Anybody got one? Do they suck? Will it last thru 10 years of off-and-on hobby usage? Any horrible "features" that didn't make it to the marketing brochures?Since all my stuff is ancient and I'm tired of being publicaly embarassed (;-) I've decided to seriously consider some upgrades. My old Hitachi V650-F has been great, but it's sadly in need of a calibration and the controls/switches are a bit flakey at times. After talking with some local cal shops, I've decided that my $250 could be better spent somewhere else.I called Tucker about a used HP they had on their site, but alas they were all sold out. After yacking with Jerry for a couple of minutes he tossed out the idea of a TDS-1002b. I've looked at the specs and man I feel like I've been living under a rock. It looks like these things almost make thinking a thing of the past. I've never even used a DSO before, so I'm a bit shy about trying something new but they certainly look handy. Any advice?

I currently have the "pleasure" to work with similar (but older) scopes at a client. TDS220, one of the big TDSes, etc. Long story short I am not too enthused. The 220 even spits out noise that bothers us so has to be turned off at times. The bandwidth gets reduced at the lower input ranges. I've asked them to acquire a used 2465 and that's what I am now using most of the time. Worked great 20 years ago, still works great ;-)-- Regards, Joerg

TDS-1002b Any good? Comments?

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David L. Jones 19 years ago

Nope, didn't guess, sorry. I used my first logic analyser 20+ years ago now, and I am nowhere near retirement age, probably got another 30 years to go in fact.

Ok, cool.

And you kept up all the chest-beating after I admitted I hadn't noticed the Intronix unit used transitional sampling, which of course puts it into an entirely better and more useful category, and I said as much. And I have said at least a few times that I am not bagging the Intronix unit.

Very true, many don't.

Nope, you couldn't be further from the truth.

Nope, you couldn't be further from the truth again. I never had any ideas of turning it into a commercial product, it did it just for fun like I did with all my published projects (almost a dozen of them), it's one of my hobbies.

Utter mis-interpreted rubbish again. I based my original post on the (incorrect) point that it only had 2K (of non-transitional) memory. Since then I have not bagged the Intronix one bit.

Give up trying to read people, you aren't very good at it :->

Dave.

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sean4u 19 years ago

Hello all. I own a GDS-2000 series scope from Goodwill / Instek. A GDS-2062. I did a straightforward features/price ratio, and ordered it immediately. It's well built, feels solid to use. Looks nice. They haven't finished it yet. You can collect 25K points (total, 25k * 1 channel or 12.5k * 2 channels), but only zoom in (0, 1 or 2 levels, as far as I can see) on the centre of the sample window - no panning. The extra detail at either end isn't available. After I calibrate the scope (well, go through the prescribed motions) the two channels report 10% different values for the same testpoint (both probes attached to the same testpoint, at the same time). It locks up from time to time, requiring switch off - switch on. Switch on takes a while - I think it's loading the FPGA inside. Sometimes you get a BSOD that says something reassuring about the FPGA, but it still needs the power switch to get it to start again. There are little niggly problems all around with it. I think it has all the hardware it needs to be a good scope, it just seems like they haven't finished writing its firmware. I've just given up on a project that should have been straightforward if the scope worked, but it doesn't. If you can afford one of these, you should find 8 friends who want one too, and then you should go and buy one Agilent, and pass it around between you. A firmware upgrade was mentioned by one of their staff, in the only reply I got to numerous emails and messages using their web-based contact forms. If they produce one, I may switch the thing on again. If they don't, I'm going to give the scope to my 16-month-old daughter. She'll really, really like it.

Make your own minds up, maybe I'm a bit over emotional about my purchase. Regards Sean

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Anthony Fremont 19 years ago

Wow, that really sux and I'm sorry to hear that. :-( That's almost the exact opposite of my experience with the Rigol I bought. The firmware has been very stable and seems pretty much finished. I do see a fair amount of drift the first few minutes while it's warming up, but if you turn the auto-cal button off and on to force an instant auto-cal, the baseline centers right back up. Accuracy seems fairly decent and I seem to be able to view all the data in the capture buffer. It crashed a couple of times when I was hot swapping a memory stick, but after doing one reload of the factory settings it hasn't flinched since. I corresponded with the tech support people in China over a couple of things (pc software key and memory stick crash) and they were very responsive. And yeah, my two year old really wants one for herself too. ;-) MOUNTAIN!!! PICTURE!!!!

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TDS-1002b Any good? Comments?

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