Magnova oscilloscope

[Martin72]

Hi Andre,

You can select the behaviour in the settings menu:

Ah...

Where can I find the corresponding menu?
There is no note in the firmware changelog and no instructions were included with the switch.
Thx!
Martin

[Tomki]

Hi Andre,

You can select the behaviour in the settings menu:

Ah...

Where can I find the corresponding menu?
There is no note in the firmware changelog and no instructions were included with the switch.
Thx!
Martin

After firmware update you will find new menu items in the settings. Additionally to the control settings you can map the footswitch as a hotkey (F12)

[egonotto]

Hello,

There is a lot about noise in the data sheet. But what about the noise when HiRes is switched on?

The values at 1 mV/div and 1 V/div with 50 Ohm and 1 MOhm would tell me enough.

Otherwise as in the data sheet: “4 Channel active with 1 GSa/s each, open inputs, 5 ms/div (60 ms/screen), typical values”.
Bandwidth 20 MHz and depending on what is possible.

Best regards
egonotto

[Martin72]

Hi egonotto,

I can tell you next week when I have the opportunity to measure it at work.

Martin

[Tomki]

I tried to compile some values (s. attachment)

Settings: 4 Channels active with 1 GSa/s each, open inputs, 5ms/div (81.8 MPts/ch).
As it should be for measuring the noise floor, I measured AC RMS (std dev) - not Vrms.
I had to choose 81.8 MPts/ch manually, otherwise the sample rate was below 1 GSa/s.
However, the orange highlighted values ​​actually make little sense, since the bandwidth of the Magnova is below 20 MHz anyway from a HiRes setting of 14.5 bits at 1 GSa/s.
Best regards
Thomas

[Martin72]

Will try to recreate it in the next days...

[TSOL]

Hello, The Magnova appears to be quite the oscilloscope! Too bad its not available in the US yet, as I'd CERTAINLY like to support such wonderful engineering. 
(Even if it means saving up for a while)
A rough timeline for availability in the US would be most appreciated. 

I found some reviews for it, although the best ones I have found are in German. I do not speak German, but I recognize words here and there.

For anyone hungry for any sort of content on this oscilloscope, this is at least a starting point (the above review is the first part of a 3-part series). Its nice to get a demonstration of the User interface in person (well, in video form). Clearly very responsive, and even if the waveform update rate bogs down at high memory bandwidth (like literally all other scopes do), having a responsive scope genuinely helps quite a lot. It allows you to quickly change to a setting that isn't so intensive if you need a better visual. I can see this being a favorite of the "Knob Twiddlers Anonymous" club, or at least of me if I can justify it. 

[Momchilo]

Here you find a whole German channel related to the Magnova scope: https://www.youtube.com/@OsziWissen/videos

[nctnico]

I tried to compile some values (s. attachment)

Settings: 4 Channels active with 1 GSa/s each, open inputs, 5ms/div (81.8 MPts/ch).
As it should be for measuring the noise floor, I measured AC RMS (std dev) - not Vrms.
I had to choose 81.8 MPts/ch manually, otherwise the sample rate was below 1 GSa/s.
However, the orange highlighted values ​​actually make little sense, since the bandwidth of the Magnova is below 20 MHz anyway from a HiRes setting of 14.5 bits at 1 GSa/s.
Best regards
Thomas

You have to keep in mind that hi-res mode also has a filtering effect. For each extra bit, the effective samplerate drops by a factor 4 (as a rule of thumb). So at 15 bits (3 bits extra), the effective samplerate gets divided by 4^3 = 64. 1Gs/s / 64 = 15.6 Ms/s

[Tomki]

I tried to compile some values (s. attachment)

Settings: 4 Channels active with 1 GSa/s each, open inputs, 5ms/div (81.8 MPts/ch).
As it should be for measuring the noise floor, I measured AC RMS (std dev) - not Vrms.
I had to choose 81.8 MPts/ch manually, otherwise the sample rate was below 1 GSa/s.
However, the orange highlighted values ​​actually make little sense, since the bandwidth of the Magnova is below 20 MHz anyway from a HiRes setting of 14.5 bits at 1 GSa/s.
Best regards
Thomas

You have to keep in mind that hi-res mode also has a filtering effect. For each extra bit, the effective samplerate drops by a factor 4 (as a rule of thumb). So at 15 bits (3 bits extra), the effective samplerate gets divided by 4^3 = 64. 1Gs/s / 64 = 15.6 Ms/s

Correct! That‘s what I said (However, the orange highlighted values ​​actually make little sense, since the bandwidth of the Magnova is below 20 MHz anyway from a HiRes setting of 14.5 bits at 1 GSa/s)

[egonotto]

Hello,

@Tomki: Thank you. Did you “short-circuit” the input with a 50 Ohm termination for the noise measurement?
If not, does the noise change if you “short-circuit” the input with a 50 Ohm termination?

Best regards
egonotto

[Tomki]

Hello,

@Tomki: Thank you. Did you “short-circuit” the input with a 50 Ohm termination for the noise measurement?
If not, does the noise change if you “short-circuit” the input with a 50 Ohm termination?

Best regards
egonotto

No - open inputs, as specified. What do you mean by „short circuit with 50 Ohm? The Magnova does have a selectable 50 Ohm input impedance, so what would change connecting a 50 Ohm external load?
Regards
Thomas

[egonotto]

Hello,

the 50 Ohm terminating resistors have a metal cap. They reduce interference and at 1 Mohm they can also be regarded as a short circuit. Dave uses them in some of his videos. With some oscilloscopes and settings you can see a change, with others not. I would be interested to know whether the noise of the Magnova can be reduced by such a 50 Ohm terminating resistor.

You often short-circuit the input of an amplifier to determine its inherent noise.

Best regards
egonotto

[Tomki]

Hello,

the 50 Ohm terminating resistors have a metal cap. They reduce interference and at 1 Mohm they can also be regarded as a short circuit. Dave uses them in some of his videos. With some oscilloscopes and settings you can see a change, with others not. I would be interested to know whether the noise of the Magnova can be reduced by such a 50 Ohm terminating resistor.

You often short-circuit the input of an amplifier to determine its inherent noise.

Best regards
egonotto

Must look for 50 ohm terminators. Should have some somewhere around 

[Tomki]

Although the scope is not really warmed up yet, I can in deed recognize a drop of about 5 uV with the 50 ohm terminators on !

[TSOL]

I have watched this review a few times now, and I actually am quite curious. At 6:00 minutes into the video, why is his waveform update rate so low? All of the promotional advertising suggested waveform update rates of 300,000 waveforms/sec, and this is only 10-100. Of course, the time base isn't particularly short, so this is likely having some (likely rather significant) impact on waveform update rate, but that rate seems to be quite low even considering this.

I don't know oscilloscopes nearly as well as the next guy, so if it's just due to the timebase being in the millisecond range, that would make sense, but I would like to confirm if anyone has an idea.

[egonotto]

Hello,

285 wfms/s at 6:06 seems quite alright to me. With a 1 kHz signal, the upper limit is 1000 wfms/s. However, this must not be reached here. The screen displays 1.2 ms. As a signal should only be visible once, this further limits the maximum achievable wfms/s. So, in my opinion, everything is in the green zone.

Best regards
egonotto

[2N3055]

Egonotto is right.

When we talk timebase, it is in s/div. This scope has 12 horizontal divs, so for instance, at 1ms/div scope will need 12ms to scan the screen after the trigger. So at 1 ms/div, even if you could trigger without any overhead (which you cannot there must me some time for scope to get ready for new trigger), that would mean 1/12ms = 83Hz. So in that timebase, no more triggers than that even in ideal circumstances. In practice it would be a bit less.

[Martin72]

New firmware is available:

Version 1.3.4 (6th March 2025)
New functionality:

Added :ACQuire:BANDwidth and :CHAN[N]:FILTer SCPI commands.
Optimizations:
-Significantly increased decoding speed and update rates when analyzing longer time
periods / greater memory depths.
-Mouse pointer control is now combined for all connected mice.
-The grid label adjust to the smallest font size required for any label on an axis.
Bugfixes:
-Fixed domain name resolution issues for both static and DHCP network configurations.
-Fixed an issue where time offset changes were reverted under certain conditions in history
mode.
-Fixed individual measurement SCPI queries returning binary data instead of ASCII.
-Fixed a bug where failed SMB share access could cause the device to shut down.
-Fixed various trigger types potentially missing or misinterpreting events based on
incomplete consideration of hysteresis levels.
-Fixed issue in sub-sample trigger point interpolation leading to decreased temporal
resolution of waveform alignment.
-Fixed some rare stability issues.

https://www.batronix.com/shop/downloads/index.html?sManufacturer=Batronix&sGroup=Oscilloscope&sProduct=Batronix%20Magnova%20BMO

Along with a new accessory, a case for the Scope:

https://www.batronix.com/shop/accessory/BMO-CASE.html

[woody]

New firmware is available:

Version 1.3.4 (6th March 2025)

Bugfixes:

-Fixed a bug where failed SMB share access could cause the device to shut down.

Unfortunately this bug is not fixed in the latest FW. It is a bit of a nuisance because the last location used for saving f.i. a screenshot is persistent:

- I save a screenshot to a share on my PC.
- Shutdown the PC making the share inaccessible.
- If I now want to save another screenshot on the scope itself I never get to select the local drive, for as soon as I press [Save/Load] [Save Screenshot] the scope hangs for about 30 seconds, shows the panel in which I can set the location of the screenshot for a second and then shuts down.
- After rebooting the scope the share is still the default location which means I first have to make the share available again before I'm able to select the local drive. Another solution is to pull the network cable from the scope; then the scope hangs for about 10 seconds and subsequently shows the panel in which I can set the location of the screenshot to local drive or memstick if available without shutting down.

So there is still some work to do on this bug

Along with a new accessory, a case for the Scope:

https://www.batronix.com/shop/accessory/BMO-CASE.html

This I bought immediately

[FloBX]

Unfortunately this bug is not fixed in the latest FW. It is a bit of a nuisance because the last location used for saving f.i. a screenshot is persistent:

- I save a screenshot to a share on my PC.
- Shutdown the PC making the share inaccessible.
- If I now want to save another screenshot on the scope itself I never get to select the local drive, for as soon as I press [Save/Load] [Save Screenshot] the scope hangs for about 30 seconds, shows the panel in which I can set the location of the screenshot for a second and then shuts down.
- After rebooting the scope the share is still the default location which means I first have to make the share available again before I'm able to select the local drive. Another solution is to pull the network cable from the scope; then the scope hangs for about 10 seconds and subsequently shows the panel in which I can set the location of the screenshot to local drive or memstick if available without shutting down.

So there is still some work to do on this bug

Hi woody,
thank you for your message including the detailed description.
We are already looking into the issue (we fixed a similar but distinct issue) and will try to resolve it with the next update.

Best regards
Florian

[Sorama]

For the record, the tabular (mis)alignment of decoded data is still not fixed.
I reported this the very first moment the scope was available.

[Andre77]

For the record, the tabular (mis)alignment of decoded data is still not fixed.
I reported this the very first moment the scope was available.

Dear Sorama,

Could you please clarify what you mean by "tabular (mis)alignment of decoded data"? What doesn't align as expected? I’ve reviewed your posts in this thread but couldn’t find any details on this issue. If we’ve overlooked any of your feedback, I sincerely apologize!

Best regards,
Andre

[Martin72]

Hi,
After I took the scope home again, here are a few small update requests:

-A boot screen during startup
-A shutdown message when you turn off the scope.
-A (maybe selectable)restart after the firmware upgrade; currently the scope simply turns off and must be restarted accordingly.
-UART: Simultaneous decoding of RX and TX without sacrificing a second decoder channel.
-Selectable transparency level for the onscreen menus, which currently obscure the signals on the screen.

Martin

[woody]

-A boot screen during startup
-A shutdown message when you turn off the scope.

+1. For the shutdown: Maybe even a double click or a hold-2-seconds delay, but at least a message. As it is now when you press the power switch to shutdown the scope there are a couple of seconds where you are in limbo as to whether it understood the switch off.

On another note, I received the BMO-CASE yesterday; it might be a tad more expensive (twice) than the bags I use for similar equipment from Siglent or GWInstek, but boy this case is indestructible. I'll probably throw out the steps I have in my workshop to reach the top shelves and use this case from now on. 

More serious, it is a very nice box. You have to get a little handy to put the scope in and take it out again as the fit is rather tight, but on the upside this makes sure nothing shakes. It is a big box. It dwarfs the scope itself, but it has room for the 4 probes, the power cable, two LA units (not available yet), a network cable and the foam to protect it all. For simple dust-free storage it might be a bit over the top but for travel it is all you need. For me, I like sturdy stuff, so I am very happy!

An idea for V1.1: there is one tool that does not have a predetermined place (AFAICS): the hex key needed to tighten the stand. But I made it its own hole.