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

[Kittel99]

Hi all,

I am new in this blog and a user of RTB2004 since march and I am also waiting for an update:

For solving few bugs:
- Zoom window is wrong if Menu box is open on right side
- Zoom window is wrong if Display track grid is active
- Pattern Aribitrary: Save and Load again: Nothing will work anymore, only Off/On helps
- Pattern generator: Arbitray Value is not available for Ouick Access (with <<<), (Index works)

And maybe we will get some new features:
- Quick measurement : with Duty
- Search: also for protokoll UArt and SPI
- new Trigger types: Runt, Rise time, Edge A/B
  (here I contacted already R+S Munich and I have got a feedback: reserved for RTB3000...
   sorry, but all other 400,-€ scopes can do this...)

@Rich: thank you for your support - I am a follower of this blog since several months!

...and in summary: I like working with this scope very much - big touchscreen, low noise, on board function generator,  protocol results, ...

Best regards Kittel99

[AlexFerro]

I have a couple of feature requests for the I2C Decoder/Trigger. I hit some cases at work debugging an I2C bus that I couldn't just set a trigger on. I actually hit these on the RTM3004 at work, but I just checked my RTB2004 and the feature appears to be common, so I chose to post here since it's a more active thread.
I have no idea how feasible these are, just that I hit on them while debugging a troublesome I2C bus.

The first feature is related to the "Trigger on NACK" which I have found very useful in the past for debugging unexpected transaction failures, but this bus also has read traffic, where a NACK is a normal occurrence, and so the scope just triggered on every read transaction, hiding the failed write transaction in all the other triggers.
At a minimum I'd love a "Trigger on unexpected NACK" that would ignore the normal NACK at the end of a read cycle that is immediately followed by a stop condition. Although that brings up the idea that an "Unexpected ACK" trigger might be useful to trigger when the master fails to perform the spec required NACK at the end of a receive. An even more useful NACK trigger would include the above, but allow it to be filtered by address, so that a system containing a device that intentionally NACKs its address, like an EEPROM that is still busy writing, could be ignored by filtering for the other device you are having trouble with.

The second I2C trigger is a modification of the address and data trigger, to include being able to select trigger on an address only and zero data bytes. The suggested work around of setting a single byte trigger with all don't care bits does not cover the case of a system either getting a NACK and giving up without sending data, or simply a protocol error where the address is sent, but a stop condition is generated. I ran into this when I couldn't trigger on just the specific NACK, but I knew what address the issue was and thus tried to trigger on any access to that device to see if there was an analog issue during access to it causing the problem.

I hope these are feasible and I'm not the only person who thinks these would be useful. Although if I have just missed how to do these, I'd love to be corrected, but I could not find a way to do this (other than hacking out most of the complex system code to not do any other operations that trigger the scope).

[Hydron]

I'll check.  Anything in particular you want me to check on?

-Rich

Hi Rich,

If the firmware guys need suggestions for improvements, other than the previously discussed questions about FFT buffer size management (e.g. my comment here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-killer-scope-a-true-game-changer-from-rs-rtb2002-rtb2004/msg2693064/#msg2693064), would it be possible to extend the bandwidth limit function to support cut-off frequencies other than 20MHz and full BW?
Sometimes it's nice to bandlimit a signal (e.g. to reduce noise) but 20MHz isn't the best option - allowing for it to be limited to one of the lower end options offered for the same instrument (i.e. 70/100/200MHz for a 300MHz optioned RTB2k) would be very handy, and I assume the scope is even already calibrated for these steps to support the option system. It looks like something like this is offered for the RTM3k series - is this a market segmentation thing, or just a feature that was added after the RTB2k was already done?

[KaneTW]

I hope Munich reevaluates the market segmentation, or at least offers a discounted upgrade path to the RTM series.

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Thanks everyone for the notes - I'll make sure Munich gets this feedback.

-Rich

[egonotto]

Hello,

I wonder the R&S®RTB2004 has input impedance "1 MΩ ± 2 % with 9 pF ± 2 pF"
while the RTO2000 has "1 MΩ ± 1 % || 15 pF"
and the RTM3000 has "1 MΩ ± 1 % || 14 pF ± 1 pF".

Why has the lower frequency scope so much better input impedance?

Best regards
egonotto

[Joel_l]

I'll take the opportunity to plug a request again,

An event A followed by an event B trigger, channel and pattern. Maybe the same or related to the edge A/B request below.

Thanks Rich,

Joel

Hi all,


- new Trigger types: Runt, Rise time, Edge A/B
  (here I contacted already R+S Munich and I have got a feedback: reserved for RTB3000...
   sorry, but all other 400,-€ scopes can do this...)

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

I'll take the opportunity to plug a request again,

An event A followed by an event B trigger, channel and pattern. Maybe the same or related to the edge A/B request below.

Thanks Rich,

Joel

Hi all,


- new Trigger types: Runt, Rise time, Edge A/B
  (here I contacted already R+S Munich and I have got a feedback: reserved for RTB3000...
   sorry, but all other 400,-€ scopes can do this...)

Thanks.  I'll make sure Munich hears this again. 

And just an update on the next RTB2000 firmware.  No firm date, but one is in progress.  As I get more details I'll post them up.

-Rich

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Hi all,

I am new in this blog and a user of RTB2004 since march and I am also waiting for an update:

For solving few bugs:
- Zoom window is wrong if Menu box is open on right side
- Zoom window is wrong if Display track grid is active
- Pattern Aribitrary: Save and Load again: Nothing will work anymore, only Off/On helps
- Pattern generator: Arbitray Value is not available for Ouick Access (with <<<), (Index works)

And maybe we will get some new features:
- Quick measurement : with Duty
- Search: also for protokoll UArt and SPI
- new Trigger types: Runt, Rise time, Edge A/B
  (here I contacted already R+S Munich and I have got a feedback: reserved for RTB3000...
   sorry, but all other 400,-€ scopes can do this...)

@Rich: thank you for your support - I am a follower of this blog since several months!

...and in summary: I like working with this scope very much - big touchscreen, low noise, on board function generator,  protocol results, ...

Best regards Kittel99

Hi Kittel99 - the bugs you mentioned will be fixed in the upcoming release.

-Rich

[Kittel99]

Hi Rich,

thank you again for your support. I am curious about the result.
May be we will get some additional features?

Best regards Kittel99

[genghisnico13]

Hi Rich, I found another Bug and maybe some suggestions:
SCPI:
CHAN<m>:OVER? doesn't work, it always returns 0, even when you can see the clipping indicator.

Bode:
it doesn't remember the generator output impedance setting on startup, always starting in HiZ(could be a feature), but it remembers the value, so if you use it at 2.5Vpp 50Ohm, when you restart it's at 2.5Vpp HiZ.
Could the phase offset limit be increased to more than 100? on small phase scales you can't put 360 degrees on the center.
At around 8khz there is a change in acquisition,I guess from High resolution to sample or something like that because with a noisy signal you can see it get worse, could that be improved?(that's the jump in the screenshot)

[KaneTW]

When doing FFT on a math channel, it doesn't seem to refresh until you change e.g. RBW.

Setup I was using: C2, C4 enabled, M3 = C4-C2, FFT on M3.

FFT doesn't move at all. Especially noticeable when you change stop frequency and half of the plot is blank.

[mahi]

The bundle promotion ends at 31/12/2019 (confirmed by the R&S website) yet Batronix updated their website with end date 30/06/2020 (it read 31/12 until a few days ago). Is the promotion prolonged or is Batronix misinformed?

Update: Farnell/Newark now also mentions 30/06/2020 for the promotion on some pages (although not everywhere)

[agdr]

And just an update on the next RTB2000 firmware.  No firm date, but one is in progress.  As I get more details I'll post them up.

-Rich

Yesssss!!  Such great news.  Thanks for all your efforts, Rich!

[MikeP]

 Probably a stupid question - where the menu for X-Y mode?

[KaneTW]

Menu -> top entry "XY"

[MikeP]

 Thanks. This button is very difficult to detect. 

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Hi Folks,

We've started creating short "how-to" videos for some of our products.  First up was the RTB2000.  Some of this is pretty basic, but for someone new to the scope, or someone potentially looking at buying one, they might be helpful.  Let me know if there are additional videos you'd like to see.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKxVoO5jUTlsHhyVcpVaZJ-a1x6mK9Fj9

Next up are similar videos for the FPC1500 and RTM3000.

-Rich

[nigelwright7557]

"rather low cost" .. looks like ~$3000 to me.

Anyone know what price range we are talking about here?

I paid for £40 for a used 35 MHz dual channel scope off ebay and that does all I need.

For digital storage I paid £20 for USB PC scope off ebay.

Why pay for functions I will never use ?

[KaneTW]

How is that relevant to this scope?

[MikeP]

 I wanted to ask 100 times about this: what happened with the offset range? Nowhere can I move the zero off the screen, or +/- five divisions from the center. Specifications promise up to +/- 40 Volts above 200mV/div or +/-1,2 Volts below 200mV/div.

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

I wanted to ask 100 times about this: what happened with the offset range? Nowhere can I move the zero off the screen, or +/- five divisions from the center. Specifications promise up to +/- 40 Volts above 200mV/div or +/-1,2 Volts below 200mV/div.

from manual v9 page 39:

4.3.1 Vertical Controls

[Offset/Position (upper knob)]
The upper vertical knob adjusts the following, depending on the selected waveform:
● Offset or position of an analog channel (adjustable: main menu > "Vertical"). The
visual effect is the same. While the offset sets a voltage, position is a graphical set-
ting given in divisions.

You can change between Position and Offset, see Menu "Vertical", picture is on page 42.

Peter

Beat me to it.  Thanks.

-Rich

[MikeP]

 Great news! Thanks friends. Please explain the meaning of this separation of functions (offset / position). By the way, RTA has a significantly larger adjustment range. 

[nctnico]

Great news! Thanks friends. Please explain the meaning of this separation of functions (offset / position). By the way, RTA has a significantly larger adjustment range. 

The offset probably remains constant when changing v/div so the position will change accordingly where the position should remain constant even when changing v/div. Likely this is a user preference. In a Yokogawa oscilloscope I used to own the offset and position controls where combined into one DAC output to drive the offset in the analog front-end.

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Great news! Thanks friends. Please explain the meaning of this separation of functions (offset / position). By the way, RTA has a significantly larger adjustment range. 

Position is like the name describes - it is basically the position on the screen and is adjusted in divisions.  Offset actually adds a voltage to "offset" where the signal is positioned on the screen.  It's useful to measure small AC voltages that are riding on a larger DC voltage. 

-Rich