Products > Test Equipment
Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread
Berni:
--- Quote from: BravoV on May 31, 2018, 07:03:13 pm ---
--- Quote from: Berni on May 31, 2018, 05:45:08 pm ---
--- Quote from: BravoV on May 31, 2018, 01:10:20 pm ---2.5GHz thingie, not my fault, blame Berni. :palm:
--- End quote ---
Nice one. No need to thank me. This is what the TEA group is for.
But im sure you will enjoy the probe. I used my infiniium versions of them a lot and they run circles around any passive probe for high speed digital use.
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I'm quite surprised that the probe's body is heavy, if connected directly and hanging horizontally, perpendicular with the equipment front panel, worry that the stress caused by it's weight will wreck the N terminal at the spectrum analyzer or at the scope's BNC terminal using the included N to BNC adapter.
Thinking of using a L shape adapter, to make the probe body parallel with the equipment front panel, and I guess this should help to relieve the stress by resting part of the body weight on the bench surface, rather than hanging horizontally, how do you use yours ? Or I'm worry too much ?
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Im sure its fine for N connectors as long as its not in a spot where you could walk by and snag it.
But BNC yeah that's way too big to hang off one of those. Probably best to use a short BNC to N cable to connect that. You don't really need to worry about adding cable since the signal is driven inside the probe, so the signal is already having to travel all the way down the probe cable. The box on the N connector is for generating the various power supply rails, the signal passes straight trough it.
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: bd139 on June 01, 2018, 07:59:30 am ---Indeed. 100MHz is certainly pushing it with modern logic. It’s only good for me because at best I’m using a 16Mhz or so clock and the result of that is much slower. If you have an Intel Core on the bench, out comes your £100k scope :)
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Clock rate is irrelevant; all that matters is the transition time. But you know that.
Now if you are working in the digital domain, clock rate is relevant - but you ought to be using a digital domain tool like a logic analyser (optionally plus protocol decoder) of some sort.
--- Quote ---A CRO is perfectly useful. Just a DSO is more useful over a larger problem domain. A CRO is a good learning exercise. I recently sat with an EE student in front of a Rigol DS2000 series unit and it was confusing for him. YMMV but I’d like to see some DSOs on the market with an interface as good as the old 54600’s.
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I've seen some very misleading results on an HP54621; and removing the misleading result has to be done every time any control was changed. I ought to capture pictures sometime.
bd139:
That's a fair point. Indeed you are right. The DS1054Z's protocol decode is reasonably efficient for analysing simple serial bus type problems which is what I'm using it for mainly (fecking SPI). It isn't as good as a Salea though but it has more tools in one box that neatly sits on my power supplies. Everything is a compromise on price, performance and quality and this sort of hits the middle of the triangle.
Please note I only said the interface of the 54600. The actual implementation is a different matter. Things have changed a lot since 1994. As with all gear you're looking at the abstraction of a problem, not the problem itself so you need to understand what happens between one and the other.
Perhaps that is a good place for the analogue scope; when you need to intimately understand the difference between input and eyeballs without delving into sampling theorem. You can model an analogue scope as a low pass filter.
Specmaster:
Quote from: med6753 on Today at 10:43:08 am
All this talk about CRO's being obsolete has got my boys in full revolt. :rant: They want to kill the Siglent DSO which is currently in hiding. :scared: Please assure them that they still have a function on the bench. I tried and they won't listen. :-// I'm afraid if this continues much longer they'll start releasing magic smoke. |O
Please help! :phew:
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My your boys sure look angry, and they full set of teeth are in full display for all to see and anyone can see that they are raring for a fight :box: but please reassure them that is a storm in a tea cup. Is a analogue watch any less useful then a digital one, is a mechanical one any less capable than a quartz one :P . Do Rolex make and Quartz, digital watches, I don't think so but they are still held up as possibly the best watch maker of all, Breitling, Omega are other top notch makers all of which appear to be mechanical self winding mechanism. Good luck in trying to convince their customers that they have had their day and only Quartz watches cut the mustard these days.
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DSO's are in my opinion a very handy and useful tools but I can't help but think that they are gaining such popularity purely through the use of software because we are not equipping our youngsters with engineering skills any longer, schools are focusing purely the world becoming an electronic one. A world where machines do the manufacturing and people sit at desks behind a screen and devise ways of making a piece of silicon do more and more and as a result there is less actual hands on engineering going on these days :palm: :scared:
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bd139:
If we're on the subject of the watch analogy, there are two outcomes for a timekeeping piece:
1. The timekeeping piece of keeping time. The pinnacle of the standalone timekeeping device is the Casio F-91W, available for a mere £8 on Amazon. It's waterproof, virtually indestructable, monumentally accurate (my last one drifted 11 seconds a month with no time sync), cheap as chips, disposable and no one will stab you for it. However I haven't worn one for at least a decade, because I have a computer in my pocket which is currently reporting it is in time sync to within 26ms of reference time sources. That computer also allows me to collaborate with other people carrying computers on time related things. And it happens to play music and allow me to pay for things. It's amazing, and was considerably cheaper than a "good analogue watch".
2. The timekeeping piece because you like it or it brings status. If you like it, fair enough! no problems. For ref I had a 1973 Omega Speedmaster from my father. Very nice piece of kit. Really liked it. But it went because I didn't need it, didn't use it, would be stabbed for it in two minutes flat etc. It was also purely a status purchase by him as a flasher of the Omega and Jag keyring. Status for the sake of status is something I dispise. I know currency and derivatives traders who blow silly money on a Rolex entirely for status. Does it help them tell the time? No, they work microsecond timing on their computers! Stick the money in a food bank.
I diagress but analogising, which is the superior for productivity and ROI/cost benefit? That's what matters to an engineering process and organisation and the education system that ultimately drives people into it.
Part 2: On the subject of engineering. Getting everything into the digital domain is important these days. It's easier to change things there and it doesn't have any nasty absolute accuracy problems dependent on physical factors (only mathematical ones) which makes reasoning about signals and data more straightforward. Also you can depend on a variety of work easily shared and collaborated upon while reducing cost and time to market. Even the 3478A tries to get it into the digital domain pretty quick with that dual slope ADC (turns analogue value into a stream of digital pulses which can be counted). All the readings are calculated in the digital domain in memory (read the operating principles chapter of the service manual).
I like it like this if I'm honest. I just appreciate the old kit and like playing with it.
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