Nice, older DSO advice

[Mr Nutts]

Before writing  anything else, I'm sorry we got into argument. And what I write further is not a provocation or anything.

Forget it, as far as I am concerned it's history

I just want to discuss this, fact based, like you (and also me) like it.

Let me go by the numbers it is easier to be clear and to avoid language barrier.

1. 1 MWfms/sec IS a marketing gimmick, and for more than a few reasons. Most of all, at most timebases it won't be that fast, if you have trigger holdoff it won't be that fast, if you have trigger delay it won't be that fast.

I agree

2. Short retrigger time IS NOT a gimmick. Short retrigger time is a positive consequence of them chasing 1 MWPS. That is a real benefit they don't market. In interactive, visual mode scope feels analog like. Also in segmented mode, you don't miss sequential events..

I think you said it right, the scope feels analog like

And for some people that is important because it allows them to use methodology they know. And there's nothing wrong with that

3. If you are trying to characterise some signal that is well defined as how it should look (serial comm bus, clock etc ), something for what you have a clear specification, then staring in the screen for something to happen is definitely NOT best way to capture anomalies and best use of your time. With that kind of signal and based on specification you can devise set of triggers, searches and stats that you let run for few hours (or days, doesn't matter) and when you come back you get stats and your offenders will wait for you neatly stored in history buffer.

I think this is true for every repetitive signal where the user knows how it's supposed to look like (i.e. it's not probing a completely unknown signal)

He is SOO right about that.  Funny thing is, you can do the same thing on Keysight and all other scopes. Heck, little Rigol 1000Z has so many advanced triggers like many of the midrange scopes of the yore (not very good documentation that will explain how to use it though). That kind of workflow is nothing exclusive to LeCroy. It's just since on LeCroy that is prefered workflow, they explain it and endorse it, because it plays to the strengths of their platform.

He did state that this can be done with many modern scopes, he even mentioned Rigol and Siglent, though

And Lecroy never talked about WUH in their marketing material. I think the only time I saw a Lecroy sales guy talking about WUR was in an older YT video filmed at a demonstration in a company or at a reseller's place

But you are right, it works with other scopes, too. And I guess that was the point of his article, i.e. to show people the flaws of an old method born in times when there wasn't anything else and a better alternative more suited to what modern scopes can do

BUT also, in a pinch you could enable persistence and go to lunch and, when you get back, you take a look at the screen to see if there was a glitch. It will catch it

That's the thing, it *might* catch it if the glitch happens to occur during the 1/10th of the whole acuisition time where the scope can actually see it

If the glitch is truly rare, it is 9x more likely to show up during blind times and will be missed by the scope

Only triggers provide absolute certainty for the whole time the scope "looked" at the signal

but my biggest problem with that is that you won't know when it happened, how it happened and have no way to know that. You will just know something did happen, and now you still have to catch the culprit. So you still have to devise detection protocol, set triggers etc.

That is an additional problem. Even if the scope caught the glitch, you still have to re-acquire in a real-time mode to be able to examine it

So that is only partially useful. But it does provide differential diagnosis, meaning that if you don't catch anything with persistence, and you didn't catch anything with a protocol of various triggers, it enhances probability you are glitch free. So IT IS useful for that. By itself NOT much.

That is only partial correct. The persistence method is very likely to not show rare events because 9 out of 10 times it is completely blind, so if you don't catch anything with persistence then you still have no idea if your signal is glitch free

With triggers n the other hand, you'll find a anomaly 100% of the time. So it's the only method to make sure a signal is actually glitch free

4. If you are working on designs where you are scoping (is that a word?) just some nodes in a circuit, or you are designing something, signal will be nothing like clock or something that can be easily explained with few rules. In that case it is all about you and not the scope. Any scope will at that moment have some good and some bad things. Generally, what is useful is good measurements, history(segmented) buffers, search, stats... Some will LIKE fast interaction, some will NEED deep analysis. I like both, Keysight for interactive, Picoscope to get data on PC and then i can do anything I like. Use of brain is not optional here, no universal answer. Workflow will depend both on problem at hand and every individual skill-set, habits, and how people LIKE to work. Some people have no problem whipping up a custom analysis in Mathlab or Labview in just few minutes, and may actually prefer it that way. Some will insist that scope has to have certain analysis built in so they can just use it. Your mileage can vary.

No arguments here, people have their own methods they are familiar with based on their individual backgrounds, and if it works for them more power to them

The only time I'd draw a line is when it comes passing on personal preference as undeniable facts to less experienced engineers like myself, because learning outdated methodology isn't helping us

5. Thing about Mr W. is that he doesn't explain why and how he came to the conclusions he proclaims "The Truth". It is not that he's wrong about the topic (he is not right about everything but mostly he makes a good point.), but also didn't provide not even a thought process how he came to his conclusions, much less concrete examples to make his case stick. He just say "this is stupid and waste of time" and "this is solution for all problems".  Long time ago when I read his original posts here, I got curious and did a little research. And I realized that he made a lot of good points but his causalities were not always correct. He was basing his assumptions on marketing material and positions of manufacturers. So he concluded that short memory / high WUR scopes (like Keysight) are inferior to  long memory / low WUR (like LeCroy) scope, because on LeCroy you CAN use triggers to accomplish so much more than on Keysight with high WUR and persistence. Which was misdirection in terms.

I'm sorry but here I have to disagree. I believe most of the time he explains the reasons very well, based on logic and a solid background of math and physics. In fact, he seems to go to great length to not recommend something because he "feels" its better, but only because there is an objective reason for it

What I gathered in discussions with him is that many topics he discussed, like the blog post about WURs, is not based on marketing materials but on his own experience and the experience (and frustrations) of the many of the engineers working for him. He once told me that one of his biggest pet peeves is when engineers treat a modern high performance scope like an analog scope, basically foregoing all its capabilities for what essentially is methodology from the electronics dark ages

Which I think is also why fe often fought so passionately, because he wanted newcomers to learn how to handle a DSO properly and not like a modern version of an analog scope

And if you look around, finding rare glitches with persistence is still the standard recommendation in this forum

I can see why he put up some fight, and as a young engineer I'm grateful for that

After repeatedly reading all he has written in this forum I have to say that, while he certainly was a great source (the only one for a very long time!) about Lecroy scopes, he didn't come across as brand biased to me. In fact, often he recommended something else than Lecroy or advised against a Lecroy because the individual use case was better off with something else

Correct conclusion is that staring at the screen, looking for a glitch is INFERIOR and LESS productive way of doing it, as opposed to setting triggers, segmented memory and automating search for anomalies. Problem is that Keysight can do that to, the trigger way, for most of the part. Lecroy scopes in that price range and class (Wavesurfers) have none of the advanced features of high end Lecroy machines that makes them so awesome. On lower end Lecroy triggers are not more intelligent than ones on Keysight  (or Rigol to that matter), and Wavescan is just fancy name for a search.

I don't know about Wavescan (my scopes are too old for that) but back to the topic of older high end scopes, today I don't believe it matters much if you buy a decent Keysight/Agilent Infinum (not the simpler Infinivision scopes) or a newer Lecroy X-Stream scope (the older ones apparently had poor trigger suites), you will get a fast high performance scope that can do a vast amount of analysis and still makes a great everyday scope

Fact that Keysight trumpets about WUR and catching glitches with persistence doesn't mean I have to use it that way. So I use Keysight like he uses LeCroy, with prudent choice of triggers and segmented memory, using pretty advanced search capabilities to drill down further. And it works, well.

I know

He was right about it, thanks a lot for that. But his dogma was you need a LeCroy to do so.

I think you will have a hard time finding something where he said that you need Lecroy to use triggers to find rare occurrences. In fact, he often mentioned that any modern advanced scope can do that

And there's no word in his blog post saying you can only do that with a Lecroy scope

You don't. On high end Lecroy with advanced analysis options enabled, you will do it faster, better, easier. But that workflow works well even on lowly Rigol, and it works well.

Which is pretty much what he said

Actually, exactly that type of workflow enables scope that doesn't have much memory (like Keysight) to not show that. Long memory is not that important in that case because you only capture what is of interest and ignore hours of signal you don't care about. So it actually complements Keysight well, hiding it's imperfections, instead of making it unusable.

It complements any scope that has a good trigger suite (maybe not Tek as I've seen them missing triggers other scopes didn't) but again that's what he was saying

We could go on for years like this. Everybody will protect their choices, their cognitive biases, their way.

Fact is that a good, working LeCroy Waverunner  in a good shape is a hell of a scope. If you can enable advanced analysis options, you will have a scope that you can develop stuff NASA would be proud of.  OTOH, some people only need scope for servicing stuff, and they want fast and familiar.

I agree regarding Lecroy waveruner, my LT is a fantastic scope and it's not too big, heavy or loud and makes a great every-day scope. But my new Wavepro 960 is still nicer because of the large screen

Most of the time though I use my Agilent Infinum 8064 because it's a great scope, too, and has very good triggers

So it's not just Lecroy who makes great scopes

But again, you will have a hard time finding anything where Mr WH said otherwise

[Mr Nutts]

I don’t think any sales guy would have that amount of knowledge, not just about Lecroy but about all the other big brands as well, and certainly not to that level

He NEVER once showed using the equipment to do ANYTHING.  I brought this up a few times.  Again, a sign of typical salesman, not that it matters.  Just my observation.   

He doesn't like to talk about details but what I gathered is that he must be working in defense stuff 

He once mentioned that he often regrets not having much time building stuff in his home lab, that the little time he spends there is mostly for fixing instruments that broke, and that the limitations of British style housing are getting on his nerves

He said there are some projects he wants to do but he's much more likely to be able to realize them at work than at home

Which I found rather sad. Building stuff is where the real fun is

But he said that the little free time he has he rather spends with his family, and that once he has finally left England he will have more space and more time doing fun things

[joeqsmith]

You need a fast scope to properly see even a 100 MHz clock signal. That's the benchmark I'm using. My 7904A, using a 7A19 amplifier with a P6201 FET probe isn't even enough.

A lot of people seem to get really hung up on this. It's true of course, technically speaking, but it doesn't mean you can't get by with a more modest instrument. All test equipment lies to you under some circumstances, the key is knowing the limitations of your gear and knowing how to interpret what it's telling you. A square wave with very fast rise and fall times will be rounded slightly on any scope, in most cases this is not really an issue, unless you specifically need to measure the rise or fall time.

Yes, I know this. Accurate rise time measurement at 100 MHz is why I want a scope that's fast enough to do it.

FWI, a KHz fundamental could have a 50ps edge and a 100MHz, a 1ns edge. 

One nice thing if you only wanted to look at the edge, it will normally repeat so you could look at with much lower sampling rates.   That old 7200 I show looking at nearly a 4GHz signal only has a single shot rate of 40MSamp/sec.    The repetitive rate is 100GS/s.    Vertical resolution is 10bits.   Not a bad scope for its age.  The other plug-in has a 500MHz BW and a 1GS/s one-shot rate.   

This is the one that a friend of mine gave me.  PC based running PSOS OS.     
https://youtu.be/7SByDsNaYiA

 

[joeqsmith]

I don’t think any sales guy would have that amount of knowledge, not just about Lecroy but about all the other big brands as well, and certainly not to that level

He NEVER once showed using the equipment to do ANYTHING.  I brought this up a few times.  Again, a sign of typical salesman, not that it matters.  Just my observation.   

He doesn't like to talk about details but what I gathered is that he must be working in defense stuff 

He once mentioned that he often regrets not having much time building stuff in his home lab, that the little time he spends there is mostly for fixing instruments that broke, and that the limitations of British style housing are getting on his nerves

He said there are some projects he wants to do but he's much more likely to be able to realize them at work than at home

Which I found rather sad. Building stuff is where the real fun is

But he said that the little free time he has he rather spends with his family, and that once he has finally left England he will have more space and more time doing fun things

It seems he had said something about wanting to build things at home.  I want to do all sorts of things too.    Because you brought up my complaints of him, I want to make it clear to you that I am not suggesting his priorities, what ever they are, are wrong.   Really, I could care less but I found it strange that he had a lot to say but nothing to show.  To me this suggests sales, marketing or perhaps a technical manager or sorts.   

[2N3055]

He was right about it, thanks a lot for that. But his dogma was you need a LeCroy to do so.

I think you will have a hard time finding something where he said that you need Lecroy to use triggers to find rare occurrences. In fact, he often mentioned that any modern advanced scope can do that

And there's no word in his blog post saying you can only do that with a Lecroy scope

No, in that blog post no, and in most posts here on EEVBLOG, not in so many words. Bu he was always implying it, using sentences like: " ....for instance , on my LeCroy i could do this and that..". I agree it could be just a figure of speech, but if you keep repeating it it starts having a meaning. To be honest, his current posts on other blog are much more balanced and he seems to try to sound more balanced.

BUT also, in a pinch you could enable persistence and go to lunch and, when you get back, you take a look at the screen to see if there was a glitch. It will catch it

That's the thing, it *might* catch it if the glitch happens to occur during the 1/10th of the whole acuisition time where the scope can actually see it

If the glitch is truly rare, it is 9x more likely to show up during blind times and will be missed by the scope

Only triggers provide absolute certainty for the whole time the scope "looked" at the signal

Neither will give you 100% POI per se. You cannot capture something with a trigger if you don't know where to aim. When you do, you'll have 100%  POI. If you don't know what to look for, you're shooting in the dark.

With old school persistence "trick", and by using mask testing too, you can catch things you didn't expect. I said CAN not YOU WILL 100% of time. As you correctly said  even really fast scope is blind most of the time on certain timebases. But, trick is that blind time is not synchronous in relation to signal. It's time relation will be random to random glitch. So glitch will eventually hit at the time it's not blind. Also if your glitch is synchronous, on 3000T there is a trigger hold-off randomization function to ensure you're not blind always at the same time relative to signal. That will make it more likely to show. Really, it does work, if you wait enough, it works. After enough time POI starts to approach 100%. It is statistical game. Problem is what I said, you have no clue where it came from and that makes it of very limited usefulness.

Truth is that those "schoolbook" glitches from scope marketing doesn't exist in real life. It is either some kind of crosstalk, in which case shape and amplitude will be different and events will be quite frequent. Or it will be some kind of malfunction or something in software or errata in CPU or something.... Point is they will either be almost obvious, or very obscure and will show only at certain very specific set of circumstances. Creating good test scenarios is the key.. And that includes calculating in your equipment capabilities.

Regards,

[tautech]

Yes well finding glitches is no longer only the domain of expensive gear with extensive/expensive and advanced trigger suites. 

In this post I did an exercise example to find a slope glitch with Infinite Persistence and Color so that Search settings could then be adjusted for it to find its repetitive frequency and then transfer those settings to the Trigger.
Search revealed it was repetitive and some 6+ms apart.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds1204x-e-released-for-domestic-markets-in-china/msg1370717/#msg1370717

And with a $ 499 DSO. 

[james_s]

It's kind of a pointless debate really. More features and capabilities are never really a bad thing, but just remember that people have been accomplishing great things for many years using equipment that is absolutely primitive next to the low cost hobbyist test gear of today. Like the craftsmen that created amazing ornate carvings with primitive hand tools, it's more down to the knowledge and abilities of the person using it than how fancy the tool is.

Everything from computers to CD players to microwave communications gear to rockets have been developed and debugged with analog scopes.

[nctnico]

And pyramids where constructed using lots of manual labour... 

[0culus]

It's kind of a pointless debate really. More features and capabilities are never really a bad thing, but just remember that people have been accomplishing great things for many years using equipment that is absolutely primitive next to the low cost hobbyist test gear of today. Like the craftsmen that created amazing ornate carvings with primitive hand tools, it's more down to the knowledge and abilities of the person using it than how fancy the tool is.

Everything from computers to CD players to microwave communications gear to rockets have been developed and debugged with analog scopes.

True, but if we desire, should we not avail ourselves of modern tools? I am not getting rid of any of my CROs. Whatever digital 'scope I get is intended to complement them, not replace them (at least for my uses).

I'm currently trading off using an HP 8405A vector voltmeter in lieu of a VNA, which is another big purchase I want to make eventually as I put away a bit of money every pay period to fund hobbies. 

[David Hess]

Neither will give you 100% POI per se. You cannot capture something with a trigger if you don't know where to aim. When you do, you'll have 100%  POI. If you don't know what to look for, you're shooting in the dark.

With old school persistence "trick", and by using mask testing too, you can catch things you didn't expect. I said CAN not YOU WILL 100% of time. As you correctly said  even really fast scope is blind most of the time on certain timebases. But, trick is that blind time is not synchronous in relation to signal. It's time relation will be random to random glitch. So glitch will eventually hit at the time it's not blind. Also if your glitch is synchronous, on 3000T there is a trigger hold-off randomization function to ensure you're not blind always at the same time relative to signal. That will make it more likely to show. Really, it does work, if you wait enough, it works. After enough time POI starts to approach 100%. It is statistical game. Problem is what I said, you have no clue where it came from and that makes it of very limited usefulness.

Something I get out of discussions like this is an opportunity to reevaluate my own designs.

It is a very small step from the DPO algorithm I have been working on which takes maximum advantage of the available hardware performance to something which has both zero blind time and can automatically identify rare glitches ... simply because they are rare.  The dog did not bark and that was the odd thing.

It is too bad that there is no way to know what modern DSOs are doing but I find that this is an increasing problem with all kinds of instruments since about 1990.  They might as well say they include magic, and sometimes they do.

[james_s]

True, but if we desire, should we not avail ourselves of modern tools? I am not getting rid of any of my CROs. Whatever digital 'scope I get is intended to complement them, not replace them (at least for my uses).

I'm currently trading off using an HP 8405A vector voltmeter in lieu of a VNA, which is another big purchase I want to make eventually as I put away a bit of money every pay period to fund hobbies. 

That's not the point.

The point is that while modern features are great, it doesn't mean that they are all absolute necessities. People get very passionate about this or that feature that everyone needs and fully dismiss anything that doesn't offer that particular feature. That doesn't mean the new features have no value, only that a given individual should evaluate what they actually need for the tasks they're trying to accomplish.

[2N3055]

True, but if we desire, should we not avail ourselves of modern tools? I am not getting rid of any of my CROs. Whatever digital 'scope I get is intended to complement them, not replace them (at least for my uses).

I'm currently trading off using an HP 8405A vector voltmeter in lieu of a VNA, which is another big purchase I want to make eventually as I put away a bit of money every pay period to fund hobbies. 

That's not the point.

The point is that while modern features are great, it doesn't mean that they are all absolute necessities. People get very passionate about this or that feature that everyone needs and fully dismiss anything that doesn't offer that particular feature. That doesn't mean the new features have no value, only that a given individual should evaluate what they actually need for the tasks they're trying to accomplish.

I believe point is that many new scopes have so many protocols, measurements and analysis that many of those might not be of any use to your actual work. I really don't need AERO protocols, and some of the other stuff. So those things don't add any value to me despite having a list price. Fully loaded high end modern scope is only useful if used to its full potential. If you are using only basic stuff you only need basic scope..

[nctnico]

True, but if we desire, should we not avail ourselves of modern tools? I am not getting rid of any of my CROs. Whatever digital 'scope I get is intended to complement them, not replace them (at least for my uses).

I'm currently trading off using an HP 8405A vector voltmeter in lieu of a VNA, which is another big purchase I want to make eventually as I put away a bit of money every pay period to fund hobbies. 

That's not the point.

The point is that while modern features are great, it doesn't mean that they are all absolute necessities. People get very passionate about this or that feature that everyone needs and fully dismiss anything that doesn't offer that particular feature. That doesn't mean the new features have no value, only that a given individual should evaluate what they actually need for the tasks they're trying to accomplish.

I think it is the point exactly. Let's rephrase the question: Would you buy a Model-T Ford to commute to work for (say) 50km every day?

[darkstar49]

The mentioned auction is indeed a nice scope for the money...

But aside from all the comments in the previous messages, for 'hobbyists', there's another criteria which is no less important (sometimes)... : 'hackability'... 
With whatever major brand, options can very quickly exceed the base price by orders of magnitude.

As already said before, 5K buys you a lot of scope... so about hacks:

Lecroy: anything with firmware below 8.x (downgrading is possible in most cases, with very recent models, I'd be careful, though...), some have apparently managed to crack 8.x, but nothing of that is publicly available

Keysight: 5-6-7000: patched firmware and/or service mode (in SM, you can activate whatever you want), 9000 and S-Series: patched firmware (but not publicly available on the net to my knowledge), DSOX2-3-4, see thread in this forum, all soft-options are available, for higher-end Windows-based scopes, no clue

Tek: DPO3K, 4K, MDO3K: keygen available or via h/w modules (very easy), MDO4K: a bit the same, but not sure whether the private keys are freely available on the net (these are model-dependent), for Windows-based scopes, no clue... not seen anything so far (no keygen, no patch)

R&S: nada, no hack available whatsoever. RTO's & RTE's have the crypto stuff on a smart-card inside the scope, RTB & RTA use encrypted firmware files (and maybe also use a smart-card to store the private keys inside the scope), not seen anyone able to hack these so far (it still should be possible to patch the software, but that requires being able to decrypt it first...)

To come back on Lecroy, be advised also that all suit-case format scopes (Xs, Xi and all derivates) are out-of-support... what I mean is that Lecroy (and their suppliers) is out of parts for these models, in particular do they use a custom-made Mini-ITX motherboard, with a PCI-104 connector (instead of PCI), which is unobtainium (really ! confirmed by Lecroy). Only WaveSurfers with serials >= LCRY0320xxxxx use another type of mainboard, with a standard connector (for the interface board), for those, mainboards ares still available.

It's fairly easy to check: if there are PS/2 connectors for mouse and keyboard, it's the old-style mobo, and mobo failure = you're in deep sh!&t

The 6000 series is indeed nice, there's plenty of room for a mobo upgrade, and it uses standard PCI for the interface board, but there are however two things to know:
1) the driver for the interface board really has its issues with SMP, i.e. you can activate multiple cores, but can have various and weird effects (freezes, crashes,...)
2) the USB chip for the front-panel has some 'bugs', which makes it incompatible with many (more recent) mobo's, Intel's series 6 is the latest that works (although some have managed to circumvent that with an additional USB controller board...)

And while the Ebay scope mentioned is fine, for a grand less, you can have the exact same model from Lecroy themselves (Lecroyfinds on Ebay), although some 'tuning' will be required... ;-

Cheers

[YetAnotherTechie]

R&S: nada, no hack available whatsoever. RTO's & RTE's have the crypto stuff on a smart-card inside the scope, RTB & RTA use encrypted firmware files (and maybe also use a smart-card to store the private keys inside the scope), not seen anyone able to hack these so far (it still should be possible to patch the software, but that requires being able to decrypt it first...)

RTB, RTM, RTA and FPC don't have smart card, only nand flash, and options is stored there, this info comes from instrument security pdfs.
I don´t understand why no one is looking, they put nice 3 pin connector on board(serial?) next to labelled jtag connectors, and labelled test points for flash chip, There is also scpi commands to load firmware to ram, has anyone tried to telnet even?

[Mechatrommer]

someone PM me but i prefer to share the answer here....

Can the DDA series Lecroys you mentioned on "Nice, older DSO advice" thread be used as normal scope?

now i only have brief moment with LeCroy DDA/SDA DSO, still rearranging/repairing stuffs here and there, so i have no real world experience yet with these DSO. but so far from what i've tested, can they be used for general purpose scope? my answer is yes, if specialized feature such as peak detect or bode plot is not critical for you, the excellency lies on their double digit GSps sampling rate and > 1GHz BW, some applications really demand for this. DDA3000 has normal BNC input, 100Vp on 1Mohm input and 5Vrms on 50ohm input. coupled with hi-Z 1/10X probe you can probe normal household mains circuit (1000Vp max), so i believe this figure is enough for general purpose hobby use. ymmv.

What about hacking options?

you can check that lecroy license recovery thread. the answer is "very yes" you can do software upgrade feature such as SDA, SA capability etc but not the hardware (AFE memory etc). (see attached) if someone mock you that you dont have peak detect, nevermind you can show them or mock them back with that USB2 (dedicated HW required) or the Ethernet/Electrical/Power/SA measurements feature.

Do you have more information on your adapter sma to bnc adapter for them?

currently in progress but it has gone behind the queue as some other more demanding tasks is in order cutting the queue. there is thread discussing it you can search. i think i have all the parts needed ready, i already have one working 3d printed prototype but i need to further refine it. DDA3000 doesnt require this as it is BNC input already. fwiw.

one thing to note, that the other brand dont have but unique to older LeCroy scope, they have input auto calibration timeout from time to time, when you change timescale or voltscale etc, this can be annoying to some people, this can delay progress or smoothness of our measurement. the OP of the 3000 upgrade thread already sold his dda3000 just because of this. if you cant live with this, then its not suitable for you. we learn to get by with it and how to minimize it or entirely make it out of the way (pick the optimal time/volt scale for your measurement and dont ever change it until next stage of measurement). poking @YetAnotherTechie

[joeqsmith]

I think it is the point exactly. Let's rephrase the question: Would you buy a Model-T Ford to commute to work for (say) 50km every day?

I guess if I lived and breathed Model-T Fords.    Funny how on forums, TE always seems to relate to cars.  I think my VNA would be a horse and buggy.  You want to talk about a lack of modern features.    It doesn't take a shit very often like a horse would but it does still get me around, proving once again the power of Labview and a hobbyist with half a brain.

[Kosmic]

Can the DDA series Lecroys you mentioned on "Nice, older DSO advice" thread be used as normal scope?

now i only have brief moment with LeCroy DDA/SDA DSO, still rearranging/repairing stuffs here and there, so i have no real world experience yet with these DSO. but so far from what i've tested, can they be used for general purpose scope? my answer is yes, if specialized feature such as peak detect or bode plot is not critical for you, the excellency lies on their double digit GSps sampling rate and > 1GHz BW, some applications really demand for this. DDA3000 has normal BNC input, 100Vp on 1Mohm input and 5Vrms on 50ohm input. coupled with hi-Z 1/10X probe you can probe normal household mains circuit (1000Vp max), so i believe this figure is enough for general purpose hobby use. ymmv.

DDA-120 and DDA-110 have BNC inputs with 400V max on 1M\$\Omega\$, 5V max on 50\$\Omega\$. If you just ignore the extra buttons (disk drive analysis functions) they are similar to lecroy LC series scope but with more memory.

[Kosmic]

It doesn't take a shit very often like a horse would but it does still get me around, proving once again the power of Labview and a hobbyist with half a brain.

I just realized that NI is selling a labview bundle for home user. And it's pretty cheap.

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/213095

[joeqsmith]

It doesn't take a shit very often like a horse would but it does still get me around, proving once again the power of Labview and a hobbyist with half a brain.

I just realized that NI is selling a labview bundle for home user. And it's pretty cheap.

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/213095

I have a few friends who bought that kit from Sparkfun just for Labview.  $50.   It was water marked but we tried running some pretty complex code on it and saw no problems.  It did not appear to be crippled.

[Mr Nutts]

The 6000 series is indeed nice, there's plenty of room for a mobo upgrade, and it uses standard PCI for the interface board, but there are however two things to know:
1) the driver for the interface board really has its issues with SMP, i.e. you can activate multiple cores, but can have various and weird effects (freezes, crashes,...)
2) the USB chip for the front-panel has some 'bugs', which makes it incompatible with many (more recent) mobo's, Intel's series 6 is the latest that works (although some have managed to circumvent that with an additional USB controller board...)

And while the Ebay scope mentioned is fine, for a grand less, you can have the exact same model from Lecroy themselves (Lecroyfinds on Ebay), although some 'tuning' will be required... ;-

The Lecroy WR6000 may be a nice scope but it’s trigger capabilities are very poor as it only offers a very limited set of standard triggers

There isn’t even a glitch runt trigger

So unless you’re fine with something simple like edge trigger or logic trigger then its not a great choice

For some reason Lecroy has given the WR6000 (and I believe the WP7000, too) only simple triggers while the predecessor models WR2 LT and WP900 had very versatile trigger suites

And the successors to the WR6000 (WRXI?) also got better triggers

So a WR2LT or Wavepro 900 might be a better alternative. And the build quality is better, too

[darkstar49]

The Lecroy WR6000 may be a nice scope but it’s trigger capabilities are very poor as it only offers a very limited set of standard triggers
There isn’t even a glitch trigger

It's a long time I didn't start my WR6K, but I can't recall the trigger options to be as limited as you depict it...
And the data sheet also shows a somewhat less pessimistic version...?? But agreed, there are better scope nowadays, the point is: a WR6050A (4 x 5GS/s) sells at Lecroy for 1700 USD, which is pretty OK, one of the last 104MXi on Ebay sold for about 3.5K USD, certainly a better choice...

http://www.libertytest.com/assetmanager/uploaded/pdf-2008418-135844-lecroy_wr6100a-wr6200a.pdf

[darkstar49]

RTB, RTM, RTA and FPC don't have smart card, only nand flash, and options is stored there, this info comes from instrument security pdfs.
I don´t understand why no one is looking, they put nice 3 pin connector on board(serial?) next to labelled jtag connectors, and labelled test points for flash chip, There is also scpi commands to load firmware to ram, has anyone tried to telnet even?

Are you 100% sure of that ?? RTB/M/A firmware files are definitely encrypted, and you're suggesting that the (private) key for decoding these is simply stored on some flash inside the scope... R&S is serious about privacy and security, this would be a serious design flaw in that regard... but I never owned an RTB/M/A (only an RTO1024).
Having access to a JTAG debug connector is most probably not sufficient to gain sufficient understanding of the (binary) code, and find out where to patch to fool the key verification (or something similar), assuming the way it's coded makes it possible...

[YetAnotherTechie]

Yes, i'm sure about no SIM and options storage location.  However there is OTP area in the flash, there is encryption/or compression OTP key on the big FPGA, and there is presumably a ARM9 physical core in the system fpga, that for sure also has OTP key encryption/or compression, trusted boot, etc. That´s not really hackable. However, there can be exploits at the OS system level, like for other scopes. As extra incentive, there is no difference in total memory between RTM and RTA, so it must be software choice....

[free_electron]

Get a used Agilent 7000 series. unlock it... for 5K you will have a top end machine with a humonguous screen , deep memory and 4 samplers ( as opposed to many other older dso's that interleave their samplers to save costs .. )
bonus: if you get an MSO type device you can do mixed signal as well.