new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004

[nctnico]

edit: OMG: they use ribbon cable for the MSO probes which cost over 300 euro each:

 

If I remember correctly, the small box has the comparators in it, converting the sensed input signals into differential signals.
Ribbon cable has close to 100ohms impedance between neighbouring wires, so it is useable for differential signals like LVDS up to many 100MBits/s.

That is true but ribbon cable is the worse choice by far because the insulation is weak (melts quickly) and the wire strands are brittle. Ribbon cable is intended for stationary use inside enclosures.

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

No separate Y controls 
But plenty of buttons

Looks like the touch menus etc. are at the top of the screen, not the bottom.  Not ideal (screen obscured by hand, fatigue) but maybe configurable?

The menus at the top are shortcuts (similar to our toolbar on the RTO/RTE family).  They are configurable.  The main menu is on the righthand side - it pops up but then goes away to allow the waveform to use the full display.  It also has the light pipes around the volt/div knob - no separate Y controls, but relatively straight forward which channel you are changing (and allowed the massive display).  I'll be curious to hear your feedback after using them.

-Rich

Does it support virtual screen as the HMO series does?

No, it does not.

-Rich

[TheAmmoniacal]

Yep, most likely a Hameg. Let's see if they do a promotion with free decode options as they have done in the past. 800 bucks for UART, I2C and SPI is insane.

It's nuts when a new sub $400 scope has them built in as standard. It's sitting in my dumpster, wait for it...

Don't be such a tease! What is it? A Siglent?

[pascal_sweden]

I would speculate Rigol, as the 1000X and 2000X series from Siglent are fairly recent, and Rigol is the one that should come with a new model, given no new models for a long time, except the DS4000E series, which were not a big success anyhow.

Here is a good marketing slogan for Rigol in the mean time: "We are back!"

[nctnico]

I was going to write Owon or Hantek but Rigol also makes sense.

[ebastler]

I would speculate Rigol, as the 1000X and 2000X series from Siglent are fairly recent, and Rigol is the one that should come with a new model, given no new models for a long time, except the DS4000E series, which were not a big success anyhow.

Here is a good marketing slogan for Rigol in the mean time: "We are back!"

Not likely at all, in my opinion. Rigol's most recent scope is the low-end DS1000Z series. Why should they replace that one by a new sub $400 offering (which is what Dave has indicated)? The next thing I would expect from Rigol is a replacement for their 2000 and 4000 series.

My bet is on Siglent, also based on tautech's thinly veiled excitement 

[MrW0lf]

Here is a good marketing slogan for Rigol in the mean time: "We are back!"

That does not reflect core ideology with supercharged Sin(x)/x etc. I propose: "Got a line? We'll wiggle it!" 

[Carrington]

GWInstek or Micsig. Maybe?

[TheAmmoniacal]

GWInstek or Micsig. Maybe?

I really wish Micsig made conventional oscilloscopes, the handheld ones are nice but - handheld - and the tablet ones are a bit .. toyish (and no knobs!).

[Carrington]

I really wish Micsig made conventional oscilloscopes...

Yeah, that would be nice.
 

[Frost]

Wonder if the original Hameg Mainhausen office is still up and ticking in the wake of R&S?

When I came from Seligenstadt last week I drove through Mainhausen.
It seems to me that at least one smaller office building is still in use by "Hameg" / R&S,
but the other parts with the old production halls are all closed and I think I also saw signs
along the road with rental offerings.

[borjam]

Here is a good marketing slogan for Rigol in the mean time: "We are back!"

A better slogan would be "We have studied hard!" because they show an astonishingly toxic lack of attention to detail. They seem to do some clerical work, not actual product development.

Note that I am the owner of a DS1074Z and of course I don´t expect miracles. But, a non properly locking PLL? Lots of math features such  as derivative, etc, but so badly implemented that they are really useless? And I still believe that the DS1000Z has a great value for money. But I think it wouldn't have costed much more to do a better job. It's a matter of of development culture.

So far they are one of the worst examples of the "checkbox approach" to product design.

-- "Hey, Joe, look, LeCroy has a derivative function".

-- "Right, Mike, let's tel Bill to add a derivative function. Hey, Bill, add a button to calculate a derivative and implement a simple derivative function!".

With these products it looks like no real user has been involved in the design and implementation. I'm not speaking about bugs, but serious design errors. A problem that plagues almost all of the Chinese products I have seen, and there are plenty of them.

Traditional manufacturers are much better in that respect. Alas, the prices are significantly higher. But it's great to see them trying to regain ground.

[JPortici]

GWInstek or Micsig. Maybe?

GWI low cost with decode would be THE low cost scope, period.

but according to more or less subtle hints from very specific forum members the name should end with X-E
which points more toward siglent

I guess we'll see... tomorrow, is it?

[free_electron]

with pattern generator. i hope it can do spi and i2c ... would be cool.
but : no vertical per channel knobs. massive fail.

[mikeselectricstuff]

but : no vertical per channel knobs. massive fail.

The touchscreen, and I think the colouring of the vertical buttons with the currently selected channel may go some way to making this less of an issue once you get used to them.

[voltsandjolts]

Granted, its not ideal to have just one vertical control but you get used to it - I had to on my old Tek TDS3000!

[pascal_sweden]

What I don't like in model names, is the E extension which stands for Economy.

This makes me think about the practices some manufacturers did in the early nineties, where they used CR in the model name, indicating Cost Reduction

By all means, who is going to be proud to show off to his friend about his new scope that he got, where the E indicates Economy. That means that you were on a low budget in buying your new gadget

[salviador]

wowwwww I like!!!!! I want buy one!!

[H.O]

By all means, who is going to be proud to show off to his friend about his new scope that he got, where the E indicates Economy.

If you have friends that really cares about that just tell them it stands for Enhanced and not Economy or scrape the letter off you're that embarrassed. You seem more interested in color schemes, what the knobs look like, what font is being used and how exactly the serial number is composed than what the instruments actually do.

Back to the R&S scope in question, how's the screen when it comes to glare and reflections? It looks rather glossy.

[BU508A]

wowwwww I like!!!!! I want buy one!!

I considered to buy a HMO1232 but now I think I'll go for the RTB2004 - 70MHz

Reasons:
- 4 channels input
- 10.1 Inches screen
- 10bit ADC
- 1.25GS/channel
- up to 20 MSPS memory depth
- 50k waveforms/s
- nearly the same price
- I do not need really 300MHz and if I want, I can upgrade to 100MHz which is affordable (but imho way too expensive anyway)

[Fungus]

Now calculate the impedance of a passive probe at 300MHz. The signal gets loaded so much that you won't get a decent representation of what signal is actually there. Feedthroughs are also nothing more than a band aid because the scope's input capacitance will screw things up.

I guess there really is no pleasing some people.

[nctnico]

Now calculate the impedance of a passive probe at 300MHz. The signal gets loaded so much that you won't get a decent representation of what signal is actually there. Feedthroughs are also nothing more than a band aid because the scope's input capacitance will screw things up.

I guess there really is no pleasing some people.

OK I'm sorry the laws of physics are the way they are. I'll change them ASAP for you.

[real69]

Found 2 video on youtube

[Neganur]

I considered to buy a HMO1232 but now I think I'll go for the RTB2004 - 70MHz

Reasons:
- 4 channels input
- 10.1 Inches screen
- 10bit ADC
- 1.25GS/channel
- up to 20 MSPS memory depth
- 50k waveforms/s
- nearly the same price
- I do not need really 300MHz and if I want, I can upgrade to 100MHz which is affordable (but imho way too expensive anyway)

I too think it's a nice scope, but maybe wait and see what happens with promotions, reviews etc.

I'm a little confused that it's advertised as "MSOX game changer" while it doesn't do that unless you fork out 700 EUR for the option (and then it still doesn't do the decoding...or does it?)
It seems you get 160 MSa memory in the segmented memory option mode so maybe future options have more memory as well? (pure speculation)

PS.  28,3 dB(A) noise.
PPS. that probe compensation routine looks interesting!

[DaveW]

If there are any particular questions, I can go through them tonight when I get back from work and try and answer some!

Can you do some pics/vid of the various colour-graded and inverse brightness modes, ideally with a nontrivial waveform like analogue video or AM.

Done and done, using an FM signal to really show the colour grading, and took a few with an AM modulation signal. Will go into this in a bit more detail soon as well. We've put some images and a short video here,
https://goo.gl/photos/Hxo3RtH6BPgohoSP6

but : no vertical per channel knobs. massive fail.

The touchscreen, and I think the colouring of the vertical buttons with the currently selected channel may go some way to making this less of an issue once you get used to them.

The colour coding of the kpbs really does help usability a lot and I find I don't miss the separate controls using this, or indeed another R&S scope which has the same functionality. Definitely less of an issue than you'd expect.

By all means, who is going to be proud to show off to his friend about his new scope that he got, where the E indicates Economy.

If you have friends that really cares about that just tell them it stands for Enhanced and not Economy or scrape the letter off you're that embarrassed. You seem more interested in color schemes, what the knobs look like, what font is being used and how exactly the serial number is composed than what the instruments actually do.

Back to the R&S scope in question, how's the screen when it comes to glare and reflections? It looks rather glossy.

The screen looks really bad in the videos as we use a load of lighting pointing right at the scope, but in normal use it's very nice, and the high resolution screen comes out great. I've been using under pretty standard electronic bench lighting conditions, with lighting straight above it (mounted below a shelf) and had no problems at all.

with pattern generator. i hope it can do spi and i2c ... would be cool.
but : no vertical per channel knobs. massive fail.

Although it's a shame the levels aren't variable, they can spit out a lot of different protocols. I've put a screenshot on our blog, but to summarise here,
Counter, Arbitrary, Manual, UART, SPI, I2C, CAN and LIN. Someone needs to make a nice comparator with a variable supply to fix the last oversight and it's a very nice feature!

The screenshot showing this, plus loads of photos of the scope are at the link below. Hope that helps, and if more questions come up, we'll try to answer them!

http://wattcircuit.com/2017/03/14/watt-circuit-rohde-schwarz-rtb2004-oscilloscope-overview/