Products > Test Equipment
Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: BravoV on May 21, 2018, 09:19:21 am ---DS1054Z is more suitable as educational or learning tool, for advanced users or experienced ones, usually they had tasted scopes (analog or more advanced DSO) and probably also digital domain only tools like logic analyzers, hence it tastes so plain or even sometimes sour. ;D
--- End quote ---
My experience for beginners is the opposite. Beginners find it easier to use analogue scopes because:
* all the controls are on the front panel; none are invisibly hidden within a menuing system
* there's instant feedback to control twiddling
* they don't need to understand the subtleties of when to join or not to join the dots, and when to use/avoid sinx/x interpolation, etc etc
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: bd139 on May 21, 2018, 09:42:09 am ---You can freeze an analogue scope. Turn the intensity up, stare at it for 10 seconds then shut your eyes :-DD
--- End quote ---
You don't even need to do that! Use an analogue storage scope :) Oh, the "fun" we had as youngsters :(
bd139:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on May 21, 2018, 11:10:01 am ---
--- Quote from: bd139 on May 21, 2018, 08:53:15 am ---Yeah I have to agree. While the DS1054Z is crowed around here as the bee's knees for bottom end DSOs there are too many compromises not to make it frustrating to use. It's noisy, laggy, the UI is crap, the controls are soggy and the probes are just shit. You can get the job done but it's like living in a snake pit.
If I'm honest I'm finding it hard to need a DSO. For digital stuff a Saleae does the job. Really slow stuff, a logging DMM does a beter job as it has some proper measurement resolution (U1241C does 40 readings per second at 10,000 count resolution).
And for that twilight zone in the middle, where the DSO usually wins, the trick is to make your one shot event repetitive! Usually employing the function generator, a BJT and a couple of resistors to accomplish that.
--- End quote ---
Just so. Add in "thoughtful design and implementation strategy to make it easier" - and many more tools can be the right tool for the job.
The only places where I've really needed a DSO are for PSU switch-on transients and the like. In one particularly pernicious case (a Tek 485) only one test could be done per 12 hours! Such cases usually only need a "slow" scope, e.g. my Digilent Analog Discovery, which includes an AWG, pattern generator, primitive logic analyser, spectrum analyser, network analyser.
--- End quote ---
Yes rare events are really the best use case for the DSO. That's one reason I liked the HP 546xx scopes. They felt like an analogue scope to use as they were tuned for repetitive events. They had a 2MHz single shot bandwidth which was enough to catch and trigger on transients and one-off events. Plus tetris when you're bored.
I have considered an Analog Discovery myself actually. It's a USB swiss army knife. I'm slightly worried about how fragile it looks from an electrical perspective though.
--- Quote from: tggzzz on May 21, 2018, 11:14:34 am ---
--- Quote from: BravoV on May 21, 2018, 09:19:21 am ---DS1054Z is more suitable as educational or learning tool, for advanced users or experienced ones, usually they had tasted scopes (analog or more advanced DSO) and probably also digital domain only tools like logic analyzers, hence it tastes so plain or even sometimes sour. ;D
--- End quote ---
My experience for beginners is the opposite. Beginners find it easier to use analogue scopes because:
* all the controls are on the front panel; none are invisibly hidden within a menuing system
* there's instant feedback to control twiddling
* they don't need to understand the subtleties of when to join or not to join the dots, and when to use/avoid sinx/x interpolation, etc etc
--- End quote ---
Actually I agree there. I recently had the opportunity to sit in front of a mid-range Rigol unit with an 3rd year EE student and he didn't know how to drive it. Actually the whole experience was quite worrying but that's another thread.
--- Quote from: tggzzz on May 21, 2018, 11:16:23 am ---
--- Quote from: bd139 on May 21, 2018, 09:42:09 am ---You can freeze an analogue scope. Turn the intensity up, stare at it for 10 seconds then shut your eyes :-DD
--- End quote ---
You don't even need to do that! Use an analogue storage scope :) Oh, the "fun" we had as youngsters :(
--- End quote ---
I've not used one in ernest apart from playing with an old Tek 7000 storage mainframe many years ago at university. I was told to leave it alone so I didn't bugger the storage tube up. Jim Williams used a lot of them in his literature however. Telequipment DM63's come up one ebay regularly for virtually nothing so I might grab one to play with. I know how they work and how to use them; just never had the opportunity to do so.
Berni:
Or this being the TEA group you can go on your auction site of choice and look for any of those old analog combo scopes with memory. Extra points if it uses a charge coupled device as its its storage rather than digital bits.
bd139:
That's true. Ex PM3315 owner here. That had CCD storage.
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