Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscopes - Questions/Comments? Let me know!

[Hydron]

A number of other brands sell probes from the same OEM as the ZP03, with compatible accessories. I believe this is OEM is http://www.hktexas.hk/en/index.html
RS used to sell the Lecroy version of the accessory kit for a _very_ low price, but unfortunately it has since gone up by ~8.5x! See here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-killer-scope-a-true-game-changer-from-rs-rtb2002-rtb2004/msg1200931/#msg1200931 (pic in my post is accurate as to what I got, RS pic is missing stuff)

[KaneTW]

ZP10 is definitely as rebranded PMK 855-711-A01, but ZP03 is a different OEM.

[Detzi]

Thanks for all the good ideas on how to second source a low impedance ground clip.

I am though stunned how a name brand Scope Manufacturer cripples it's scopes by removing a Part that was essential in probing for many decades. Why should one keep buying pricy name brand stuff if the "Stuff" cannot provide a basic functionality. The whole point of buying it is that you can be sure "it works". Or at least that is the way it was and should be.
Yes i can make my own, yes i can buy one but then there is no point in spending 5k€ for a scope in the first place. I can get a Scope that doesn't work for much less. And yes it is that critical. Getting a 200MHz Scope without a proper possibility to ground the Probe means the damned thing doesn't work as described. Why? Well a quite good summary can be found here: http://teledynelecroy.com/doc/passive-probe-ground-lead-effects

The thing that gets me most is that they seem to get away with that, and that i'm seeem to be one of the fews that actually do care.

[mtdoc]

Cripples the scope!!! My god the horror, and all just to save a few cents. R&S is the worst company ever!

Sure, (if this is not just a one off error) they probably should include them, if for no other reason than to keep customers like you happy.

I’m sure it wasn’t a cost cutting measure since these things surely cost them pennies. Most likely it was a trivial oversight or they assumed people buying such a scope would know they can make their own, better, and custom to the job at hand, in less than a minute.

I have no idea why anyone would go to effort to source and buy something that can be made so easily and  cheaply.

[Fred27]

Are you sure it's deliberately not included rather than just missing from your one?

[KaneTW]

My RTB2004 should arrive in a few days, so I'll check. The OEM does not seem to include it.

E: actually, they do:

[nctnico]

The thing that gets me most is that they seem to get away with that, and that i'm seeem to be one of the fews that actually do care.

It is pretty well known that scopes comes with the crappiest probes. Therefore I never use the probes which come with a scope but I use the good ones I already have.

[KaneTW]

It's well-known, but that doesn't mean it should be acceptable.

[nctnico]

It's well-known, but that doesn't mean it should be acceptable.

Why wouldn't it be acceptable? Why pay for expensive probes you don't need? If you want a particular type of probes then just order them along with the oscilloscope.

If R&S would include some higher end probes people will start to complain the base price is too high compared to the competition and also about getting extra expensive probes they don't need/want.

[Detzi]

It's well-known, but that doesn't mean it should be acceptable.

Why wouldn't it be acceptable? Why pay for expensive probes you don't need? If you want a particular type of probes then just order them along with the oscilloscope.

If R&S would include some higher end probes people will start to complain the base price is too high compared to the competition and also about getting extra expensive probes they don't need/want.

I wonder why they include them anyways. Anyone who uses such a scope can build their own in under 10 min...custom

[KaneTW]

Can confirm that they don't include the ground spring.

[casinada]

My RTB-2004 didn't come with the springs but I didn't loose my sleep over it. 


Grab a piece of copper wire and make one in no time. you can even solder it to the pcb and leave it there 

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Hi Everyone - sorry for my tardiness in jumping in here!  I'm on vacation this week and haven't been near my PC much.  Munich did see the discussion here though and they will work with manufacturing to start including the ground spring with future RTB2000s.  They appreciate the feedback!

-Rich

[kaz911]

Hi Rich,

any reason the latests RTB2000 firmware has been removed? Website is back to showing v.2.0.0

/k

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Hi Rich,

any reason the latests RTB2000 firmware has been removed? Website is back to showing v.2.0.0

/k

I've asked what is happening.  It still shows on some of the webpages, but not all of them, which makes me think it is a web issue (plus no one said they were going to pull it), but I've asked to make sure and I'll update everyone.

-Rich

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Update on the firmware missing issue - I just got a reply this morning too.  New version is coming out - looks like there was a small tweak to the self-alignment that was made, mainly for production.  There were also a few bug fixes slipped in:

Version Function
V02.121 Solved: Locked pattern generator menu when 'Audio - IS' or 'Audio - TDM' selected.
The Audio items were removed in the pattern generator menu.
V02.121 Solved: Front panel firmware update to version did not work on rare devices.
V02.121 Solved: Wrong spectrum section copied to reference waveform when trigger reference pointwas not set to center.
V02.121 Solved: Connection via USB-TMC: Read function 'viReadSTB' does not answer.

It should be on the web shortly, but in the meantime, here is a direct link you can use:

http://www.rohde-schwarz.com/www/FileTran.nsf/alias/RTB_2_121?OpenDocument

-Rich

[Ice-Tea]

Not a scope related question but still very much R&S related... Perhaps there's a chance this is easy for you to unearth?

I have a SMIQ06L inbound. Not SMIQ06B, not even the SMIQ06ATE which isn't documented either but at least it is mentioned somewhere (pretty much a 06B but without screen if I understand correctly...). The 06L doesn't have a screen either, or so it would seem, but other than that? Your guess is as good as mine.

Or rather: I hope your guess is a bit *better* than mine.

Pretty please?

[Rich@RohdeScopesUSA]

Not a scope related question but still very much R&S related... Perhaps there's a chance this is easy for you to unearth?

I have a SMIQ06L inbound. Not SMIQ06B, not even the SMIQ06ATE which isn't documented either but at least it is mentioned somewhere (pretty much a 06B but without screen if I understand correctly...). The 06L doesn't have a screen either, or so it would seem, but other than that? Your guess is as good as mine.

Or rather: I hope your guess is a bit *better* than mine.

Pretty please?

Wow - these seem to be a pretty rare item - definitely hard to find info, but the good news is it seems to be very closely related to the SMIQ06B.  Here's what I found:

The SMIQ06L is a special variation of SMIQ. There are no options installed beside the B50 and B19 (rear connectors).  The SMIQ can only be operated by remote, because there is no display.  You have also no BNC connectors beside Trigger, Blank, I,Q, Powerramp and Ref.  The specifications are the same as for SMIQ06B and the mentioned BNC connectors.

Hope this helps!
Rich

[Ice-Tea]

It does. Gotta say: impressive response time!

[tszaboo]

The "problem" I see with R&S scopes (from the perspective of a company purchasing equipment) is that R&S scopes are a poor value on paper. For instance, when I was hired, the company got me a Siglent SDS-2104X. Most recently, we bought a Rigol DS-1104Z for a new engineer. We didn't even think to consider an R&S product (or Tektronix or Keysight for that matter).

I absolutely agree. Company purchases happen very short sighted, and they typically look at two values, when purchasing a scope. MHz printed on the front and Price tag. In every single company I worked for the last decade had a Tek. TDS2000 scope in the office. They are terrible and every engineer hates working with them. But Tek said it is 200 MHz 4 channel and about 2000 EUR, so they got the sale. It is really sad. Also, I have the problem with the pricing of the equipment, and options. It is OK to leave out stuff from the base model, and charge money for it. But it is NOT OK to charge 599 EUR for serial decoding, when you buy an MSO. That should be standard. Flexray, CAN, JESD and other interfaces, for sure, charge money on them. But UART? Really?
Also, if there is a need to buy an option, it should be very simple to do this. Click buy on a website of an authorized seller, and receive stuff in your mailbox, and you can measure. A mid level manager can sign a PO up to (typical) 500 EUR. If you have to ask a quote for an option, and you say the option is 501 EUR, then it goes to purchasing department, they spend a few days answering emails, it is to expensive to get the signature of middle manager, so it goes to Vice President of bean counting, who sits a few days on it, requests a cost/benefit analysis from the middle manager.
Meanwhile you just wanted to measure a signal on the board. Now, because the deadline was last week.

[Ice-Tea]

Funny story: I was in an R&D lab in Shenzen earlier this year. On their benches they had LeCroy and Keysight scopes. The Rigols were in the closet. Literally.

Sad day when the Chinese recognise quality and we don't...

[glowman]

See... Serious engineers do not want to deal with instabilities, and reliability issues.  R&S really need to be serious about making their scopes well.  Assuming hardware wise scopes are more or less similar (except for R&S custom asic), they should do "very" well in their firmware to set them apart from cheap Chinese counterparts.  Tek, Lecroy and Keysight had proven themselves to be trustworthy brands so I really hope R&S has that goal as well for their scopes line.

Hardware wise, they have to be very careful in choosing OEMs who can provide the level of quality.  1 of 4 probes of my RTB2004 has loose connection on the x1x10 switch.  These small quirks could really affect the overall reputation of R&S.

[nctnico]

See... Serious engineers do not want to deal with instabilities, and reliability issues.  R&S really need to be serious about making their scopes well.

I agree. Still R&S made it very hard for themselves by putting so many functions in the RTB2000 and RTM3000 and by organising the firmware the way they did. The end result is good but it takes a lot of work.

Hardware wise, they have to be very careful in choosing OEMs who can provide the level of quality.  1 of 4 probes of my RTB2004 has loose connection on the x1x10 switch.  These small quirks could really affect the overall reputation of R&S.

You are not supposed to use the probes which come with a scope. I have an RTM3004 on my bench but I'm going to buy a bunch of Testec probes for it so I can mix & match the accessoires between probes. Last week I misplaced one of the spring-hooks for the probes which came with the RTM3004 and I couldn't use the ones I have sitting in my accessoires tray.

[2N3055]

Funny story: I was in an R&D lab in Shenzen earlier this year. On their benches they had LeCroy and Keysight scopes. The Rigols were in the closet. Literally.

Sad day when the Chinese recognise quality and we don't...

Chinese suffer from brand snobbery even more than the rest of us.

It is a sad day when brand worship replaces reality. Rigols actually have EXCELLENT quality. They don't have advanced capabilities and no refinement.

R&S has appalling number of bugs on 2000, 3000, and 4000 series. They released totally experimental platform. If they live up to the name, they will fix them and it will make for excellent instruments.
But at this pace, it'll take years... I waited for a 3000 series since last year... Not impressed so far..

If you want stable scope, Keysight is the way to go. And that is also because it is a 10 years old platform (and now outdated), that has been debugged  all this time.
Most professionals use Keysight for that reason. Also LeCroy is very stable and has advanced capabilities.

And also: Segmented memory, I2C, SPI, UART, CAN are supposed to be included in basic scope... Scope is useless without it.  Why would I buy a scope for twice the money, if it can't do basic things, 500 USD scopes can... All of the nice things that R&S new platform can do are useless if I can't use it.   This is not only R&S problem. Keysight and Lecroy are also stupid like that.

If I bought a scope that has no capabilities (because I didn't pay 2500€ additionally to unlock them) than I might as well just buy Rigol, Siglent or GW Instek for much less money and have the same results...
Oh, wait, but NOO, they have those capabilities.. So they are better than R&S. And not only on paper. Even when implementation is less than stelar, you have it... You can do at least something.

I really hope new Rigol DS/MSO7000 shows to be decent performer...  They show an app bundle to be 1500€, R&S is 2500€ ... Basic scopes are not very inexpensive but give them time..

[sstepane]

Hi,

I have some practical question - what software (better to be free) can be used to analyse RTB stored waveforms? I see RSCommander software from R&S, but it has some very limited analysing abilities for traces (no abilities at all, except for Y-setup).