Ridiculous Prices

[echen1024]

Could someone explain why the cost of this probe holder is more than one Rigol DS2102 and is the same price as 2 DS1104Z's. Beats me. Hell, even their own DSOX2002 is only $70 more.

[c4757p]

$1219? Holy hell.

[Bored@Work]

Because they can.

It is just to round of their offerings. They probably don't care if they don't sell many and it is unlikely sales of them makes any noticeable difference to their bottom line.  If they find someone gullible (government, educational institutes, big corporations) they happily take the money as a bit of extra income.

[EEVblog]

Because they only sell dozens or maybe hundreds of them. Those who need it don't care what it costs.

[c4757p]

Who in the name of all that is good and pure needs a probe holder so badly they don't care if it's $1200?  I was expecting some magical RF jig made from congealed unicorn farts and fairy wings, but it's just an unusually stable stick with a probe clip. I can see $200, but $1200? Somebody slip on the keyboard there??

[EEVblog]

Who in the name of all that is good and pure needs a probe holder so badly they don't care if it's $1200?

Projects that have millions of dollars in capital budgets. I've worked on quite few of those myself, $1200 is nothing.
Check out the Agilent 4339B for example:
http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pd-1000000860%3Aepsg%3Apro-pn-4339B/high-resistance-meter-dc
I've worked on project using dozens of these, and it's nothing to pay $1000 for the special test leads
http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/product.jspx?cc=US&lc=eng&nid=-34051.536881098&pageMode=OV
Or $3900 for the test fixture:
http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/product.jspx?cc=US&lc=eng&nid=-34051.536879637&pageMode=OV

[c4757p]

Those do things, though!!

[alm]

In some projects it may be better to get a known-working ready made unit then something jerry-rigged contraption. Paying $1200 for an Agilent-branded unit may also be easier to get approved then a $100 repurposed positioning device. I don't really see the problem. The DUT and the probe are likely much more expensive ($1200 may buy you Agilent's cheapest active probe, but don't be surprised to pay an order of magnitude more). It may also be a convenient bargaining tool for sales people to give the customer $1200 extra stuff for their money.

[free_electron]

because the probes you stick in those things cost 10K$ to 30K$ a pop ... so 1200$ holder for a 30K$ probes is peanuts.
that probe holder is balanced to set the correct amount of pressure on the probe tip .

be happy you don't need to buy micromanipulators to position GSG or SGSG probes on a substrate. The result would have been like listening to an hour long rendition of 'the brown note' ...

[leafi]

Im sure the US Government ordered a ton of them.... After all it is not their money so why do they care!

[EEVblog]

Those do things, though!!

So does the holder. It has the correct mount and applies the correct pressure to your very expensive probe. It's a known working solution that you have likely seen working in an Agilent demo.
When you spend $100K for the scope and $10K+ for a single probe, going cheap and jury rigging something yourself is just pointless, you buy what you know will work with the least fuss.
It can also be easier to simply "throw on" the probe holder onto a purchase or for Agilent than try and get approval for a $20 cheapie from ebay.

[Stonent]

It can also be easier to simply "throw on" the probe holder onto a purchase or for Agilent than try and get approval for a $20 cheapie from ebay.

I completely understand where Dave is coming from, we buy computer monitors from Dell and wait 2 weeks when we could drive 15 minutes and save $100 per unit at a local store, but...



Just sayin!

[c4757p]

Yeah, that's what I thought!

OK, OK, I get your point, if you're spending $100x on the equipment $1x for an accessory isn't really much, and reliability is good. It's still kind of funny though!

[Electro Fan]

N2784A 1-arm Probe Positioner

The reason it sells for so much is because it is a really good probe holder.

I remember when I got my first $4.00 per gallon gasoline (I know it's not a lot for some places but here in the U.S. it seemed like a lot).  After the shock of the price wore off as I was pumping the gas it dawned on me that "this must be the best gasoline I've ever purchased."

Or at least that is one way of looking at it.

Another way is as per the motto I once learned from a wise product manager who liked to say when he felt the price had gotten out of hand:  "You can buy better but you can't pay more."   This seems to be the motto for some products.

[alm]

Have you actually used these third hands to hold a probe? They're not designed for applying the correct pressure, and in general are quite crude compared to proper tools and clamps. The jaws also pinch the probes unless you put something in between. I would gladly pay extra for a proper solution. Not $1195 extra, though.

I'm curious what $20 replacement that's functionally equivalent you would suggest? I can't of the top off my head think of one. It would need to be stable, exert some light pressure on the probe, and have sub-mm precision.

[EEVblog]

It's still kind of funny though!

Of course. I always got a chuckle every time I put in that purchase order for that $500 connector or $2000 cable.
Then you cry when they won't let you buy that essential thing for $50 because it comes under another budget.

[Corporate666]

That probe holder is very well made.   If someone came to me and said "I need you to make this", I'd ask how many they want to buy at a time.  I bet they would say "100 per order please".  And I be Agilent order s100 of those every quarter, or maybe less.

So as a machine shop guy, it's going to take several fixtures to make that, and quite a bit of R&D time to get all the programming right.  And I bet the tolerances are tight and I bet Agilent has spec'ed out some pretty rigid requirements for heat treatment, surface finish, materials, etc. 

If I am the guy making them, you bet your ass I want $200-300 each if they buy 100 at a time. 

Then Agilent has to sell it for a high enough retail price that they can discount it to their distributors.  So it winds up being $1,200 on the Agilent home page.

Expensive, sure... but overpriced?  Maybe - but if they weren't selling any, they wouldn't offer it.  Must be worth $1,200 to someone.  And definitely a lot of work went into making that. 

[Carrington]

Because they only sell dozens or maybe hundreds of them. Those who need it don't care what it costs.

I think that they sell dozens or maybe hundreds of them, because hundreds or better dozens of us can afford it. 

[echen1024]

I guess when you've submitted a budget for some $20k active probes, 4 of these is absolutely nothing. Ss, yeah, I guess that makes sense.

[free_electron]

allright moaners.. here are the probes this holder was designed for :

-disclaimer- I am not responsible if you suffer a severe case of 'durchfall' when you look at the price in the links below ...

http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pd-1836437-pn-N2803A/30-ghz-infiniimax-iii-series-probe-amplifier?cc=US&lc=eng
http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pd-1836437-pn-N2803A/30-ghz-infiniimax-iii-series-probe-amplifier?cc=US&lc=eng

these probes have a special tip that is to be soldered down on the board. the probe then mates with this tip. apply any kind of sideways pressure and you risk damaging the tip , possibly shearing it off your very expensive board and or damaging the probe.

the tips themselves :
http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pd-1247602-pn-N5426A/12ghz-infiniimax-zif-tip?cc=US&lc=eng

For that price you get 10 tips. Note that these are 1 time use only. You solder them down and that's it. You never remove them. They are not reusable.

so there you go. that probe stand is peanuts compared to the consumables.

for probes that are not so fragile and don't require this precision you can get away with much less.
http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pd-1643894-pn-N2786A/two-leg-probe-positioner?cc=US&lc=eng
the above work great. holds a probe exactly where you want it. works great with probes that have spring-loaded tips like the probes for 2000 and 3000 series and the infiniium probes.

for heavy probes like differential or active probes these work great :
http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pd-1643963-pn-N2787A/3d-probe-positioner?cc=US&lc=eng

[Rick Law]

allright moaners.. here are the probes this holder was designed for :

-disclaimer- I am not responsible if you suffer a severe case of 'durchfall' when you look at the price in the links below ...

http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pd-1836437-pn-N2803A/30-ghz-infiniimax-iii-series-probe-amplifier?cc=US&lc=eng
...
...

Ah, a mere $27,000 for the probe amp.  Now you guys know what to tell you wife/girl friend when she asks: "Honey, what do you want for your birthday?"

[c4757p]

for probes that are not so fragile and don't require this precision you can get away with much less.
http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pd-1643894-pn-N2786A/two-leg-probe-positioner?cc=US&lc=eng

Ooh... that's actually pretty clever. I never thought to use the probe itself as part of the stand mechanism. I may just have to build up a couple of these!


As for those one-time-use probe tips: What exactly makes them cost $56 each? Is it just because of relatively low demand, or am I missing something? It just looks like some passives on a PCB... The price is still in line with what I would expect for 12 GHz though.

[lgbeno]

Think about the level of matching that needs to occur at 12GHz for common mode rejection.  They probably have very tight specs on those devices.

I have certainly seen $10 resistors and $10+ caps. The apply a some test time and margin and you can get to $56 really quick.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

[c4757p]

Think about the level of matching that needs to occur at 12GHz for common mode rejection.

Oh dear lord! Yeah, you're right. That is reasonable.

[free_electron]

plus they are piece of flex board on an aluminum substrate ...

@rick law: don't forget that hese probes only mate with the 90000X or Q series oscilloscopes .. so you may need one of those as well...
this is the one i used to test the jim williams pulse generator :


http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pd-1819784-pn-DSAX93204A/infiniium-high-performance-oscilloscope-33-ghz?nid=-33821.931874&cc=US&lc=eng

the probe is the least of your worries ... and compared to the price of the scope that probeholder is practically a freebie ...

[lgbeno]

Pretty sweet scope 33GHz is crazy.  We used a similar 12GHz one to demodulate a 528MHz wide UWB signal with 8GHz center freq.  There we didn't use a fancy probe, just piped RF into the scope.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

[Salas]

Because they only sell dozens or maybe hundreds of them. Those who need it don't care what it costs.

Sounds exactly like the case of high-end turntable arms.

[Stonent]

Because they only sell dozens or maybe hundreds of them. Those who need it don't care what it costs.

Sounds exactly like the case of high-end turntable arms.

Actually a turntable arm might be perfect for mounting a probe vertically for placing on a test point.

[jpb]

If you're selling expensive instruments then extras are down in the price noise and you charge for the hassle rather than the thing itself. I remember being slightly shocked that the  company I worked for sold RS232 to GPIB convertors for a mark up of at least 4x the cost of buying them retail. The point was we needed to sell them at such a level to make it worthwhile and customers spending 10s of k$ would regard something under $1k as too minor to be worth haggling over or even thinking about.

It is like when NASA pay 10s of k$ for a cup-holder on a space shuttle (or is that a myth?)

[echen1024]

Probably just better used as a bargaining chip. "Sir, may I have 2k off this Infiniium 90000Q?"
"No, but I'll give you 2 probe holders and  pack of solder down probes FREE!"
"*gasp* That's a great deal! Sure!"

[G7PSK]

You could buy a house and a car for the price of one of those scopes and probes, but you are paying for the fairy dust with probes as I have just found out, I bought an Agilent 150MHZ probe on ebay and am having the devil of a job to match it to my scope (Iwatsu 40MHZ @25pf) the agilent probe is only 15pf, so far I have it right at 1KHZ but at 1MHZ its shit.

[alm]

So how is it the fault of the probe that you used it on a scope from a different manufacturer and failed to check the compensation range? It's not like Agilent hides the compensation range. A probe with a larger compensation range would have inferior performance (higher circuit loading) on the scopes it was designed for.

[G7PSK]

Its not the probes fault, I am trying to make the probe match by changing the compensation network in the BNC, and its not as straightforward as I had hoped and I am having to try different capacitors as none of the equipment I have will actually measure capacitance that low. I am also pointing out tha I understand why this stuff can be so expensive due to a very little personal experience.