The mythical Lope

[garboui]

Doing some verification and tuning this week on a design that had lots if fine itch and density. Test points: when you don't have them you need them, when you have them you need more. This leads to the tricky probing and triggering dance. With the accessibility but mostly dexterity involved, the dominant hand (right in this case prevails), results in crossing over with the left and blocking the display. Now this is not as much of an issue if you keep your scope on the left, but setups vary and sometimes is just that way. So this leads me to wonder why you don't see left handed controls on scope much. Sure there's bottom sometimes but that's about as close as you get. I can see that its a trend that's perpetually stuck because everyone does it this way so its not wrong and no one wants to take a risk.


Well I'm sure this will all be moot as soon as they take our kobs away with going full touchscreen on everything and the controls are movable.

[Fungus]

Doing some verification and tuning this week on a design that had lots if fine itch and density.

Hydrocortisone?

[ebastler]

Lope?? 

[garboui]

Lope?? 

a mashup of Left-Scope

[TerraHertz]

It might be time to mention this again:


But speaking of left handed scopes, since now all the controls are 'thin' (just membrane buttons and twirly-knobs), and the screen is thin too, perhaps some manufacturer could market a scope in which the controls panel and the LCD screen can be unclipped and are swapable. So you could have them either side.
Or just have the controls on a completely separate panel, wireless. Like a wireless keyboard or mouse. Thus allowing a scope with a front face that is all screen.

[Mr.B]

Or just have the controls on a completely separate panel, wireless. Like a wireless keyboard or mouse. Thus allowing a scope with a front face that is all screen.

This!
Please.
Keysight, Tek, anyone...

[TerraHertz]

I have a hunch, in a couple of years I'm going to be wishing I'd patented that so-obvious idea.

[tautech]

Doing some verification and tuning this week on a design that had lots if fine itch and density. Test points: when you don't have them you need them, when you have them you need more. This leads to the tricky probing and triggering dance. With the accessibility but mostly dexterity involved, the dominant hand (right in this case prevails), results in crossing over with the left and blocking the display. Now this is not as much of an issue if you keep your scope on the left, but setups vary and sometimes is just that way. So this leads me to wonder why you don't see left handed controls on scope much. Sure there's bottom sometimes but that's about as close as you get. I can see that its a trend that's perpetually stuck because everyone does it this way so its not wrong and no one wants to take a risk.


Well I'm sure this will all be moot as soon as they take our kobs away with going full touchscreen on everything and the controls are movable.

It's this way because most are right handed and use their right to manipulate the controls.

There are workarounds to ensure new design verification is simplified, the obvious being breadboards then first revision PCB then final revision with which a bed of nails is used for final checks and post production tests..
First PCB can be larger and less dense to enable simple test connectivity and might contain different test points than the production run PCB's.

[Berni]

I use clamps similar to the one in the photo to hold probes.

But yeah its a real problem sometime to hold the scope on the leg of a tiny 0402 resistor while tweaking the controls. Agilent had an answer to that in the form of voice recognition in scopes, but i have no idea how well that worked. (I can already imagine a frustrated engineer yelling at his scope "stop...Stop....STOP...No no no canel! No don't autoscale you piece of s**t!" )

Scopes don't need a remote front panel, they just need the firmware to support USB mice and keyboards. I find myself using a mouse on my windows based scope a lot and it works pretty well when the UI is designed with a touchscreen in mind (Also pops up a touchscreen keyboard in text/number input fields so a real keyboard is not needed). The mouse also can double as a remote start/stop button for the scope when i hover the cursor over the button on the screen and keep the mouse next to my circuit so i can just extend a finger and click it.

[Wuerstchenhund]

Or just have the controls on a completely separate panel, wireless. Like a wireless keyboard or mouse. Thus allowing a scope with a front face that is all screen.

This!
Please.
Keysight, Tek, anyone...

Like this?





The LeCroy WavePro 7zi(-A) and WaveMaster 8zi(-A) plus derivates (i.e. SDA, DDA) all come with a detachable front panel which can be used externally through a USB connection. The non-A variants came out in 2007/2008 so it's not exactly a new thing.

For those that hate single vertical controls there's also a variant with separate vertical controls.

[JPortici]

I remember reading some months ago that newer keysight 3000/4000 scopes could stream and could be controlled with a decent update rate over LAN

[ebastler]

The LeCroy WavePro 7zi(-A) and WaveMaster 8zi(-A) plus derivates (i.e. SDA, DDA) all come with a detachable front panel which can be used externally through a USB connection.

But apparently you are still supposed to place the control panel on the right and juggle the probes with your left hand. So this does not solve garboui's problem... 

[Wuerstchenhund]

The LeCroy WavePro 7zi(-A) and WaveMaster 8zi(-A) plus derivates (i.e. SDA, DDA) all come with a detachable front panel which can be used externally through a USB connection.

But apparently you are still supposed to place the control panel on the right and juggle the probes with your left hand. So this does not solve garboui's problem... 

Well, you're free to place the control panel on your left, the way it's placed in the image isn't mandatory 

[tautech]

Or just have the controls on a completely separate panel, wireless. Like a wireless keyboard or mouse. Thus allowing a scope with a front face that is all screen.

This!
Please.
Keysight, Tek, anyone...

Like this?

HE'S BACK. 

[ebastler]

But apparently you are still supposed to place the control panel on the right and juggle the probes with your left hand. So this does not solve garboui's problem... 

Well, you're free to place the control panel on your left, the way it's placed in the image isn't mandatory 

But then the wires would be all crossed?!   

Just kidding!

[idpromnut]

I have a hunch, in a couple of years I'm going to be wishing I'd patented that so-obvious idea.

Nah, all you gotta do now is buy a LOT of either shares in companies that make pliers, or stock a huge volume of them and sell them as "High Performance Probe Holders"

[Berni]

Oh i haven't seen the removable front panel before, nice one. Tho i probably should not ask how much that scope costs.

[AlfBaz]

Since we're rehashing old things I'll just leave this here
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/lol-at-my-scope-probe-holder/

[TerraHertz]

Nah, all you gotta do now is buy a LOT of either shares in companies that make pliers, or stock a huge volume of them and sell them as "High Performance Probe Holders"

No, I meant the scope having its controls on a separate wireless panel, so the entire scope front is a screen.

[1audio]

Three pieces. A large screen (ps monitor it keep it cheap) a digitizer the size of usb scope and a control interface with knobs and touchpad/touchscreen. Get the big stuff off of the bench.
It seems most complaints about USB scopes revolve around UI limitations.

Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk

[CopperCone]

sometime you just need shiva in the laboratory

[nctnico]

Now this is not as much of an issue if you keep your scope on the left, but setups vary and sometimes is just that way. So this leads me to wonder why you don't see left handed controls on scope much.

AFAIK Yokogawa still builds DSOs with the screen on top of the controls leading to a very compact scope.

[BurningTantalum]

Why can't one just put the scope on the left side of the bench/work. Mine has always been thus and I don't recall ever thinking about it. I have just dug out a photo of me at work in 1974 and the scope was on the left and I twiddled the knobs with my left hand.
BT

[Neomys Sapiens]

I think that there are two elements to the basic problem: one is about the dominant hand and the other is about obscuration.
Concerning the dominant hand thing, I found it useful to cross-train when doing some less critical work, like soldering or measuring with changing sides.
And the obscuration problem has been alleviated much (for me) by the larger displays available nowadays.