TDS-1002b Any good? Comments?

True, for once-in-a-blue moon glitches they really work well. But that's a rare case here in the lab.

The 7000 series is usually more blueish than green ;-)

T'is what spectrum analyzers are for. I often just use a communications receiver. It has a 300Hz crystal filter that drops to -60dB at 600Hz or so and has (so far) fished out just about any polluting carrier. The only issue with that is that I have now worn down the rotary encoder bearings and I am not looking forward to this repair. Maybe after a couple of really good top shelf margaritas but the weather ain't right for that yet.

I always get a kick out of it when I find a bus contention for the digital guys that way.

Could be. I even had that on an expensive Agilent EMI (!) analyzer. Couldn't believe it. Anyhow, ye olde analog scope simply does not do that. There I have peace of mind that it won't mess with my prototypes. After all, lab equipment is supposed to maintain radio silence since you can shield a prototype while probing around.

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com:

I'd read the warranty carefully.It should be on their site. Besides,by the time the warranty expires,any support will be gone. LTPS -was- ending 6 years after last catalog appearance for an item. (and repair prices climb steeply during the last part of that 6 yrs,to "encourage" you to buy a new scope) It may have changed;I haven't kept current.

Joerg wrote in news:X_3Fh.2396$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net:

Yes,that scope has a purchased switcher PS.

"loud" infers an audible noise,"strong" noise would not infer audio.

Aha...

Well, it got to the point where I just had to turn it off. Of course, a scope becomes quite useless when in that operational status ;-)

Sorry, that was local slang. Out here, loud is also used for things like shirts when they are of some extremely bright color.

Here is what I found:

It's not much longer than many of my posts. ;-) It seems to read lifetime parts and labor where lifetime is the greater of 10 years mininum or 5 years after discontinuance of the model. No coverage for abuse, normal wear and tear of mechanicals, yada yada. Non transferrable (actually is for 3 years I believ, but rules apply) No unauthorized service allowed. I pay to ship to them, they ship it back. Seems pretty reasonable considering. Certainly seems to make it worthwhile to buy new vs. used and to buy from an authorized dealer.

For a refurb with almost no warranty. :-( Looks like Agilent will give you color for $1100, but Tek wants about $1270 for theirs. If you want data out of the Agilent that will be more money too. It appears that the feature set of the Tek is richer than the 3000 series Agilent, but the Agilent claims 4K "points" vs. 2.5K on the Tek. Spiffy stuff for sure. :-)

Yes.

Yes. Then again, almost everything sucks to some extent, and they are a good value for what they cost.

The TDS1000 (or 2000) series is the oscilloscope equivaltent of tools from Harbor Freight. They work, but there's nothing particularly elegant, enjoyable, high-quality, or "right" about them. You don't feel inspired when you pick one up. You buy them to get a job done, but not to derive pleasure from the use of them.

I say this as someone who has a TDS1002 (non-B) sitting on my desk right now, which I bought for about $700 earlier this year. For the project I was doing I absolutely had to have a digital scope to see nonrepeating events. The budget did not allow anything much more expensive and the schedule did not allow waiting for something rare to show up on Ebay.

Here are some specific problems which bother me:

• The display quality is poor. The resolution is low (320x240), and it's viewable only from one angle. I don't know about the 2000 series.
• There is no ability to average samples in a single acquisition, even when the desired rate is 1000x slower than the scope can sample. I guess it can't add and right-shift.
• 2500 samples isn't enough to zoom very far.
• "roll" mode doesn't actually roll, but scans left to right and then repeats.
• It doesn't have a duty cycle measurement, even though it has period and both positive/negative pulse width. Clearly it just can't do arithmetic.

I don't know about the 2000 series, but I know that the 3000 series improves to at least some extent on all those points. However, it then introduces its own problems, such as random screen display glitches when trying to display too many points at once, and having one set of vertical controls for all channels (awful UI).

In spite of all that, if you must have a digital scope, I don't think you can do better for the price. However, if you can do what you need with an analog scope, you can buy some of the best that ever existed for that. Maybe two of them. Plus, they'll feel like serious pieces of engineering equipment, suitably representative of thousands of years of technological progress, not plastic "product" like the modern digital ones.

I also own four cameras which use a strange obsolete technology called "film" and an analog voltmeter, though, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me. ;)

Yeah, but the trend to render products "out of support" at a rapidly increasing clip often gives people second thoughts about buying new. In fact, one of my client buys about everything used if they can get a decent price. Mostly EBay. I must say they are rather successful.

Bugger.

The Goodwill GDS series are sold in the US under the Instek brand:

For home use those I wouldn't spend the extra on colour, I'd spend it on bandwidth instead.

Full Goodwill/Instek range is here:

Dave :)

What's all this about a camera? You should be able to do a "screen print" directly to a PNG graphics file.

Looks like Instek has some new models out now with 1GSa/s to replace the GDS-800 series. The GDS-2000(all color) series has a USB port in the front for flash drive and one in the back for printing. Only a 3 year warranty though, but the price is better than the Tek. It also has a TFT screen which should look better in bright light if I'm not mistaken. The GDS-2102 is US$1165 ($1295 msrp) for 2-channel/color/100MHz/RS-232/USB

What do you think?

Now I'm checking out the Rigol stuff. Looks like the Rigol 1000 series is about 5-6" deep like the Tek, but has only 400MSa/second, but does have 1M (yes that's an M) points. They also claim a TFT display. The Rigol 5000 series is about a foot deep (like the Instek) but has 1GSa/second ability. They don't specify the display type, so I assume that means that it's not TFT. Looks to have the typical set of features, maybe a bit richer set than the Tek? The DS1102C (100MHz/2-channel) is catching my fancy right now at $999. The logic-analyzer (MSO?) version (DS1102CD) would really be nice, but for the money, I think the Intronix LogicPort might be a better way to go for that functionality.

Anyone else used a Rigol? Does anyone know if the 5000 series is newer than the 1000 series? The biggest downside I see to the Rigol right now is finding a distributor in the US. I only found these places:

Looks like it's coming down to the Instek GDS-2102 (100MHz/2-channel) or the Rigol DS1102C.

We have some of the current Agilent DC power supplies that are digitally controlled (wherein you set the regulated voltage/current using an encoder knob, you can memorize settings, there's a GPIB interface, etc.), and it makes several highly-visible birdies on a spectrum analyzer. :-( For RF boards I still use the older HP "all linear" power supplies... which I find nicer to use in the common case where you don't need to memorize 10 different settings.

---Joel

One reason why this client of mine bought those "older" supplies on EBay as well. They are clean. Monday I almost did the usual, trudging over to the stationary room to get some C-cells I could solder in series when I glanced at the lab supply. Ah, it's an old analog one, I don't need to do the battery spiel here.

It's a lot easier to just snap a pic. Plus, I can add a post-it on the bezel to document the situation in the same pic. There's nothing worse than having 10 different pictures and not remembering what they represent.

John

I suppose this documentation system does then stay compatible with ye olde aforementioned 7000 series...

Have you seen the agilent/rigol Vs Tek review on the tek site? it might be biased but it's worth a look, you'll be surprised.....

Best Regards

Steve Sousa

The 7000 series are mighty fine scopes. Some day when I have time and find an old Polaroid enclosure I might build a digital camera setup that you could simply hinge onto the screen bezel. Somehow those kinds of pictures are more lively than the bland computer plots. Just like real picture in a real movie versus that animated stuff that the kids watch.