Products > Test Equipment
True analog scopes
james_s:
My thought would have been that it's defective rather than buggy. It's also possible that some data somewhere got corrupted somehow, is there a way to perform a full factory reset on it?
tautech:
--- Quote from: james_s on December 14, 2022, 10:50:19 pm ---My thought would have been that it's defective rather than buggy. It's also possible that some data somewhere got corrupted somehow, is there a way to perform a full factory reset on it?
--- End quote ---
Trouble is James, there are far to many box shufflers in this industry that send stuff out the door without even checking its firmware is latest.....Siglent NA too !
They stock their Amazon shop with unchecked products too which exposes customers to older product incarnations without the latest updates.
Many many around the world hate any device that 'phones' home to install updates but for product lines still in active development how do you get around this issue ?
We chose to check every instrument bypassing any DOA issues and updating firmware and checking and setting probes which serves as a proper check on their functionality too. Yes we find dud Siglent probes on occasion.
Resellers can take 2 paths, provide the best possible customers first experience and also know the instrument will operate as expected or be absolute experts in managing the fastest flow of stock into the marketplace.
Pick your poison.
H713:
I admit that my 2235 sees a whole lot less use than it used to.
That said, there are some things that the classic Tek analog scopes do better than modern digital scopes.
The biggest thing is that most modern digital scopes, in their quest to do everything under the sun, have become extremely complicated, and their UI is often a pain in the backside. It's great to be able to do really advanced things, but the really advanced stuff is 5% of my time using a scope, and if I just need to trace a sine wave through a 500 kHz bandwidth amplifier, the less I have to mess with things, the better.
Furthermore... on an analog scope, you can immediately tell exactly how it is configured without touching it. This is not the case with digital scopes, and this is a real pain - I find that I make far more bonehead measurement errors with really modern scopes than I do with those from yesteryear.
I really like my Siglent scope, and I really like the Tek scopes at work - both the TDS3054s and the new ones (I don't remember the model number) we've gotten recently. That said, I still reach for my 54622A and my Tek 2235 more often than I reach for my newer, higher-performance scopes, and this is because for a good portion of what I do, the 54622A is fast enough, and it is far less likely to annoy me than anything more recent. I actually like the TDS220 series for this reason - it's pretty usable.
Also, I'm profoundly lazy. Do you seriously think that I'm going to mess around with a software utility or a USB stick every time I want to save a scope image? Unless this is going in a formal report (or has intellectual property issues) I'm going to snap a picture with my phone. Incidentally, CRTs tend to photograph really well.
And finally, I don't have to put a brick of lead behind my analog scope to stop it from sliding across the bench when I try to connect a probe to it.
So aside from the satisfaction of using a good analog oscilloscope (the appearance of the traces on a CRT, the tactile feel of switches, etc), the main advantage they still hold has more to do with the user interface on a lot of modern scopes.
H713:
Oh, and I believe someone earlier in this thread asked about the fastest analog scope.
To my knowledge, the fastest analog scope was a modified version of the Tektronix 519 that achieved a 3 GHz bandwidth. That said, the 519 (in all iterations) is a very bizarre scope, and not a terribly useful one.
It was a very clever way to achieve insane bandwidths in the 1960s, but it made for a scope with a low vertical sensitivity, tiny viewing area, and a wacky 125 ohm input impedance.
I don't know if this is true, but what I was told is that Tek developed the 519 specifically for LANL and LLNL, and that they accounted for most of the 519s sold.
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: H713 on December 15, 2022, 06:50:55 am ---I admit that my 2235 sees a whole lot less use than it used to.
That said, there are some things that the classic Tek analog scopes do better than modern digital scopes.
The biggest thing is that most modern digital scopes, in their quest to do everything under the sun, have become extremely complicated, and their UI is often a pain in the backside. It's great to be able to do really advanced things, but the really advanced stuff is 5% of my time using a scope, and if I just need to trace a sine wave through a 500 kHz bandwidth amplifier, the less I have to mess with things, the better.
Furthermore... on an analog scope, you can immediately tell exactly how it is configured without touching it. This is not the case with digital scopes, and this is a real pain - I find that I make far more bonehead measurement errors with really modern scopes than I do with those from yesteryear.
I really like my Siglent scope, and I really like the Tek scopes at work - both the TDS3054s and the new ones (I don't remember the model number) we've gotten recently. That said, I still reach for my 54622A and my Tek 2235 more often than I reach for my newer, higher-performance scopes, and this is because for a good portion of what I do, the 54622A is fast enough, and it is far less likely to annoy me than anything more recent. I actually like the TDS220 series for this reason - it's pretty usable.
Also, I'm profoundly lazy. Do you seriously think that I'm going to mess around with a software utility or a USB stick every time I want to save a scope image? Unless this is going in a formal report (or has intellectual property issues) I'm going to snap a picture with my phone. Incidentally, CRTs tend to photograph really well.
And finally, I don't have to put a brick of lead behind my analog scope to stop it from sliding across the bench when I try to connect a probe to it.
So aside from the satisfaction of using a good analog oscilloscope (the appearance of the traces on a CRT, the tactile feel of switches, etc), the main advantage they still hold has more to do with the user interface on a lot of modern scopes.
--- End quote ---
All remarkably sane points that mirror my experience and opinion.
My principal objection is to people that say don't consider buying an analogue scope (especially if they have financial interest in digitising scopes!). A working analogue scope is an extremely useful tool that you can learn to use quickly and easily. If it is less expensive than a new digitising scope, then there is more money available for other necessities, e.g. the right type of probe for the measurement being made.
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