Lecroy Wavesurfer 3054

[ollopa]

In any case yes, the WS3K has smart triggers and the older 32-bit LeCroy scopes do not.  But they're still faster, upgradeable (MB/CPU/OS), run full Windows so you can run other software on the scope (JTAG cable server, protocol analyzer software, whatever else is useful in your lab), have deeper sample memory, etc.

[Mr Nutts]

In any case yes, the WS3K has smart triggers and the older 32-bit LeCroy scopes do not.

From what I understand the WSXS and WRXI do. Just the WP7KA and WP6KA don't

Good hardware triggers are the key to find rare glitches and even the older LT series had them

But they're still faster, upgradeable (MB/CPU/OS), run full Windows so you can run other software on the scope (JTAG cable server, protocol analyzer software, whatever else is useful in your lab), have deeper sample memory, etc.

Which is great if that is what you're looking for

But I don't want my scope to be the project. I want to use it to build other things

I also have an Agilent Infinum DSO8064 which runs XP but I don't run other programs on it or upgrade the OS (what for?)

My old Lecroy LTs don't run Windows or can be upgraded but they do what they're supposed to do day and and day out. From what I have seen the WS3000 is exactly the same 

And it's not as if Lecroy had to take lots of WS3000 back because they're so poor. From what I understand the WS3000 came out around 2014 and sold rather well

[tautech]

And it's not as if Lecroy had to take lots of WS3000 back because they're so poor. From what I understand the WS3000 came out around 2014 and sold rather well

Yes announced here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/lecroy_s-newest-siglent-scope-is-here!/

However it seems its parent SDS3000 was unveiled in 2013 when the earliest mentions where made of it on EEVblog.
I had a quick fiddle with one in 2014 at the Siglent factory and it was clear the 3k was not intended for western markets as the was no English UI setting as LeCroy had all western marketing rights. 

[JPortici]

I would buy a WS3K over a Rigol or Siglent any day of the week

You say that... i said that before actually using it.
Granted that i would buy ANYTHING before a rigol and every time i make an exception to this rule i get very disappointed, the 5000X from siglent is really something different from anything they've done before. The 5034 is or was 2.9k when we demoed it hence why i said "for that kind of money"

[FuzzyOnion]

In any case yes, the WS3K has smart triggers and the older 32-bit LeCroy scopes do not.

But I don't want my scope to be the project. I want to use it to build other things

My old Lecroy LTs don't run Windows or can be upgraded but they do what they're supposed to do day and and day out. From what I have seen the WS3000 is exactly the same 

And it's not as if Lecroy had to take lots of WS3000 back because they're so poor. From what I understand the WS3000 came out around 2014 and sold rather well

That mirrors my thoughts so far, based  on information gleaned elsewhere.  I'm certainly not discounting those opinions here, especially from folks who have actually used the 3054.  I've been corresponding with my associate from another forum about the 3054 he bought refurbished from ebay.  I had passed along some of the comments made here and he has since basically been throwing everything he could think of at the scope.  He's a bit of a generator junkie - he probably has one of everything ever made or it seems that way to me.  He has used NTSC/ATSC video patterns, various weird" waveforms he created with his arbs, a variety of modulated signals from a vector generator and typical stuff - AM/FM/PM - from his assortment of Marconi 1200 series and R&S SMB100 gens.  Some FFTs take a few seconds to  process, but other than that, no freezes and he hasn't found anything he couldn't trigger.

We're both retired EEs and he's probably tried more stuff in the last week than I'll ever see in my application of the scope.  Given the lack of any serious competition for the same configuration and price,  I'll probably roll the dice on the 3054.

Thanks to all who took the time to respond and again, thanks for your perspective Martin.

Cheers

[nctnico]

If you are into RF and don't need feature like decoding then I'd go for a second hand scope. In your price range you can find really nice ones on Ebay.

So, if you know of another 500 MHz, 4G/s, 4 channel scope that is a turnkey package, please let me know - I'm exhausted.

The Agilent 54835A / 54845A are nice and affordable. I have one of these (54835A uphacked to 54845A) specifically for measuring high frequency signals. The trigger system has a very low jitter and the inputs are very resillient to overdrive which means you can get really steep edges into the trigger system by cranking the v/div to a very low setting. I managed to resolve 20ps steps from a digital delay line using this oscilloscope.
Money wise it is often cheaper to buy a lower end general purpose oscilloscope (somewhere in the $1000 range) and a scope for high frequency work. An all-in-one box gets expensive quickly and may not perform as well.

[dietert1]

..
WSXS and WRXI seem to have build quality issues with tendency to overheat and other problems (i.e. delaminating touch layer). And I heard power supplies are a weak point, too
..

That's why you want to clean the dust, when you buy a ten year old unit. If you don't do that, fans will run at high speed and it will die from overheat after some years. Keep it clean and it will run like charm!

Regards, Dieter

[Mr Nutts]

..
WSXS and WRXI seem to have build quality issues with tendency to overheat and other problems (i.e. delaminating touch layer). And I heard power supplies are a weak point, too
..

That's why you want to clean the dust, when you buy a ten year old unit. If you don't do that, fans will run at high speed and it will die from overheat after some years. Keep it clean and it will run like charm!

I doubt that "cleaning the dust" will help when the termal design of these scopes is so bad that even Lecroy had to upgrade the fans to keep the scopes from burning out during it's warranty period 

[Mr Nutts]

The Agilent 54835A / 54845A are nice and affordable. I have one of these (54835A uphacked to 54845A) specifically for measuring high frequency signals. The trigger system has a very low jitter and the inputs are very resillient to overdrive which means you can get really steep edges into the trigger system by cranking the v/div to a very low setting. I managed to resolve 20ps steps from a digital delay line using this oscilloscope.

I have a DSO8064 which is the successor generation of these 54800 Infinums and I like it but it's not without issues. It's now 11 years old and considered 'obsolete' by Keysight, and the hardware triggers are limited similar to WR6KA and WP7KA (the Runt trigger is a software trigger, i.e. part of InfiniScan)

The 54800 scopes are even older and also rely on a weird architecture with two graphics cards and hardware overlay. From what I know especially the earlier scopes which used Windows 95/98 weren't very reliable, and by now many scopes suffer from defective attenuators or other problems 

My DSO8064 doesn't have these problems,its architecture is closer to newer Infinums like the 9000 series so there's no nonsense like two graphics cards, and it also has a high resolution (XGA) touch screen instead of the non-touch VGA panel of the 54800's, but it's still a large and somewhat loud scope which if it fails is no longer supported by its manufacturer

I don't think any of the oldtimers mentioned in this thread are viable alternatives to a factory-refurbished WS3000 with warranty unless you're looking for a scope as a project

[nctnico]

I don't think any of the oldtimers mentioned in this thread are viable alternatives to a factory-refurbished WS3000 with warranty unless you're looking for a scope as a project

That depends entirely on the requirements. Besides the difference in bandwitdh I doubt the triggering and FFT performance of the 54845A can be matched by the WS3000.

[Mr Nutts]

I don't think any of the oldtimers mentioned in this thread are viable alternatives to a factory-refurbished WS3000 with warranty unless you're looking for a scope as a project

That depends entirely on the requirements. Besides the difference in bandwitdh I doubt the triggering and FFT performance of the 54845A can be matched by the WS3000.

Found the 54845A spec sheet:
https://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/5980-2397EN.pdf?id=1000070291:epsg:dow

Here's the WS3000 spec sheet:
http://cdn.teledynelecroy.com/files/pdf/wavesurfer-3000-datasheet.pdf

WS3000 has hardware triggers for Runt and HDTV video over the 54845

54845 also has only 65k memory (in 2ch mode, only 32k in 4ch mode) vs 10M for WS3000
Sample rate and bandwidth on 54845 will drop like a rock on longer time bases due to its tiny memory

FFT size is 32k for the 54845 vs 1M for the WS3000 

Persistence mode in 54845 has only 8 steps of gray vs 256 in the WS3000 
Even my old Lecroy LT have 256 step persistence

CPU in 54845 is ancient AMD K6-2 400MHz processor which is outperformed by any smartphone CPU of the last 5 years 
I bet FFT perfomance at 32k on the WS3000 is way faster than on old 54845 dinosaur

54845 doesn't look like it's that great of a scope, not even when compared to a $400 Siglent. It has bandwith on paper but that's it. And if I needed a 1GHz or faster scope, for the money working 54845As seem to go I'd rather buy something like a Wavepro 900 - better hardware, more memory (64M), better persistence and much better triggers

My old Agilent DSO8064 at least has decent memory (128M) and good persistence mode (256 step like WS3000) and can do FFT to 32M so it's a lot more useful. It also has PCIe architecture board with much faster CPU. But I still would not try to talk Mr. FuzzyOnion into buying one just because DSO8064 is OK for my use

[nctnico]

That is why I wrote the 54845A is great for RF. Again, it can make sense to buy 2 different scopes instead of an all-in-one solution which doesn't do anything really well.

BTW I also looked at the Lecroy Wavepro 900 series but these have their problems as well and make a lot more (acoustic) noise. Besides that the Wavepro 900 doesn't have the ability to save to a USB stick. The most recent 54845A models (VIN 33) have a network interface and USB ports.

[Mr Nutts]

That is why I wrote the 54845A is great for RF. Again, it can make sense to buy 2 different scopes instead of an all-in-one solution which doesn't do anything really well.

Clearly, Mr. FuzzyOnion is happy with a 500MHz scope

BTW I also looked at the Lecroy Wavepro 900 series but these have their problems as well and make a lot more (acoustic) noise. Besides that the Wavepro 900 doesn't have the ability to save to a USB stick. The most recent 54845A models (VIN 33) have a network interface and USB ports.

The Wavepro 900 is actually not louder than my DSO8064, both are not silent but I think acceptable (the Wavepro 7000 is really loud, though), and while it doesn't have USB it can save data to compact flash cards which are more reliable than USB keys anyways

Ethernet card was an option for LT and Wavepro 900 and many scopes already come with it

And USB (1.0 I guess because these are antique Socket 7 mobos) is hardly a compensation for the tiny memory size and all the other issues like the poor persistence mode or the tiny FFT size (32k is hardly better than the 16k FFT of a $350 Rigol DS1054z)

Aren't you generally the guy who raves against Keysight's simpler scopes because they have only 4M of memory and who regularly declares that long memory is so important for your work? 

You are certainly right that it can make sense to buy two scopes instead of one in some cases (and you can never have to many scopes anyways) but for a 500MHz requirement the WS3000 should do just fine

And if I really needed a faster scope than the ones I have then really the last scope I'd buy is something with so little memory and so many limitations as a 54845

And capability-wise even my old Waveruner LT run circles around the 54845, and from the poor specs it looks like the Wavepro 900 is in a completely different league

[nctnico]

OTOH the 54845A has better timing resolution (2ps versus 5ps for the Wavepro900) and shorter time/div (100ps versus 200ps). For the purpose I bought the 54845A these are important specs. The Wavepro 900 series probably wouldn't have been able to perform the measurements I needed to do (*). The devil is in the details. Neither scopes would be good for general purpose use though given today's choice of relatively cheap 100MHz/ 200MHz oscilloscopes.

* The R&S RTM3004 also can't match the low trigger jitter of the the 54845A.

[Martin72]

but for a 500MHz requirement the WS3000 should do just fine

The WS3000Z could it do it...
If I get the time for it on work, I´ll do a video from working with the WS3024.....
In the product hierarchy the WS3K is the first wavesurfer model, the entry model - we spend over 4000€ for ours ( with decoding options) and they (lecroy support) told me, well it´s a low cost model which can´t compete against other lecroy models.

[Mr Nutts]

OTOH the 54845A has better timing resolution (2ps versus 5ps for the Wavepro900) and shorter time/div (100ps versus 200ps). For the purpose I bought the 54845A these are important specs.

I'm sure you can get the 100ps/div on the Wavepro through the zoom

I don't know what difference the timing resolution makes for what you do 

But the Wavepro also has a better timebase stability (10ppm vs 70ppm for the 54845) and has an input for an external reference clock

And it appears that the trigger system on these old Infinum scopes only work up to 700MHz to 1GHz (usually half the analog BW)

Lecroy's trigger system in the Wavepro goes up to the full analog BW

The Wavepro 900 series probably wouldn't have been able to perform the measurements I needed to do (*). The devil is in the details.

Can you expand on these measurements you make which can only be done on a 54845? 

[Mr Nutts]

but for a 500MHz requirement the WS3000 should do just fine

The WS3000Z could it do it...
If I get the time for it on work, I´ll do a video from working with the WS3024.....

Cool 

In the product hierarchy the WS3K is the first wavesurfer model, the entry model - we spend over 4000€ for ours ( with decoding options) and they (lecroy support) told me, well it´s a low cost model which can´t compete against other lecroy models.

And you think that's wrong? 

WS3000 is low-cost because it's not a scope with built-in Windows PC like larger Wavesurfer models. Its using a low power embedded processor which is why it's so cheap

And EUR4000 (which I guess translates to around $5000) is not that much money for a scope with the functionality of the WS3000, at least not in Europe where prices are higher anyways (it appears here in the US the WS3024 went for under $3k)

My 500MHz LT574 I think was priced around $12k when new and my 600MHz Agilent DSO8064 was over $14k when new. And these are still sub-1GHz scopes

[tv84]

BTW, any owner could make a memdup of his scope? Or flash/NAND reads?

[Martin72]

When I know how to do it, I would…

@Mr Nutts:

Yes it´s cheap, but when I compare it to the even cheaper rigol mso5000, and I could compare them, there isn´t much "pros" for the ws3000:
Brighter screen, building quality in general, clear and logical menu structures, integrated 50ohm termination and, for those who need it, higher bandwith up to 1ghz, excellent decoding menus...wait…
..while counting up the advantages of the ws3000 against the mso5000, it comes in mind, that there wasn´t so many pro´s for the rigol, except faster hardware, more (less/more useful)features in general, more samplerate, more memory.
OK forget it..
If it weren´t so slow in some cases and if it weren´t so buggy in some cases (freezing), the ws3000 would be a good scope, I must confess.
Therefore I would like to test the WS3000Z model, actual all options free.

 

[2N3055]

4000 € is way too much money for a slowish 200 MHz scope that pretty much has no more advanced capabilities than 500€ Siglent or 1300€ GW Instek.

On the other hand, 2900 € for a 500MHz version is good deal, if it includes decodes.

Every instrument has pros and cons..

[nctnico]

OTOH the 54845A has better timing resolution (2ps versus 5ps for the Wavepro900) and shorter time/div (100ps versus 200ps). For the purpose I bought the 54845A these are important specs.

The Wavepro 900 series probably wouldn't have been able to perform the measurements I needed to do (*). The devil is in the details.

Can you expand on these measurements you make which can only be done on a 54845? 

Some of the projects I work on deal with time and frequency distribution which have jitter specs in the single digit ps level. For testing an oscilloscope is a handy tool to see if the jitter is OK or a change in the system added a large amount of jitter or some phase shift got added.

[Martin72]

If someone need a 1Ghz scope:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/LeCroy-DDA-120-Superoscilloscop/153468661713?hash=item23bb71efd1:g:CFsAAOSwJi1cxurx&frcectupt=true

(Printer/Floppy out of order)

Actual 21€ but with pricelimit.

[tv84]

Does it run Space Invaders?

[Martin72]

 

By the way :

When I know how to do it, I would…

[Mr Nutts]

When I know how to do it, I would…

Do you have cell with a good camera? Or if you can get hold of a digitizer for VGA, I think the WS3000 has VGA output

@Mr Nutts:

Yes it´s cheap, but when I compare it to the even cheaper rigol mso5000, and I could compare them, there isn´t much "pros" for the ws3000:
Brighter screen, building quality in general, clear and logical menu structures, integrated 50ohm termination and, for those who need it, higher bandwith up to 1ghz, excellent decoding menus...wait…
..while counting up the advantages of the ws3000 against the mso5000, it comes in mind, that there wasn´t so many pro´s for the rigol, except faster hardware, more (less/more useful)features in general, more samplerate, more memory.
OK forget it..

If it weren´t so slow in some cases and if it weren´t so buggy in some cases (freezing), the ws3000 would be a good scope, I must confess.

I asked a former member Who Shall Not Be Named ( ) and he said this:

"Regarding your question about the WS3000 being slow, well it depends. It's an embedded platform scope so it lacks the fast processing backend of the larger LeCroy scopes and that means that math on math or long FFTs can bring the scope to a crawl. Also, using long memory slows things down but that is normal as the time it takes to fill a certain amount of sample memory at a certain sample rate will always take a specific time - that's a mathematical given. But for standard tasks the scope is most certainly not slow, and most of our engineers actually like them (I think we currently have 120 of them), also that they can use all the LeCroy probes we have for bigger scopes.

As to crashed, we have seen a few crashes with very early firmware. Also we got a few units that slowed down more than this is normal, or reacting strangely. But these were simple DOA units that have been replaced by LeCroy, and the new units work just fine. No crashes with current firmware."

Are you sure your instrument is not defective?

OTOH the 54845A has better timing resolution (2ps versus 5ps for the Wavepro900) and shorter time/div (100ps versus 200ps). For the purpose I bought the 54845A these are important specs.

The Wavepro 900 series probably wouldn't have been able to perform the measurements I needed to do (*). The devil is in the details.

Can you expand on these measurements you make which can only be done on a 54845? 

Some of the projects I work on deal with time and frequency distribution which have jitter specs in the single digit ps level. For testing an oscilloscope is a handy tool to see if the jitter is OK or a change in the system added a large amount of jitter or some phase shift got added.

I also asked the same person about the 54845 and I'll just copy in his reply as it's too much to repeat from memory:

"Don't get hung up on datasheets, they don't tell the whole story. In addition, especially back then LeCroy was very conservative with its numbers (HPAK has always been on the optimitic side ).

The 54845A you were asking about is pretty old. It is one of the early Infiniiums that came out when the manufacturer was still HP. The 54845A is actually based on the technology of the HP 54720D modular scope which came out in the early 1990's. The 54845A is pretty much a 54720A+54722A plugins connected to a slow Windows98 PC, all squeezed in a compact box. Like the 54720D, the 54845A was meant for signal integrity measurements, i.e. mask tests, jitter measurements and eye diagrams.

Unfortunately the old architecture leads to severe limitations in the 54845A: the sample memory is tiny (64kpts) which allows for FFTs up to 32kpts only with no phase information. The trigger system has been modified, it has a limited set of hardware trigger and even important triggers like "Runt" are only software-based. In addition, the trigger BW is only 1/2 of the analog BW. As you mentioned, persistence is very poor, making the 54845A not a great scope for eye diagrams. Measurements and analysis tools are basic, as are the jitter analysis tools. In general, the whole scope is pretty slow, thanks to the vastly underpowered computing backend (AMD K6). And thanks to the limitation to Windows98 the 54845A also lost out to many improvements that went into the XP Infiniium software.

In addition, these scopes aren't really reliable, or at least they weren't when they were new and we bought lots of them. They suffered from various issues (PSUs, ADC issues, trigger circuitry) which meant they spent almost as much time with HP/Agilent as with us. Funny enough, the 54720Ds we had were very reliable.

As to your question regarding the WavePro 960 against the 54845A, frankly there is no comparison. The WavePro is in a different league. It has more BW (2GHz vs 1.5GHz), it has double the sample rate (16GSa/s vs 8GSa/s in the 54845A) which also means its time resolution is higher, it has ooldes of memory more than the 54845A (64Mpts vs 64kpts; even the most basic WavePro 900 has 250kpts), it can do multiple long memory FFTs (up to 25Mpts if I remember right) including phase information, it has a trigger system that not only comes with a long list of hardware triggers and supports the full analog BW, it also generally performs better than even the trigger on newer Infiniium scopes. The processing backend is much stronger, and the fact that the OS in the WavePro 900 is VxWorks (a true realtime OS, unlike Win98!) which is very light on resources certainly helps. As to toolsets, the WavePro has very advanced math and analysis tools, it's JitterPro toolset makes the jitter functions in the 54845A look like a toy, there's a Power Analysis option, Digital Filter option, and even a demodulation option for quadrature modulation (I/Q, i.e. signal analysis). There is 256 step persistence mode for eye diagrams as well as color persistence and waterfall persistence modes (SMAP), and the much more sophisticated ERES mode instead of the simple HiRes mode to extend vertical resolution.

The WavePro 900 hardware is made by Iwatsu and the build quality is like a tank, it's also remarkable reliable. The screen is large, there's an Ethernet option, and the possibility to use CF cards for data transfer. In terms of acoustic noise, as you know the WavePro 900 isn't very loud, I would say mine is around the same as my Infiniium 8000. Even a service manual with schematics is available.

The WavePro 900 has been the reference scope for many industry standards like RAMBUS, and because of its high timing resolution down to picoseconds and the advanced jitter tools (JPRO), LeCroy even sold a variant of the WavePro 900 as dedicated jitter analyzer (called J-250 and J-260).

You asked if the 54845A could do anything better than the WavePro 960. The answer is no. Neither in performance nor capabilities the 54845A is a match for the WavePro.

Now I don't know what your friend is doing with his 54845A but if it does what he wants it to do then more power to him. But I would not buy a 54845A today, no matter how cheap. Not just because the WavePro 900 prices have dropped so much, but also because of the limitations through Windows98 and the antique architecture. If it has to be cheap I'd probably rather buy a 54720D, but amongst the scopes mentioned here for serious use the WavePro 900 is the only viable option in my view."

It's now mood since you have your scope but I guess you should have had a better look at the Wavepro when you were looking

So Mr FuzzyOnion should probably not consider the 54845 as an alternative for the WS3000, right?