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Picoscope Hack
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egonotto:
Hello,

the bandwidth of my 5444B is fine at 200 MHz. But the bandwidth of my 100MHz 5234A is also 200MHz. Picotech didn't get back to me because of the bandwidth.
In direct comparison, the bandwidth of my 5444B is slightly smaller than the bandwidth of my 5234A.

My 5444B and 5234A also have spikes.

Best regards
egonotto
_Wim_:

--- Quote from: egonotto on December 03, 2022, 05:59:35 pm ---My 5444B and 5234A also have spikes.

--- End quote ---
Those look quite identical, so probably not possible to improve that easily.
markone:

--- Quote from: _Wim_ on December 03, 2022, 03:15:25 pm ---One more hardware difference between the low end model and the high ends models: a different clock is used. Not sure though if this is worthwhile to try and upgrade.

--- End quote ---

just to give you an idea of the huge cost gap between the low end  / high end series BOMs :D ...

+/- 50ppm : low cost oscillator, price under 1 euro in quantity of 100
+/-2ppm    : TCXO, unitary price around 2 euro in quantity of 100


In your place, provided that your warranty is dead, I would proceed with the mod.

_Wim_:

--- Quote from: markone on December 03, 2022, 10:17:40 pm ---just to give you an idea of the huge cost gap between the low end  / high end series BOMs :D ...

+/- 50ppm : low cost oscillator, price under 1 euro in quantity of 100
+/-2ppm    : TCXO, unitary price around 2 euro in quantity of 100


In your place, provided that your warranty is dead, I would proceed with the mod.

--- End quote ---

It is not the cost that would make it worthwhile or not, it is the trouble to find out all of the correct surrounding component values. Also the risk that if they are not correct, I make it worse instead of better. And the fact that the upgrade it will not make a whole lot of difference in my opinion. If I had a schematic of the 5444B, I would for sure do it however, as then it is easy and risk free. 

For example, the resistor I have changed above to increase the bandwidth, could still have other negative effects I am not aware of and was not the only thing (or not even the thing at all) that needs to be changed to increase the bandwidth. The more I think about it, the more I think those 75 ohm resistors should remain in place, and some other component(s) needs to be updated/removed to increase the bandwidth of the front end. But without schematics and without even a picture of a 5444B front end, that is hard to evaluate without a complete reverse engineering to the front end. 
markone:

--- Quote from: _Wim_ on December 04, 2022, 07:00:43 am ---
--- Quote from: markone on December 03, 2022, 10:17:40 pm ---just to give you an idea of the huge cost gap between the low end  / high end series BOMs :D ...

+/- 50ppm : low cost oscillator, price under 1 euro in quantity of 100
+/-2ppm    : TCXO, unitary price around 2 euro in quantity of 100


In your place, provided that your warranty is dead, I would proceed with the mod.

--- End quote ---

It is not the cost that would make it worthwhile or not, it is the trouble to find out all of the correct surrounding component values. Also the risk that if they are not correct, I make it worse instead of better. And the fact that the upgrade it will not make a whole lot of difference in my opinion. If I had a schematic of the 5444B, I would for sure do it however, as then it is easy and risk free. 

For example, the resistor I have changed above to increase the bandwidth, could still have other negative effects I am not aware of and was not the only thing (or not even the thing at all) that needs to be changed to increase the bandwidth. The more I think about it, the more I think those 75 ohm resistors should remain in place, and some other component(s) needs to be updated/removed to increase the bandwidth of the front end. But without schematics and without even a picture of a 5444B front end, that is hard to evaluate without a complete reverse engineering to the front end.

--- End quote ---

I was referring solely to cost gap between high models / low models reference oscillators, it is so small that it sounds ridiculous that they do not  mount the +/- 2ppm part in all SKUs.

Now with few euros you will meet the time precision of top tiers  :)

In the mean time i was looking to Picotech webshop for one 3203D ... just to find out that chip shortage incidentally hits only "low cost" SKUs.

The cheapest model is an 3205D (2CH 100MHz 1GS/s) at whopping price of 979 euros plus taxes, that is the same cost of SDS2104X-Plus and I even paid less my Rigol HDO1074 ...

If you have an idea of what's inside the above mentioned desktop DSOs and what's inside a Picotech 3xxxD you start to wonder if Rigol & Siglent enjoy giving away their products or Picotech makes a monstrous margin.
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