Tektronix TDS3000 vs. TDS2000

Well,

differences in screen update rate, standard color LCD, pricing, noise floor, pricing... and some more

Depends on what you call "large" difference. If compared to a car: Is there a large difference between a landrover and a porsche car when you drive fast in narrow curved streets? possible answer: Not much with the right fastness and curvyness :))

Andreas

Most general DSO applications don't really benefit from the DPO technology, don't waste your money. What you'll most likely find much more usful and practical in everyday use is a large sample memory. The

2000 and 3000 Tek scopes are both *very poor* in this area with only a 10KB on the 3000 series and a pathetic 2.5KB on the 2000 series. This is terrible and actually makes the scope next to useless for lots of digital applications. You need to go to the 5000 series scope to get more than 10KB. When you have megabytes of sample memory you can zoom in on packets of data and this is incredibly useful, you won't turn back once you have it.

We have a 3000 series Tek and a Agilent 546210A in our lab and the Tek just gathers dust because the Agilent is a) more user friendly and b) has 2MB of sample memory which makes the DSO functionality incredibly useful.

If you buy your DSO based on sample memory legth you can't go wrong. Forget wanky technology like DPO unless you are 100% certain you have a specific need for it.

For my money the Agilent 54600 series is the best value, most user friendly, and most practical medium range DSO on the market. The mixed signal version with its 16 channel logic analyser is invaluable for digital work. The sample rate isn't all that high on the 54600 series though, so it's not that great for high frequency work.

Dave :)

I have a Tek TDS2012 I purchased for home use and will offer the following.

The TDS2012 is basically the digital equivalent of a 100 MHz analog scope, and Tek markets it as such. Aside from the storage feature (and the FFT function), there is really no functionality to it that cannot be had from a GOOD analog scope. The criticism of the sample record length is valid. The

1/4 VGA screen resolution puts visible "stair steps" in many waveforms. An additional criticicsm is the dynamic range, you are pretty much limited to observing signals one screen-height in amplitude. The math functions are performed on the screen data and not the input data, so if you do an A-B on an off-screen signal you are in for a surprise!

Having said that, however, I would never go back to a comparable analog scope. The compactness and storage features, combined with the readouts and preset capabilities are addicting.

To sum up, the TDS 2000 series is, to my mind, fine for fooling around, fixing radios and televisions, audio and ham radio work, power supplies, and slow digital stuff, which is the bulk of my use of it. However, it is not even close to state of the art as far as digital work is concerned.

[...]

I have a Tek TDS210 (among others) at home and two HP 54645D's at work, and I love the 54645Ds. It was, and still is, a huge treat for me to be able to capture an entire RF packet on the analog channel, along with diagnostic strobes on the digital channels, then zoom right in until I can measure the bit timing and inspect the signal shaping.

I assumed that deep memory was an innovation all DSOs received in recent years, and that the reason my TDS210 had such a small buffer is just because it's old. More fool me!

The problem is that fast sample memory is expensive. The Tek's have

1GS/s+, and to get a MB of memory at that speed is very expensive so they just give you a lousy 10KB to keep the price down. The low end Agilents are only 200MS/s, so for the same price point as the Tek's you can get 2MB of memory instead of 10KB. Less effecvtive bandwidth of course, but a lot of people don't need high bandwidth. I think Agilent got it right on the low end models and Tek went the wrong direction. Although the Tek 200/2000 series offer a good price point for basic work. There is competition now though with Goodwill entering the market. Of course when you go to the higher end market both companies offer MB and GS/s, but the prices get real silly.

Dave :)

"BFoelsch" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

And it never was meant to be.It's supposed to be a low cost,low-end scope.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik-at-kua.net

Why not Lecroy ? They all have >1Gsps speed and huge memories, and more importantly very good triggering capabilities. I will not exchange my

15-years old Lecroy 9350L for any TDS2000 or 3000... and probably not for some TDS5000...

Cheers, Robert

"David L. Jones" a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...

Many people avoid Lecroy for two reasons

1) Their high price 2) Their poor useability and non-intuitiveness.

We have many Lecroy scopes at our company, from the older models through to the new WaveRunner series. All of them sit gathering dust on the shelf except for very specialised applications that require the high bandwidth or deep memory. For general day to day use, no one touches them. It's always fun to watch someone attempt to drive one and give up in disgust! Yes you get used to them over time, but the initial hurdle is a pain.

They are incredibly powerful scopes though.

Dave :)

Have a good look at the LeCroy WaveSurfer series, large memory, BIG screen and good userinterface.

-Ben

My experience is completly different, LeCroy scopes are very intuitive to use. If you need long memory (which is not available at TDS2xxx/TDS3xxx) go and look at LeCroy.

-Ben