Tektronix MSO2024

5K for a 200MHz 1GS/s scope?

No thanks. If you're going to spend that much, you could easily get a used one with much better specs. Hell, in the last month or so I just bought a HP 54542A 500MHz 2GS/s scope for $425 on Ebay.

Of course, if you don't need that kind of performance...

I like Tek scopes, and almost jumped on this one until I saw the screen specs. It's quarter VGA - something like 300+ x 240 pixels. Wide yes, but still QVGA. Try doing anything with 4 traces, some logic (there are up to 16 channels) and some menus, all in 240 pixels. Each trace gets about 10 pixels of height to show its stuff. I'm looking at the Agilent scopes now. The screens are something like

6", but I'm pretty sure they were 1024x768, and they'll drive an external monitor if your eyes are getting weak like mine. If you ignore the toy screen, I'd say the rest of that Tek scope looks pretty sweet.

--
Jim

Just looked up the actual screen specs:

Display Characteristics

Display Type­

7in (180mm) liquid crystal TFT color display.

Display Resolution­

480 horizontal x 234 vertical pixels (WQVGA).

So it wasn't 240 high, it's 234.

--
Jim

Consider one of the TPS2000 series scopes. Fully isolated inputs!

John

I use the Instek GDS-2204. The screen resolution isn't that stellar either but that thing is super bright. If I crank it up at night the whole lab turns blue and bonbon-color. Since my eyes are probably similar to yours I run it a lot through the USB and into a computer. Then I don't need to switch glasses, can just peek over the rims of my SMT glasses.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

Lets see what you get for your $5000:

4 channels of 200MHz bandwidth = terrific 16 digital channels = very handy 1GS/s on all 4 channels = not that great for a 200MHz bandwidth scope. only 500MS/s on digital channels 8-16 = not so good. 480 horizontal x 234 vertical pixels (WQVGA) display = pretty bad for the price

Basically you are paying for the analog bandwidth, 4 channels, large memory, and mixed signal capability. *if* you need *all* those things then it may be good value for money.

What will you be using it for? If your bandwidth requirements are modest, there are much cheaper options with the same memory and mixed signal capability.

If you value a large detailed screen then you'll be annoyed with this scope.

If you have high bandwidth requirements then you may prefer to drop the mixed signal capability or 4 channels for extra bandwidth.

You need to tell us more about your expected usage...

Dave.

For the same price ($5100) you can buy a couple of handy Rigols like:

$2000 (300MHz, 2GS/s, 2 channel, 10KS) and $1500 (100MHz, 400MS/s, mixed signal, 1MS) and still have $1600 left over for a bunch of other gear.

What's important to you?

Dave.

"David L. Jones" skrev i meddelelsen news: snipped-for-privacy@w39g2000prb.googlegroups.com...

I will use it for switch mode power supplies mostly and some more-or-less uncritical analogue/digital "glue" stuff. Well below 10Mhz BUT one needs to see tiny "needles" and oscillations from reverse recovery e.t.c. I liked the ability to decode serial buses because they tend to get thrown in there as well.

The used stuff seems to be HP/Agilent. Maybe I should consider those too -> (except that I still carry a grudge from that HP-brand pseudo-4-channel PC-Look&Feel model that could not trigger properly ... and maybe the ones are on sale because they can't trigger either ;).

meddelelsennews: snipped-for-privacy@w39g2000prb.googlegroups.com...

In that case you I'd suggest you save your money and only look at

100MHz models. You pay a lot extra for the jump to 200MHz. A big sample memory is important here. Get at least 1MB.

That's par for the course these days. Beware of used scopes that aren't strong in this area.

Normally I'd say yes, but you have a decent amount of money to spend and you don't save much by buying a 2nd hand digital scope. You just end up with features you don't want, like small memory or sample rate etc. Analog scopes are completely different of course, you'd be crazy to buy one new. New digital scopes like the Rigol and Goodwill are superb value for money.

Dave.

Frithiof Jensen schrieb:

I bought a 2nd hand DPO4032 in march 2007 from a dealer in the US. The main reasons to decide for this one where:

-huge sample Memory (10Msamples)

-large XGA Display

-optional decoding of serial buses

-light weighted, portable

-good experience with Tektronix scopes in the past

It had some minor display problems when you adjusted the two traces exactly to the same position. But this was no big deal: it had 2 years warranty left so I called the nearest office in Cologne, they told me it doesn't matter where I bought it on the world, and so it was picked up for repair. They gave me a 4-channel model in exchange until I had mine back.

The bus-decode feature and huge memory is a real advantage, it helps a lot to find even sporadic errors. You can look at the real signal and at the content at the same time. With a CAN-dongle, for example, you need at least an addidional notebook and if there is something wrong in the bus wiring it may be that your dongle is able to decode but not necessarily all other nodes on the bus. So if I need to do troubleshooting at a customer I often only need to take the DPO with me.

Another nice advantage is easy documentation: A few screenshots from a signal with well choosen measurements and statistics at the display save a lot of written lines.

But there are a few things that I dislike:

-These DPO/MSOs are really expensive compared to others with a few less features. Keep in mind that you have to pay around 1k? each for the additional modules to decode serial buses (don't know if this is the same for the DPO/MSO2000 series), and with a 2-channel model at least the SPI-decode will not work (the modules for CAN and RS232,485,UART works fine with 2 channels). But may be the MSOs are able to do this with the digital channels, I don't know.

-The first months this year there where a few firmware updates that had some bugs and it took them some month to fix them. Fortunately you can force an older firmware to install so you are not trapped if this happens.

At the time I bought the scope I looked at some LeCroy models too, but to get a model with the serial bus features would have been far more expensive. But they told me there where plans to enable this features on lower cost models and I have heared they introduced new low-cost models recently.

If you plan to spend that much money and you are not sure if the scopes you consider are able to do the things you want, simply let the salesmen come to you and let them demonstrate the scopes.

But If you don't need to have the bus decode or logic analyser in the scope, there is a cheap alternative:

I plan to buy this device to do logic/SPI/I2C debugging and long-time logging.

Jörg.

"David L. Jones" skrev i meddelelsen news: snipped-for-privacy@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com...

Well, I took your advice and ordered the MSO2012 - I assumed that the extra two channels in the MSO2024 will mosly be used for logic anyway and the 2012 has 16 logical channels to play with as well.

Those 16 channels will be very handy in debugging SPI buses and such. My scope doesn't have that but it's got 4 fully equipped channels so I am ok.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.