Author Topic: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004  (Read 807714 times)

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Offline tv84

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2800 on: December 15, 2020, 09:31:36 pm »
R&S licensing has the concept of portable licenses and the mechanisms to deal with such licenses.

I would say that such scheme is to be used by a client who has multiple equipments and may want to share one of the options between 2 such equipments. A nice idea.

BUT, in this particular case, such explanation is nonsense. The equipment is being serviced by R&S as such, if R&S needs to change anything that implies a modification of the Device's ID (and consequently its licenses), R&S has full control to reissue new licenses associated with the new Device ID without  any extra costs whatsoever for R&S.  Unless the R&S keygen has an insert coin slot...
 
 
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Offline Rich@RohdeScopesUSA

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2801 on: December 15, 2020, 09:36:45 pm »
R&S licensing has the concept of portable licenses and the mechanisms to deal with such licenses.

I would say that such scheme is to be used by a client who has multiple equipments and may want to share one of the options between 2 such equipments. A nice idea.

BUT, in this particular case, such explanation is nonsense. The equipment is being serviced by R&S as such, if R&S needs to change anything that implies a modification of the Device's ID (and consequently its licenses), R&S has full control to reissue new licenses associated with the new Device ID without  any extra costs whatsoever for R&S.  Unless the R&S keygen has an insert coin slot...
Correct.  Just to be clear, on many of our instruments (in addition to node locked) we offer portable licenses that can be moved between instruments as needed.  And when an instrument is sent in for service, we (of course) would also move licenses from the old piece of equipment to the new piece if it is a "replace" vs. "repair" type situation. 

tv84 - Thanks for pointing that out!

-Rich
 
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Offline Robaroni

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2802 on: December 15, 2020, 11:23:29 pm »
How many of these scopes are failing? How many people here have had problems? I know the probes are horrible, I've already had failures, no better than a low price China scope probe. This is not a low cost scope, wasn't it originally listed as ~$8k?
 
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Offline KaneTW

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2803 on: December 15, 2020, 11:25:50 pm »
Never had a failure, probes still work fine. Had this for 2 years now. About 5k fully optioned without the promo.
 
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Offline Hydron

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2804 on: December 16, 2020, 12:01:53 am »
Mine had a fairly subtle failure (offset out of spec to the point that calibration failed) of a national semi/TI VGA in the front end of one channel (LMH6518).

The only way that R&S was at fault in this failure was with their insane repair costs policy and the UK people dealing with me - the IC wasn't being abused in any way that I could tell, and was being used for exactly it's intended purpose. Just bad luck (or a bad batch of ICs - another person had the same failure), also in that it happened just out of warranty.

The calibration process could have been a bit more forgiving though (the cal failure messed up the other channels - had to roll back firmware to an earlier version that didn't care so much about the offset to keep using the good channels).
 

Offline chicken

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2805 on: December 16, 2020, 12:12:42 am »
No failures so far (knocking wood) and very happy with the scope itself.

But the probes are pretty awful, and that's from comparing to cheap Rigols that I owned before buying the RTB2004. The cap's spring action is stiff and easily freezes up, and the ground crocodile-clips are hard to press open with the insulation sleeve on the clip slipping around. If anybody has suggestions for good and reasonably priced replacement probes I'm all ears.



« Last Edit: December 16, 2020, 12:22:35 am by chicken »
 
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Offline marekx

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2806 on: December 17, 2020, 07:49:39 am »
Hi again!

Our paragon Rich did it again. He pulled some strings and we were contacted by R&S and they sent a new quote for 1200. :)
Its sad that you need to know "someone who cares" for that and it hadn't ended as well If I had not known this forum and thread.
Thank you Rich! In my eyes you are doing the work of R&S customer relations and support far better than the people R&S officially has for that job.

With best wishes,
Marek

   
 
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Online jemangedeslolos

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2807 on: December 17, 2020, 08:03:20 am »
Wow  :-+

It makes me want to switch to RTM3004   :palm:
 

Offline Fixpoint

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2808 on: December 17, 2020, 11:34:12 am »
He pulled some strings and we were contacted by R&S and they sent a new quote for 1200. :)
Its sad that you need to know "someone who cares" for that and it hadn't ended as well If I had not known this forum and thread.
Thank you Rich! In my eyes you are doing the work of R&S customer relations and support far better than the people R&S officially has for that job.

Yes, that is sad.

I also had my dealings with R&S support directly and personally, and multiple times, both on my own and in collaboration with a distributor.

The experience was, let's say, not good. The guy didn't seem to know their own devices and declared something to be a fault that I later learned is normal. His mail replies were offhand and superficial, just a few sentences, not a real answer to my enquiry. There was nothing involved that deserves to be called "support" in the actual sense of the term.

When I talked to my distributor about it, they said "oh yes, we know that guy" and, well, just laughed. You know, that's all you can do. Laugh.

It is ridiculous that the REAL support is done by a guy in the EEVblog forum who "pulls strings". Honestly, that is NOT a good thing. That is just *embarassing*.

R&S obviously wants to have consumers as clients, that's why they want their gear to be seen all over YouTube. On the other hand, their support treats consumer clients just like business clients. Apaprently, within R&S there is a rift between the marketing department and the support department. They don't work together. The support people don't have a clue what the marketing people are doing and don't understand that they cannot treat consumers like businesses.
 
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Offline kaz911

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2809 on: December 17, 2020, 11:51:28 am »
It is really a sign to management that some people have been employed for too long.

 

Offline tv84

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2810 on: December 17, 2020, 11:53:45 am »
It is ridiculous that the REAL support is done by a guy in the EEVblog forum who "pulls strings". Honestly, that is NOT a good thing. That is just *embarassing*.

Agree with your msg BUT, at least, there's a guy here. Other brands don't have one (at least visibly) and that is a greater shame.

Nonetheless, support from these A brands SHOULD BE spotless as that's what is usual and universally recognized as one factor that distinguishes them from the other brands and indicated by their prices.
 

Offline Robaroni

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2811 on: December 17, 2020, 12:43:59 pm »
Okay, now I'm thinking I made a mistake to buy this scope. "A batch of bad IC's." I sold kits years ago and have been using chips for 25 years, lots of them. You know how many of the chips and uC's went bad? Zero. It's possible one or two went bad but a "batch". Something's wrong there and my guess it's not the chip manufacturer, it's  in design somewhere or R&S cut a corner on specs.
 

Offline Robaroni

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2812 on: December 17, 2020, 12:49:52 pm »
Maybe Keysight and Tektronix don't need a guy here! I have their stuff on my bench for years and years with very few issues.
 

Online 2N3055

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2813 on: December 17, 2020, 01:03:47 pm »
Our active members here are  Rich from R&S USA and Daniel from Keysight. They are both great guys that helped many here on many occasions.
They both give maximum effort to help us.

Difference is that Keysight as a company is more responsive and willing to listen. Not to say R&S never listens (they do) but Keysight is usually better at that.

Apart from that, there is Siglent presence on the forum, that is also helpful to many. And Siglent also listens sometimes and sometimes don't like them all...

Also there is a very nice guy from Kethley that helps with that, but also seems limited with what is supported by company in the background. But he personally tries very hard too..

Thanks to them all for their effort.

Whatever they can't do is out of their hands, and all we can either hope company will listen, or accept they won't. It's up to each person to figure out which are worth the wait and effort and which aren't, and if some product is trouble free from the start and you just buy that one  and be worry free from the beginning...
 
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Offline Fixpoint

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2814 on: December 17, 2020, 01:07:25 pm »
Okay, now I'm thinking I made a mistake to buy this scope. "A batch of bad IC's." I sold kits years ago and have been using chips for 25 years, lots of them. You know how many of the chips and uC's went bad? Zero. It's possible one or two went bad but a "batch". Something's wrong there and my guess it's not the chip manufacturer, it's  in design somewhere or R&S cut a corner on specs.

I don't think you made a mistake there. On the one hand I complained above R&S's support above, but on the other hand, I surely can say that the hardware itself is fine, at least from my personal experience. Just remember that people are just speculating.

You know, R&S is constantly attacked in the most nonsensical ways. "This and that is total crap" etc. I think these attacks are only made because people WANT R&S to fail, they want to find something bad. If something doesn't have the right feel to your hand -- CRAP, what else?

At the same time, Rigol and Siglent are constantly praised, no matter what they do, and sometimes what they do is pretty absurd. Remember Siglent's rust? Remember Rigol's awful power supply overheating? Remember Rigol's awful bugs in the 5000 series? I saw this stuff in Dave's videos, and for me that's pretty inacceptable. But they are praised again and again and again while a manufacturer like R&S is harshly attacked because someone doesn't like a probe or whatever.

Rigol and Siglent have the (unfounded) reputation of "test gear for the masses" and as such are praised by people who identify with "the masses" (but actually just want to keep their money for themselves).

I think most of the criticism is not about test gear. It's about social status and self-image.

Many people refrain from criticizing Rigol or Siglent because if they did, they would be nagging killjoys. But they criticize R&S because then they are the ones who are rejecting the "luxury brand" which boosts their self-esteem.
 
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Offline Hydron

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2815 on: December 17, 2020, 01:16:45 pm »
I said "maybe a bad batch" because every single voltage applied to the chip was in spec, the failure was on on a certain range of the VGA (one of the two pre-amp gains), happened suddenly when a tiny input was being applied to the channel, and the chip did not seem to be being run in a poor thermal environment - I could not see a single thing wrong with the use/implementation. The chip in question has been used in scopes from other manufacturers as well, and is something that I would have considered if I'd ever done a similar design.

I have had bad batches of parts from vendors before - some have been fessed up to with the manufacturer doing their best to help (e.g. Avago), and some where the manufacturer offers the middle finger (e.g. TI).

Given this happened to me and at least one other after ~3 years of use I don't see any reason to blame R&S for using the chip (and not catching a failure mode that took a long time to show up) exactly as it should be used. Any blame should be reserved for the R&S support people and their policies, which are pretty damn poor as discussed earlier.

Finally I'd say that all vendors have their issues - go ask anyone who had a bricked Keysight scope (there was a problem with bad blocks in the flash on a number of models, fixed with a FW update but not before many units failed and I think a special free service option was offered).
 

Online 2N3055

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2816 on: December 17, 2020, 01:37:56 pm »
Okay, now I'm thinking I made a mistake to buy this scope. "A batch of bad IC's." I sold kits years ago and have been using chips for 25 years, lots of them. You know how many of the chips and uC's went bad? Zero. It's possible one or two went bad but a "batch". Something's wrong there and my guess it's not the chip manufacturer, it's  in design somewhere or R&S cut a corner on specs.

I don't think you made a mistake there. On the one hand I complained above R&S's support above, but on the other hand, I surely can say that the hardware itself is fine, at least from my personal experience. Just remember that people are just speculating.

You know, R&S is constantly attacked in the most nonsensical ways. "This and that is total crap" etc. I think these attacks are only made because people WANT R&S to fail, they want to find something bad. If something doesn't have the right feel to your hand -- CRAP, what else?

At the same time, Rigol and Siglent are constantly praised, no matter what they do, and sometimes what they do is pretty absurd. Remember Siglent's rust? Remember Rigol's awful power supply overheating? Remember Rigol's awful bugs in the 5000 series? I saw this stuff in Dave's videos, and for me that's pretty inacceptable. But they are praised again and again and again while a manufacturer like R&S is harshly attacked because someone doesn't like a probe or whatever.

Rigol and Siglent have the (unfounded) reputation of "test gear for the masses" and as such are praised by people who identify with "the masses" (but actually just want to keep their money for themselves).

I think most of the criticism is not about test gear. It's about social status and self-image.

Many people refrain from criticizing Rigol or Siglent because if they did, they would be nagging killjoys. But they criticize R&S because then they are the ones who are rejecting the "luxury brand" which boosts their self-esteem.

I don't know about other people, but can say for myself.

I expect R&S to do better than second tier manufacturers. In every aspect. They have a reputation to uphold. And they certainly charge the price that goes with those expectations. So for few thousand € more, I expect them to give better probes than Siglent. And less bugs etc etc.
I don't want to give them any understanding or listen to any excuses, for that kind of money.
If they going to give same level of product (or worse probes than much cheaper Chinese scope) they are not R&S anymore, they are not premium manufacturer anymore (for that product), and I won't be paying only for status and social self image....

That's me, some people don't do any advanced stuff anyway, even basic scope would fulfill their needs, they have money and they are prepared to pay for cool looking scope. And that is fine...

I certainly have many problems with new chipset based Rigol scopes, I find them to be huge disappointment and lost opportunity to make bigger impact on the market. DS7000 series had potential to be serious competition to Keysight 3000T series, but failed short of it many points.

I also have Siglent SDG6000X generator that, while it serves me quite OK, it still has many unfinished and unfixed points in their firmware, and quite frankly I'm not happy at the moment. I wish they would fix it, it's been more than 2 years since release.. They do seem to be doing much better with their scopes though.. But for a 250MHz AWG with I/Q modulation it is not that expensive...
If I paid 8000€ for it  it would be back to manufacturer long ago. If I have bought it from R&S I would bitch about  it here every day..
That is reality, if you're prom queen, even a small bad detail on the dress will get noticed, that wouldn't be on someone else. Price of fame.

So it's a mixed bag. But we should not mix expectations for cheaper products/low prices and premium products/high prices.

 
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Offline exe

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2817 on: December 17, 2020, 01:41:55 pm »
At the same time, Rigol and Siglent are constantly praised, no matter what they do, and sometimes what they do is pretty absurd.

I have a different perception. Rigol and siglent are constantly bashed for their firmware updates (or lack of thereof). To me it looks like on this forum rigol scopes have a reputation of buggy and unpolished devices. Siglent... they did their homework and improved their reputation over last years (largely by tautech).

It is also very personal what to call a problem. I returned my siglent oscilloscope because of triggering offset on falling edge. Since then I have my lovely micsig that doesn't have this problem. How many times I used triggering on falling edge where an offset of 0.2V would make a difference? Zero :). But I felt like was given an inferior piece of hardware which I couldn't trust. Nowadays I wouldn't care at all. Heck, I use a usb oscilloscope most of the time.

I think we all biased, and we see what we want to see.

PS I personally gave up on loving vendors and brands. I only judge actual products. All vendors have good devices, and not so good devices. Imho therm "A-class brand" largely lost its value. I'd say don't make expectations about your favorite companies, or sooner or later they will disappoint.
 
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Online nctnico

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2818 on: December 17, 2020, 10:52:48 pm »
I have a different perception. Rigol and siglent are constantly bashed for their firmware updates (or lack of thereof).
OTOH Rigol and Siglent are also praised for their firmware updates which keep drawing attention. I guess they very well understand their is no such thing as bad publicity. If these brands release a piece of equipment that works like it should out of the box it likely doesn't sell well because it doesn't get any attention.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Robaroni

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2819 on: December 18, 2020, 12:20:28 am »
I just sent a Siglent electronic load back. I called them because it was a $900 instrument and I wasn't happy with how it performed. They gave the update the firmware story but it did zero good.
 
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Offline exe

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2820 on: December 18, 2020, 11:50:27 am »
it was a $900 instrument

Huh, it seems pricing of Asian instruments climbed up quite a bit last years. That's unfortunate, I can't afford such pricing (honestly I just don't want to spend much on my hobby).
 

Offline Robaroni

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2821 on: December 19, 2020, 09:17:10 pm »
Look on ebay. Dave, Eddie Aho and others have been having lots of fun with cheap power supplies and signal generators that might work for you. Check out YT if you haven't yet.
 

Offline The Bootloader

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2822 on: December 20, 2020, 12:37:22 am »
Years ago, I got a batch of bad ST232 (a MAX232 clone) from a super reputable distributor. They were duds. I called them and they replaced the components, no questions asked (it was a small-ish quantity, around 100).
The reason I mention this is that yes, sometimes, bad batches do happen. That's the reason why you need to test every single assembled product, but the test surface needed for a scope is pretty big and it's possible to miss things.

Another situation I was in is that I was using a logic level shifter and got the same exact part from another manufacturer due to a supply chain shortage. You'd figure the same part number from different manufacturers would behave the same way right ? Wrong ! In a very specific corner case we ended up relying on without noticing it, the new chip behaved totally differently. Our testing didn't catch it immediately. So we had a full batch of PCBAs which were not doing what they should and we ended up needing to be "innovative" in the firmware to work around it...

So yeah, sh*t happens.

Coincidentally I do have a RTB on order and there is a delay of several weeks, so maybe they are working on fixing some things before shipping (which would be good)
 

Offline Robaroni

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2823 on: December 22, 2020, 11:36:37 pm »
I don't want to give the wrong impression here. The RTB is a really good scope - part of equipment is customer service and it is there that I have my issues with R&S.

 I appreciate what Rich does here also.

Good luck with your new scope.
 

Offline chicken

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Re: new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004
« Reply #2824 on: December 26, 2020, 01:06:40 am »
FWIW, I just bought some cheap scope probe caps from eBay. They fit and the spring action is now nice and smooth without seizing.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1PC-Universal-oscilloscope-probe-cap-protective-cap-probe-caps-black-grey-with/272998150906
Caveat: No idea if they have any negative impact on performance.

And I'm definitely echoing the sentiment of Robaroni et al. The RTB is a great scope and a pleasure to use, just a few minor niggles about corners cut a bit too close.
 
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