLL, gets quite old and quickly too if ones scope usage pattern is anything but FFT. When Dave was reviewing some beast of a scope he made some effort to show USB 3.0, diff probing, eye diagrams etc. IMHO much more relevant stuff.

[jjoonathan]

https://youtu.be/dx596o8t_TY?t=1711

[lukier]

https://youtu.be/dx596o8t_TY?t=1711

Yeah I know this fragment, scroll some minutes further and it is FFT again This was also 7 years ago. Another video that is non-FFT is the overview video (not the subsequent full one, that is FFT only too ) of the MSO5 (persistence, triggers, decoding etc), that was nice.

IMHO mikeselectricstuff has the best scope reviews, tries to put them through their paces, checks most functions & interfaces + useful tips on usage.

[Sighound36]

SRCE

Does the loan unit have the phase noise measurement app installed?

[srce]

SRCE

Does the loan unit have the phase noise measurement app installed?

Yep - appears to be fully loaded

[Sighound36]

The Eagle has landed more to come......

[Sighound36]

Well day three with the MXR, some teasers for you.

The MXR is big solid beast, tank like construction and it's got significant processing power. need pi computing from  nth to 35th power, walk in the park. Could be why it swallows 650W of power 

Temperature on the side vents around 60C with big ass fan(s) going full tilt, noisy at best.
 
Lots more to follow have some power supplies meas to make with this new Keysight machine now

 

[0culus]

Can you send it to me when you're done? 

[snoopy]

Well day three with the MXR, some teasers for you.

The MXR is big solid beast, tank like construction and it's got significant processing power. need pi computing from  nth to 35th power, walk in the park. Could be why it swallows 650W of power 

Temperature on the side vents around 60C with big ass fan(s) going full tilt, noisy at best.
 
Lots more to follow have some power supplies meas to make with this new Keysight machine now

Is this yours or a demo unit ??

[Sighound36]

Hi Snoopy

The unit is a demo loaner and it has an issue so it is being returned for investigation.

More later....................

[Sighound36]

Have been getting to know the MXR respectably well since the weekend, though I have had a few niggles especially with noise floor consistency.

The MXR is big heavy beast and sits firmly on the bench and totally intimidates the vast majority of the rest of my bench equipment. If it could talk 'If you are hard enough mate' would be its strap line.

Not having used a keysight GUI for a while it has not taken to long to reacquaint myself with its workings.
Drop down menu's are nice and simple, set wizards are good touch, the vertical and time measurement bar on the left hand side is nice touch and simply slides away when not required.

Probe quality is very good and locks with a reassuring clunk.

Boot time around the 2.20 mark, around 30 seconds slower than the R&S RTO and Lecroy Wavepro series BUT significantly faster than the Tek 6 range at 5.45 minutes (rumoured to be a new model in the offing but currently delayed).

Solidly constructed  and sporting eight channels the MXR makes judicious use of my main diagnostic and research area (some relocation of shelving required if this body builder of a scope is  going to reside in personal lab).

Right off the bat the first thing that grabs you is noise this machine makes, it is seriously loud. Think early 90's desktop PC during the summer. While I appreciate there is a lot of hardware in this Challenger tank chassis its does make a big noise (Rigol mso5000 owners can smile in the knowledge an MXR would out drag them comprehensively in a sound off).

All this hardware does generate quite a bit of heat, the lower portion of the screen after a couple of hours in a well ventilated room reaches 52C. The side of the scope where all the connectivity is situated (and the IEC) does climb to around 64C even with the copious amount of air that scope moves to cool its Microsoft server like processing ability.

The logic probe is sited on the right hand side (due to the lack of front panel space taken up by the eight channels) So the probe cable has to travel through 90 degrees. Trade off from the large processing ability. RTSA thus far hummmmmmmm........... basic at best.

This is brief write up at the moment due the unit having 'issues' and is being returned to Keysight UK for investigation, obviously the Sighound ability to throw things out of whack has struck again.

Some screen images of the power supply meas I did yesterday plus some FFT and basic eye images. Last image is of the noise floor at Keysight own settings to achieve the 9 bits of ENOB  er its some way off, hence the unit being returned for investigation.

Keysight have been thoroughly professional in their handling of this hiccup and I will be receiving a full loaded and correctly functioning unit next week. It is how a problem is dealt with which tells you great deal about the company ethics and working practices so big thumbs up for Keysight UK on this matter 

The images are labelled as to the relevant measurements.

The last image is of the noise floor measured @ 20Mhz hardware BW plus 16bits of SW filter engaged @ 1mv per div and 200ps HTB claimed is 45uv as you can see it it somewhat off that figure, see explanation above.

[srce]

Noise measured as 45uV on mine under those conditions. Depending on settings, it was a little better or worse than my S series. But they don't have identical bw/sample rates above 1ghz, so cant always compare directly.

[snoopy]

Is it just a bolt-on RTSA or does it integrate with the time domain ?

[srce]

Is it just a bolt-on RTSA or does it integrate with the time domain ?

Separate mode, unfortunately.

[snoopy]

Is it just a bolt-on RTSA or does it integrate with the time domain ?

Separate mode, unfortunately.

Then not a mixed domain like the Tek ??

[Sighound36]

Is it just a bolt-on RTSA or does it integrate with the time domain ?

Separate mode, unfortunately.

Then not a mixed domain like the Tek ??

Not yet

[Sighound36]

Now in possession of a fully working and optioned up (without Tv84? total sacrilege  ) A big thank you to Keysight's  UXR/MXR applications engineer Jason for his time yesterday and travelling as far as he did in the heat, while going thoroughly through the MXR a top chap indeed.

Yesterday was ridiculously hot in the lab and the MXR being the beast of a mobile server bank did contribute in no small way to the 38C  in the there. So one did the British thing and retired to a less oppressive environment for refreshments until later in the evening when the thermometer descended to a more manageable 24C.

Long chat with Justin revealed that the MXR has only one asic per bank of 4 channels (not sure why but I was convinced it was one per channel, must be the heat  ) 

Also due in the not to distance future a convergence of Keysight OS firmware, currently the infiniium higher range scopes S series and above use one style of Keysight OS, the UXR another and now the MXR its own as well. Plans to deliver a single platform OS for these three ranges was sheduled earlier in the year but due to Covid 19 this has been put back, now possibly Xmas for this to happen? Interesting no plans to cull the S series at the moment either.

Today the MXR has been getting a work out and has been fairing well, tomorrow its gets serious, the Lecroy Wavepro is appearing in the blue corner  with gum shield and a rather fetching pair of knee length lace up boots and 
some Nigel Benn style shorts 

Seconds out.........................