Magnova oscilloscope

[Martin72]

I just had to try it out quickly.
The clip doesn't reflect the actual visual reality; it looks fantastic on the Magnova's full HD screen.
I really like how easy it is to adjust the height of the channels; it's quick and easy to do.
The displayed waveform update rate:
Over 140k Wfms/s....
As I said, I'll spend more time with it over the weekend, but what I've seen so far is very good.

[nctnico]

I don't think having different colors is a good thing as this gets really crowded. Something else I'm missing is a fat trace to tell a signal is low and a thin trace to tell whether a signal is high. With so many traces on a screen, that is super helpfull. IIRC HP already did this on their first MSOs and some logic analysers also use this way of displaying digital signals.

[Martin72]

I find the colored traces particularly helpful, as tastes can vary so much.
I don't understand the Hi/Lo thing, as you can see it immediately even without different trace thicknesses.Edit: Ah, now I know what you mean....
But maybe my impression will change when all 16 channels have to be displayed.
I'll take another look at Siglent; I have the probes.

[nctnico]

I don't understand the Hi/Lo thing, as you can see it immediately even without different trace thicknesses.

That is because you have several transition on screen. As a 25+ year, die-hard MSO user I can tell you that having an indication (either through thickness or difference in color) of whether a signal is high or low is a necessary feature. 

[Martin72]

Hi nico,
Seen my edit?

[Sorama]

I don't understand the Hi/Lo thing, as you can see it immediately even without different trace thicknesses.

That is because you have several transition on screen. As a 25+ year, die-hard MSO user I can tell you that having an indication (either through thickness or difference in color) of whether a signal is high or low is a necessary feature.

Wouldn’t you see that (idle high/low) because of the idle time between packets?

[nctnico]

I don't understand the Hi/Lo thing, as you can see it immediately even without different trace thicknesses.

That is because you have several transition on screen. As a 25+ year, die-hard MSO user I can tell you that having an indication (either through thickness or difference in color) of whether a signal is high or low is a necessary feature.

Wouldn’t you see that (idle high/low) because of the idle time between packets?

It has nothing to do with packets. Digital signals may be sitting low or high across the entire width of the screen. MSO is not about decoding but showing digital signals.

[Martin72]

You can also change the colors of the digital channels. I've just done that, and now each channel has its own color, which I think is great.

[kmoonwalker]

I need to agree with you both or rather make a bit more job for design team as both approaches have their merits
- this one (with some tweaks is usefull)
- I would love to have something alike Agilent had for example as you can see  here - this mode is extremely helpful

[nctnico]

The Keysight video also mentions another useful feature: the activity indicator.

[kmoonwalker]

They Keysight video also mentions another useful feature: the activity indicator.

Well there is a few more things I would like to add to that but I would need to get certain equipment for weekend perhaps to properly describe this as I used this some time ago.

[Martin72]

Hi,

I took a closer look at the digital channels.
I got a few tips from Batronix, because the “manual” (which is more of a quick start guide) doesn't mention anything about the digital functions, and there is no manual for the logic test.
Batronix is aware of this and will work on the documentation.
It's no secret that I like the quick height adjustment.
But I also like the option of grouping channels:
In the corresponding menu (image 2), there are four groups available (Digital 1...Digital 4), and you can then simply drag and drop individual channels into the groups. These groups (image 3, image 5) can then be placed anywhere on the screen, and the height of the signals can be adjusted separately – very nice.
This makes it clearer; for example, you could decode group 1 SPI, group 2 decodes something else, the third in parallel, etc. (should of course be in the same time range).
Speaking of decoding, you can of course assign a name to each digital channel; there are also defaults that are displayed, e.g., Miso, Mosi, CS, Clk for SPI.
If you have done this as I did earlier, assigning the individual channels for SPI decoding is very easy to see (Figure 7).
I really like it at the moment.

Martin

[Martin72]

I could have made a clip, but it's always a bit annoying with a smartphone in your hand...

Speaking of decoding, you can of course assign a name to each digital channel; there are also defaults that are displayed, e.g., Miso, Mosi, CS, Clk for SPI.

The Magnova is even more convenient in this respect, as I have just discovered.

You can assign the individual channels to 4 groups, Digital1-Digital4.
And of course you can also rename the respective group (Figure 9).
If you want to do this, “suggestions” are displayed (Figure 10).
I did this and named the groups 1-3 SPI, I2C, and UART (Figure 11).
And now it gets clever.
If you now want to rename the individual channels in the respective group, depending on which protocol you used to name the group, the names will be suggested accordingly, i.e. for group SPI Miso, Mosi, Clk, CS....For group I2C SDA and CLK, for UART RX and TX (Figures 12 to 16)....
I find this really convenient.
You can tell that (Batronix) has put a lot of thought into this.
Finally, you can also hide the digital channels, but the decoding will still be displayed (image 18).

Martin

[Sorama]

Anyone else having issues after the update of today?
My TTL levels are completely wrong, almost 60V.

Maybe it’s due to the high temperatures in the lab.
Or my internal temperature…
(Which is also going through the roof)

[Martin72]

Anyone else having issues after the update of today?
My TTL levels are completely wrong, almost 60V.

What exactly do you mean by that?

[Sorama]

Anyone else having issues after the update of today?
My TTL levels are completely wrong, almost 60V.

What exactly do you mean by that?

The 5V levels of a uart signal now measure more the 60V.
( and it is not the probe divider…)

This happens when both ch2 and ch3 are active.

[Martin72]

Thanks, can you post a screenshot of that?
I haven't upgraded yet, but I'll do so to see what's going on.

[Martin72]

Since I can't imagine what you mean exactly at the moment, I took a guess and decoded with Ch3 and Ch4 UART, set the thresholds, and adjusted the vertical sensitivity.
Then I performed the upgrade and restarted.
Everything remained as it was previously set.

[LoneWolf6912]

For other users:
Is there a way to perform measurements directly on a math function—specifically, something like calculating the RMS power of CH1 × CH2?

Of course, I can export the graph or use SCPI commands to do it, but that’s not ideal for quick and simple measurements.

If not, it would be neat if Batronix give the possibility in next firmware.

[Martin72]

+1

Since displaying measured values using math as the source is pretty much standard even for low-cost scopes, I assume that Batronix has this on its radar.

[Sorama]

Feature request:
What I would like to see when decoding uart is start & stop bit be displayed and in (different) color.
I think R&S does that.

[Martin72]

I like how Lecroy handles it.

[Andre77]

Is there a way to perform measurements directly on a math function—specifically, something like calculating the RMS power of CH1 × CH2?
Of course, I can export the graph or use SCPI commands to do it, but that’s not ideal for quick and simple measurements.
If not, it would be neat if Batronix give the possibility in next firmware.

Thanks for the suggestion! This feature is actually already on our internal wishlist. Unfortunately, it's not something that will be implemented in the very near future, but it's definitely on our radar for future firmware updates.

Feature request: What I would like to see when decoding uart is start & stop bit be displayed and in (different) color.

Thanks for the suggestion! We'll gladly add that to our feature request list. Highlighting start and stop bits in different colors can improve the clarity of UART decoding.

[Martin72]

Highlighting start and stop bits in different colors can improve the clarity of UART decoding.

A few other manufacturers should also take note of this.

[Sorama]

This is what I had in mind: