[EE]: Tek TDS2000B series scopes - anyone got one?
Philip Pemberton
I'm toying with the idea of buying a digital storage oscilloscope. At the
moment, I'm looking mainly at the Tektronix TDS2000B series, and leaning
towards the TDS2014B or TDS2022B. The decision has basically come down to more
channels or more bandwidth. I can't have both, on the grounds that not only
does it seem that nobody has a TDS2024B in stock, but also that it's £1600 and
that's WAY over my budget, by a few hundred pounds. The 2014 and 2022 are at
the absolute limit.
I've pretty much written off the Agilent 3000 series. There are far too
many limits on the bandwidth and memory capacity, and they're massive compared
to the TDS2000 series. I'm almost out of bench space as it is... That and
they're basically Rigol 5000s with redesigned front panels; the 5000 doesn't
seem to have gotten a particularly good reception.
Most of the stuff I do is microcontroller development, with a tiny bit of
analogue thrown in there for good measure. Nine times out of ten, the
processor clock is between 4-10MHz, and the fastest I've ever pushed an MCU is
75MHz on a Ubicom SX28AC. The fastest PIC I've ever used was the 18F4550, with
a 48MHz internal clock rate. So bandwidth is probably almost worthless... Almost.
I'm planning on doing a bit of radio work later on (an SDR receiver for LW,
SW, MW broadcast band and FM broadcast band), so high bandwidth would be
useful for that. On the other hand, a four-channel input would be handy when
working on MCU designs... FM BCB is 88-108MHz round here, and most of the time
it'll only see that on the RF amp front-end -- superhet receivers downconvert
that to about 10.7MHz IF anyway, which is still well inside the range of a
100MHz 1GS/s scope -- it'll oversample by a bit under 100 times.
The openness of the Tek USB interface (it's basically USB Test/Measurement
Class with the Tek SCPI command set) and the CSV saving onto a flashdrive is a
real plus. I don't like the idea of having to buy a £300 control interface
(Agilent) to wire the thing up to my PC, and be forced to use GPIB, when
there's a perfectly good USB port sitting there. I frankly couldn't give a
crap about direct-printing support, the PC can print, and most of the time I'm
going to be copy-pasting scope traces into a document or webpage anyway.
I have a Tektronix 466 100MHz analogue storage scope at the moment, and the
idea of downgrading in terms of bandwidth doesn't appeal to me. That's why the
2002 and 2004 are off the list - 60MHz is a bit too much of a step down.
I'm going to call Tek in a bit and try and get some of my other questions
answered, but at the moment I'd like to know - has anyone got either of these
scopes, and are they any good?
Any little quirks or annoying bugs I should know about?
Thanks,
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wouter van ooijen
> oscilloscope. At the
> moment, I'm looking mainly at the Tektronix TDS2000B series,
check the RIGOL DS10xx series?
don't have any experiences myself, but heard some enthusiastic stories.
Wouter van Ooijen
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John Chung
build is good. Many good comments on the build quality
and the reliability of the product series.
Screen updates compared to an analog scope is far off!
As for most DSO we need to use trigger to capture the
SUSPECTED glitch.....
I use the scope currently for MCU work. I haven't
dwell into power work or RF work yet. I did do some
probing
into audio work and works okay. Not fantastic but
adequate for my needs. The maximum OSC freq. for an
MCU that I have used was 30MHZ and there were no
issues there.
The button interface is intuitive. Don't need to guess
where the functions are. I am not sure HOW much
features you like in a scope so you ought to check
with your local TEK :) That was what I did.
John
PS: I exactly had the same feeling about the Aglient.
Rigol? Somehow that idea did not fit good SUPPORT.
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Xiaofan Chen
> I'm toying with the idea of buying a digital storage oscilloscope. At the
> moment, I'm looking mainly at the Tektronix TDS2000B series, and leaning
> towards the TDS2014B or TDS2022B.
>
I do not know but this has been discussed before. TDS2000 is the worst
scope I have eve used. Much worse than the old HP54600B I used 8 years
ago. The screen update is soooooooooooooo slow.
Xiaofan
Philip Pemberton
> I own a TDS 1012B. So it is not color..... Anyway the
> build is good. Many good comments on the build quality
> and the reliability of the product series.
That's nice to know. Probably explains the 'lifetime warranty' too.
> Screen updates compared to an analog scope is far off!
> As for most DSO we need to use trigger to capture the
> SUSPECTED glitch.....
I don't mind too much about that. As long as it can lock onto a fairly
repetitive signal and FFT it, and catch non-repeating events, it's already far
ahead of my 466. That thing can trigger great, but the CRT is completely
incapable of catching really fast glitches. 100MHz is accurate in continuous
mode, but in storage mode it's a total joke.
As long as it doesn't spend six or seven seconds redrawing, I can probably
live with it.
The one thing that irks me about analogue scopes is that you can never tell
which channel is which.. that's another reason why I'm thinking about going
digital. "Is that channel 1? <tweaks gain pot> Nope, that's Ch2, which is
VinSW, not VinPSU... Or is it the other way round?"
My 466 usually has a Post-It note on one side of the screen to ID the
channels, but that's no use at all when both channels are shifted to nearly
the same point...
> The button interface is intuitive. Don't need to guess
> where the functions are. I am not sure HOW much
> features you like in a scope so you ought to check
> with your local TEK :) That was what I did.
Sounds like my 466 - everything where it should be, read the manual once,
remember it forever.
> PS: I exactly had the same feeling about the Aglient.
> Rigol? Somehow that idea did not fit good SUPPORT.
Rumour has it their support is pretty good, but I'd still rather have
something that's physically designed by the company that put their badge on
it. Especially when I'm spending >£1k on it.
Alan B. Pearce
>> build is good. Many good comments on the build quality
>> and the reliability of the product series.
>
>That's nice to know. Probably explains the 'lifetime warranty' too.
>
>> Screen updates compared to an analog scope is far off!
>> As for most DSO we need to use trigger to capture the
>> SUSPECTED glitch.....
I have a TDS2024 which I like as a second scope, though I do find the screen
size a bit small (1/4VGA IIRC) and the pixels are a bit large. I do prefer
my TDS3034 for the larger screen, but the 2024 has a nicer knob arrangement
(single knob per channel instead of multiplexing one knob around all
channels).
I would agree it is built rugged, and nice and light. Mine is an A version,
so I had to get a CF adapter as an extra, and I do not have USB. It is very
slow saving to the card (think floppy speeds) but generally like it.
It does have math functions, so you can run 2 channels as a differential
pair, but cannot recall if it does FFT (I know my 3000 does).
Yes the screen update is not blazingly fast, but it seems OK to me.
I would check out some of the other suppliers of it if you don't have an in
at Tek themselves. The guys at Thurlby Thandar are always keen to sell to
us, but then we have umpteen Tek products on site. But I would call them and
see if you can get a demonstrator on loan for a week. Always worth the
effort of trying.
Thurlby Thandar are over 'your' way anyway at Huntingdon. Call them at 01480
412451. The guy I have had dealings with is Leigh Delves, but I do not know
what his sales area is.
Web site at www.tti.co.uk
John Chung
--- Philip Pemberton <pic...@philpem.me.uk> wrote:
In what situation are you referring to redrawing?
John
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Mike Hord
> moment, I'm looking mainly at the Tektronix TDS2000B series, and leaning
> towards the TDS2014B or TDS2022B. The decision has basically come down to more
> channels or more bandwidth. I can't have both, on the grounds that not only
> does it seem that nobody has a TDS2024B in stock, but also that it's £1600 and
> that's WAY over my budget, by a few hundred pounds. The 2014 and 2022 are at
> the absolute limit.
I prefer more channels myself, at least for simpler microcontroller development.
I've used TDS2000 series scopes pretty heavily in the past and I'd recommend
them. I was always completely satisfied with them.
Perhaps you should consider buying an older, higher bandwidth non-DSO
scope for other stuff, as a second scope...
Mike H.
Bob Axtell
>> I'm toying with the idea of buying a digital storage
>> oscilloscope. At the
>> moment, I'm looking mainly at the Tektronix TDS2000B series,
>>
>
> check the RIGOL DS10xx series?
>
> don't have any experiences myself, but heard some enthusiastic stories.
>
> Wouter van Ooijen
>
> -- -------------------------------------------
> Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
> consultancy, development, PICmicro products
> docent Hogeschool van Utrecht: www.voti.nl/hvu
>
>
>
>
digital scope display
methods... too much important information is hidden. I am buying some more
analog scopes; I found one at 200Mhz for $1400. It captures the display,
too, a feature
I find very helpful. I think the name was Iwatsu, might be wrong.
--Bob A
Mike Harrison
>wouter van ooijen wrote:
>>> I'm toying with the idea of buying a digital storage
>>> oscilloscope. At the
>>> moment, I'm looking mainly at the Tektronix TDS2000B series,
>>>
>>
>> check the RIGOL DS10xx series?
>>
>> don't have any experiences myself, but heard some enthusiastic stories.
>>
>> Wouter van Ooijen
>>
>> -- -------------------------------------------
>> Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
>> consultancy, development, PICmicro products
>> docent Hogeschool van Utrecht: www.voti.nl/hvu
>>
>>
>>
>>
>having tried several over the years, I find myself unhappy with the
>digital scope display
>methods... too much important information is hidden.
This is true at the lower end, but higher-end digital scopes with statistical intensity display like
the Agilent 5000/6000 beat analog hands-down.
Philip Pemberton
> I prefer more channels myself, at least for simpler microcontroller development.
That's what I was thinking, which brings my list of four down to the TDS2014B
and TDS2024B. The extra bandwidth is probably utterly pointless in my case, so
the TDS2014 is the last choice left.
> I've used TDS2000 series scopes pretty heavily in the past and I'd recommend
> them. I was always completely satisfied with them.
That's nice to know. I've heard good things said about the 2000 series, and
Tek kit is usually pretty good in general. It's just nicer to hear it from
someone who's actually used one :)
> Perhaps you should consider buying an older, higher bandwidth non-DSO
> scope for other stuff, as a second scope...
I've got one - a Tektronix 466 analogue storage scope. The TDS20xxB will be
complementing it, not replacing it. There are a few things an analogue scope
does better than a DSO, hence why the 466 is staying. Just that the storage
functionality on the 466 is dire. Not so much "Ah HA! So that's what's
wrong!", more "Oh damn, the intensity was too low to catch it."
Life's too short to play with every single button just to get an acceptable
stored trace, and when it ebbs away after around a minute and generally isn't
particularly well focussed to begin with, it's hard to get any real analysis
done. Plus the whole "take a photo and play with Photoshop" method of data
capture is getting really old, really fast.
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Philip Pemberton
> I would check out some of the other suppliers of it if you don't have an in
> at Tek themselves. The guys at Thurlby Thandar are always keen to sell to
> us, but then we have umpteen Tek products on site. But I would call them and
> see if you can get a demonstrator on loan for a week. Always worth the
> effort of trying.
Yeah, I did note that Tek themselves don't seem interested in talking to me...
even just to answer a couple of questions (the big one related to the firmware
upgrade mechanism - if the update fails in some way, is the unit bricked
necessitating an RTB, or does it drop into some form of recovery mode). Natch.
Suppose it's not really worth their while for ones-and-twos type sales.
I'm probably not going to try for a demonstration unit - based on the video
demos and specs a 2014B will do what I need it to do. I will probably try and
negotiate something along the lines of "if it's not what I want, I can return
it within X days, complete and packaged".
> Thurlby Thandar are over 'your' way anyway at Huntingdon. Call them at 01480
> 412451. The guy I have had dealings with is Leigh Delves, but I do not know
> what his sales area is.
I might give them a ring actually; I was going to call Farnell but from
experience they don't usually have a tremendous amount of product knowledge...
Tek just plain won't talk to me (which is understandable), so I guess it's
back to calling the distributors...
Thanks,
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Brooke Clarke
Have you considered the BitScope?
http://www.bitscope.com/
Their designs are publicly documented and based on PICs. See:
http://www.bitscope.com/design/
http://www.bitscope.com/design/parts/
Are PIC list members using these?
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Vitaliy
>> I prefer more channels myself, at least for simpler microcontroller
>> development.
>
> That's what I was thinking, which brings my list of four down to the
> TDS2014B
> and TDS2024B. The extra bandwidth is probably utterly pointless in my
> case, so
> the TDS2014 is the last choice left.
FWIW, we have a TDS2014 here, works very well. About 90% of the time, we're
using only 1 or 2 channels, although when the situation calls for it, the
extra channels are sure useful.
Best regards,
Vitaliy
M. Adam Davis
was a few years ago, and I'm considering bringing it out again to see
if it's improved.
I prefer having a dedicated scope on the bench which I can manipulate
and get instant results though. A USB/storage scope in the vein of
bitscope is completely different in terms of how its used.
-Adam
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Mark Scoville
> From: piclist...@mit.edu [mailto:piclist...@mit.edu]On Behalf
> Of Philip Pemberton
> Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 4:18 AM
> To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
> Subject: [EE]: Tek TDS2000B series scopes - anyone got one?
>
>
> Hi guys,
> I'm toying with the idea of buying a digital storage
> oscilloscope. At the
> moment, I'm looking mainly at the Tektronix TDS2000B series, and leaning
> towards the TDS2014B or TDS2022B. The decision has basically come
> down to more
> channels or more bandwidth. I can't have both, on the grounds
We have a TDS2024B and we like it. This is the 200MHz, 4 channel, color
model. The only complaint I have so far is that the storage to a flash drive
plugged into the front panel USB port is SLOOOOW. The 2024B looks like a toy
compared to the other Tek scopes we have (7704A, 7603, 466), but the 2024B
seems to work well. Shop around, you may be able to find an affordable
2024B. Ask about "Demo" units. We bought a demo unit and saved nearly $400
off list price.
-- Mark
Philip Pemberton
> We have a TDS2024B and we like it. This is the 200MHz, 4 channel, color
> model.
I have a TDS2024B on order and I hope I like it :)
> The only complaint I have so far is that the storage to a flash drive
> plugged into the front panel USB port is SLOOOOW. The 2024B looks like a toy
> compared to the other Tek scopes we have (7704A, 7603, 466)
Considering the 2000 series is the 'high end of the low end' of the Tek DSO
product line, I wouldn't expect it to look like a 466. They do the job
differently anyway. As long as the control knobs don't feel like they might
fall off any second, and the construction is generally solid.. Basically, as
long as it feels like £1300 worth of kit, I'll be happy.
The clincher was the open-spec USB interface. Hook it up to your PC, write
code as if it were a GPIB instrument, but without needing a GPIB controller.
Nice. I think I need to rig up some form of serial bus and some serial->GPIB
and unnamed_serial_bus->RS232 converters at some point; it'd be nice to have
all my test kit (barring the scope) on one bus. At the moment my Instek
programmable power supply is optoisolated RS232, the Solartron 7150+ bench DMM
is GPIB, and my homebrew 'does one job' test kit is all RS232 or USB...
> but the 2024B
> seems to work well. Shop around, you may be able to find an affordable
> 2024B.
*clears throat*
> Ask about "Demo" units. We bought a demo unit and saved nearly $400
> off list price.
I did - "We don't have any demo units for sale at the moment.. but I can
probably knock about 10% off the price of a new unit if you're interested..."
Which pulled the TDS2024B from "a bit out of the budget" to "just a shade
under budget". Very cool.
Not to mention the fact that I can finally get that glitching signal generator
off the 'faulty' side of my workbench and back onto the "usable equipment" pile.
Thanks to everyone for the comments - looks like the Teks are pretty well
received, and hopefully my 2024B will serve me well.
Thanks,
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Mark Scoville
>
> > Ask about "Demo" units. We bought a demo unit and saved nearly $400
> > off list price.
>
> I did - "We don't have any demo units for sale at the moment.. but I can
> probably knock about 10% off the price of a new unit if you're
> interested..."
> Which pulled the TDS2024B from "a bit out of the budget" to "just a shade
> under budget". Very cool.
>
Great.
As an aside I will mention that when we bought our "Demo" TDS2024B the "B"
model had only been out for a month or two. After the salesperson offered
the "Demo" avenue to get us interested, they told us that we would have a 2
to 5 month wait for a demo unit because there were none available. I went
online and found that they had 5 "Demo" units warehoused in Georgia. So I
said, whaadya mean ya don't have any? Online it says you have 5 in a
warehouse in Georgia. They had to double check. Suddenly they had 1
available and I had one in my hands 3 days later. I really think someone
screwed up and the units were intended to be demos. The unit we received
appeared new in the sealed Tek box and did not have so much as a blemish. It
still had the little sticky transparent limited lifetime warranty sticker on
the display. I think we got lucky and really got a new one that was supposed
to be issued as a demo!
-- Mark
Alan B. Pearce
>probably knock about 10% off the price of a new unit if you're
>interested..."
Who have you ordered from then?
Philip Pemberton
>> I did - "We don't have any demo units for sale at the moment.. but I can
>> probably knock about 10% off the price of a new unit if you're
>> interested..."
>
> Who have you ordered from then?
TTI (Thurlby Thandar).
They're out of 2024Bs at the moment - I've got one on back order, and they
reckon they're due "imminently".
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