RE: Use of digital oscopes when testing vector boards?

From: Dan S <dansmsn_at_msn.com>
Date: Tue Jul 24 2012 - 02:49:31 EDT

David, I have a Philips PM3394 that I'm not using, it is one of those odd
analog/digital dual mode scopes with 4 inputs, x-y and good up to 200MHz

 

You are welcome to swing by and borrow it for a while to see if it fits your
needs, I'll be up on Rainier this weekend, back home next week.

 

-Dan

 

From: owner-vectorlist@vectorlist.org
[mailto:owner-vectorlist@vectorlist.org] On Behalf Of David Shoemaker
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 10:52 PM
To: vectorlist@vectorlist.org
Subject: RE: VECTOR: Use of digital oscopes when testing vector boards?

 

Has anyone tried the Owon?

 

http://www.saelig.com/MFR00062/PSBE100008.htm

 

Higher resolution screen but still the same 8bit vertical resolution. Nice
things are it having a battery pack support, VGA and Lan out.

 

 

 

From: owner-vectorlist@vectorlist.org
[mailto:owner-vectorlist@vectorlist.org] On Behalf Of William Boucher
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 5:32 PM
To: vectorlist@vectorlist.org
Subject: Re: VECTOR: Use of digital oscopes when testing vector boards?

 

Don't buy the Tek TDS1002B. It's quite old and you'll hate the screen. The
old mono LCD's had poor backlighting (uneven and grey) and the viewing angle
is very narrow. It's also impossible to distinguish the waveforms of the
two channels when they are close to each other. The Tek also doesn't
perform as many automatic measurements as the newer scopes.

 

The Atten scope is a very cheap core with a fancy large screen that provides
nothing but the illusion of superiority. Despite the large size of the
screen, the vertical resolution of the waveforms is still only 8 bits like
any other DSO. Making the picture larger just makes the waveform line look
fatter and chunkier and that simply serves no purpose unless you need to see
it from 12 feet away. The screen fonts are finer but some people find them
harder to read than standard thick fonts. The biggest disadvantage of this
scope is the incredibly shallow memory of only 40k samples as compared to
the Rigol that has 1M sample depth. For a DSO, memory depth is a key
feature and the Atten comes up very short.

 

The Rigol DS1102E is, in my opinion, a very good choice for a low cost
economical yet high quality benchtop scope. I bought one a few months back
and I enjoy using it on my bench often. While the screen size is the usual
4.5", it is color and it is very bright and it has an extremely wide viewing
angle and that's a big advantage. The menu navigation is intuitive and
fast. The Pass/Fail function is a feature that I often find very useful and
is something that none of my previous scopes had. The Rigol has a lot of
built in measurements, cursors, and an FFT function (a basic spectrum
display). The Rigol also comes with the PC software and can run completely
by remote control via PC. Tektronix charges an additional $800 for their
software that does the same stuff. The front USB host socket can be used
with thumbdrives to save/recall setups and waveforms. The rear USB device
port is used to print to PictBridge printers and to connect to the PC
control software. It also has a rear serial comm port that can be used to
issue commands, connect to other devices, and to update its firmware. Some
online reviews commented that the cooling fan was too loud but I've really
never found that to be the case with my unit. As low cost DSO's go, the
Rigol is one of my favorites and I highly recommend it.

 

An interesting story about the Rigol DS1102E (100MHz) and the DS1052E
(50MHz) is that they are physically identical. In fact, the reason why the
DS1102E is priced so low is that last year someone discovered how to flash
the 1052 (50MHz) with 1102 firmware and thus instantly turn it into a
genuine 100MHz scope. There is a video about this on youtube. Since so
many people were buying the 1052 for half the price of the 1102 and then
simply reflashing them at home, the 1102's simply stopped selling. All of
the distributors had to drop the price of the 1102 to the same price as the
1052 in order to sell them. Some distributors also dropped the price of the
1052 by $50. As a result of this situation, the DS1102E became the lowest
priced (but highest functionality) DSO in its class. Of course, once they
are all sold out, you can be certain that Rigol will not make the same
mistake with the next model and prices for this level of functionality will
go back up to the $900 to $1100 range.

 

As low end DSO's go, none are ideal to display vector games in XY mode. As
previously stated by others, you will be able to see an image but only
really enough to tell whether or not the game is running. To display vector
games properly, you need a high end DSO that also has "digital persistence"
and a Z input. For this level of scope, you're looking at probably 200MHz
as a minimum and around $2200 to start. Tektronix scopes starting in this
range or higher would probably do the job adequately. Ironically, old
analog scopes starting at 100MHz bandwidth that include a Z input will show
a pretty good image.

 

About 10 years back, I bought a GW Instek DSO with a 7" mono-green CRT. It
has no Z input. Despite the CRT display, it presented a pretty bad image
when connected to a vector game in XY mode. The sampling rate was simply
too low and it presented only dots, not vectors. There was in fact an image
but not anything like you'd wish to see. Very few DSO's will connect the
dots in XY mode as they do in the normal V-vs-T mode so bear that in mind.

 

 

William Boucher
http://www.biltronix.com

----- Original Message -----

From: Kevin Moore <mailto:talon.k@gmail.com>

To: vectorlist@vectorlist.org

Sent: Monday, July 23, 2012 10:02 AM

Subject: Re: VECTOR: Use of digital oscopes when testing vector boards?

 

I use a sds6062v its great for looking at signals xy mode does suck.

On Jul 23, 2012 1:27 AM, "David Shoemaker" <davids@oz.net> wrote:

I have a couple of old analog scopes (A tenma and a tek). The Tenma
controls are getting tired and they are both kind of big to lug around to
the back of a game. I picked up a Fluke scope meter 105b but it appears to
not have an XY mode L

 

I am thinking about getting one of the newer digital units (much more
portable).

 

Things like:

Atten

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem
<http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320949414562+&item=3
20949414562&vectorid=229466>
&item=320949414562+&item=320949414562&vectorid=229466

Rigol

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-Rigol-Digital-Storage-Oscilloscope-DS1102E
-100MHz-1Gs-S-2-Channels-/160848727649?pt=BI_Oscilloscopes
<http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-Rigol-Digital-Storage-Oscilloscope-DS1102
E-100MHz-1Gs-S-2-Channels-/160848727649?pt=BI_Oscilloscopes&hash=item257354c
e61> &hash=item257354ce61

Or a used Tek:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tektronix-TDS-1002B-/300746471312?pt=BI_Oscilloscope
s
<http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tektronix-TDS-1002B-/300746471312?pt=BI_Oscilloscop
es&hash=item4605e2f790> &hash=item4605e2f790

 

I borrowed a TDS220 to try and the display from a battle zone was chunky but
you could tell that the board was running. Couldn't really read the rom
error numbers.

 

I don't see any of these having a z channel which would make them more
useful for vector testing (to blank the display when beam is moving from
line to line).

 

The Atten and Rigol are both color models and they all appear to have the
same 320x240 resolution.

 

Any recommendations? Or opinions?

 

Thanks,

David

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Received on Tue Jul 24 02:49:57 2012

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