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O'scopes - Tek vs HP/Agilent vs LeCroy

I'm considering buying a 500/600 Mhz digital 'scope for digital logic
design. I have a Tek 2465A 350 Mhz analog 'scope and a HP 16500C logic
analyzer with a 500Mhz 'scope card. All were purchased via eBay. The
scope card only has 32K record pts (which is a real PITA) and the
16500c's touch screen is not very user friendly. I've checked Tek's
web site info for the DPO4054, and LeCroy's web site for the Waverunner
and Wavesurfer scopes. For once, I have $$ to spend, so I'm
considering buying a brand new scope. Of course, buying reconditioned
is fine, too. LeCroy's prices are quite a bit lower than Tek's. Are
LeCroy's any good? The only thing I know about HP/Agilent scopes are
that their trigger systems _were_ terrible. Have they improved?

TIA
-Dave Pollum
 
Q

qrk

Jan 1, 1970
0
I'm considering buying a 500/600 Mhz digital 'scope for digital logic
design. I have a Tek 2465A 350 Mhz analog 'scope and a HP 16500C logic
analyzer with a 500Mhz 'scope card. All were purchased via eBay. The
scope card only has 32K record pts (which is a real PITA) and the
16500c's touch screen is not very user friendly. I've checked Tek's
web site info for the DPO4054, and LeCroy's web site for the Waverunner
and Wavesurfer scopes. For once, I have $$ to spend, so I'm
considering buying a brand new scope. Of course, buying reconditioned
is fine, too. LeCroy's prices are quite a bit lower than Tek's. Are
LeCroy's any good? The only thing I know about HP/Agilent scopes are
that their trigger systems _were_ terrible. Have they improved?

TIA
-Dave Pollum

If you have reps nearby, see if you can borrow one of the LeCroy
scopes. I had a demo of one a few years ago and it was a very nice
scope. I've used old LeCroy scopes out of the late 80's and mid 90's.
They were pretty decent scopes until you blow up a front-end module.
Only thing I didn't like about the newer (2004) LeCroy scope I saw:
runs under Windows. Back then, they suggested installing anti-virus
software!
 
N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
I'm considering buying a 500/600 Mhz digital 'scope for digital logic
design. I have a Tek 2465A 350 Mhz analog 'scope and a HP 16500C logic
analyzer with a 500Mhz 'scope card. All were purchased via eBay. The
scope card only has 32K record pts (which is a real PITA) and the
16500c's touch screen is not very user friendly. I've checked Tek's
web site info for the DPO4054, and LeCroy's web site for the Waverunner
and Wavesurfer scopes. For once, I have $$ to spend, so I'm
considering buying a brand new scope. Of course, buying reconditioned
is fine, too. LeCroy's prices are quite a bit lower than Tek's. Are
LeCroy's any good? The only thing I know about HP/Agilent scopes are
that their trigger systems _were_ terrible. Have they improved?

I like the mixed signal oscilloscopes from HP. Loads of memory and not
very difficult to use. Never had problems with the trigger.
 
N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
qrk said:
If you have reps nearby, see if you can borrow one of the LeCroy
scopes. I had a demo of one a few years ago and it was a very nice
scope. I've used old LeCroy scopes out of the late 80's and mid 90's.
They were pretty decent scopes until you blow up a front-end module.
Only thing I didn't like about the newer (2004) LeCroy scope I saw:
runs under Windows. Back then, they suggested installing anti-virus
software!

These days most oscilloscopes run Windows. As long as you don't
connect them to a network directly, you'll be fine.

The problem with the older Lecroys is that they don't have peak
detection. At lower sampling rates, you won't see the spikes so you
have no clue on what signal is present.
 
B

Ben Jackson

Jan 1, 1970
0
scope card only has 32K record pts (which is a real PITA) and the

If you want deep memory, Tek doesn't seem to have any great offerings
(at least in the less-than-a-car price range I was looking in). They
*do* have true high speed memory, though. If it's a 4ch 1GS scope with
2500 points, it will capture at 1GS to 2500 points on all 4 channels.
Some of the other scopes (eg low end HP/Agilent like DSO3000) claim more
points but actually start falling down when you really want multiple
channels or the highest sampling rate.

The HP/Agilent mixed signal stuff has deep buffers, but the sample rates
on the scope side are very low. A 100MHz digital scope from Tek is 1GS.
A 100MHz Agilent mixed signal scope (546xx series) is 200Ms. That also
applies on the digital side. Timing mode only (no state mode) at 200Ms
sounded bad to me for any bus over about 33MHz, but I never tried it
myself.

Lecroy claims deep buffers and good sample rates, but I've never used
one. I don't know if they really keep the deep buffering at max sample
rates or with multiple channels active. They do have a loaner program
which would let you try one out. Most comments I saw were about hating
the UI, but you can learn any UI eventually.
 
J

Joel Kolstad

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ben Jackson said:
The HP/Agilent mixed signal stuff has deep buffers, but the sample rates
on the scope side are very low. A 100MHz digital scope from Tek is 1GS.
A 100MHz Agilent mixed signal scope (546xx series) is 200Ms. That also
applies on the digital side.

We purchased a couple of DSO/MSO6104A's a few months back -- Agilent was
having a sale, wihich made them quite price competitive. At 1GHz they're
4Gsps (analog) and then 2Gsps (one 8 bit digital pod)/1Gsps (two pods), which
I figured was adequate. With the "memory expansion" option (which is just a
software license -- the hardware remains the same) the capture depth is a
handful of megapoints per channel depending on how many channels, analog only
or analog+digital, etc.

Our local Tek rep was a little disappointed, but conceded that -- especially
with the discounts -- they couldn't really compete. He hinted that they
weren't intending to let Agilent have the entire MSO market for much longer,
however.
 
D

Dave

Jan 1, 1970
0
I'm considering buying a 500/600 Mhz digital 'scope for digital logic
design. I have a Tek 2465A 350 Mhz analog 'scope and a HP 16500C
logic analyzer with a 500Mhz 'scope card. All were purchased via
eBay. The scope card only has 32K record pts (which is a real PITA)
and the 16500c's touch screen is not very user friendly. I've
checked Tek's web site info for the DPO4054, and LeCroy's web site
for the Waverunner and Wavesurfer scopes. For once, I have $$ to
spend, so I'm considering buying a brand new scope. Of course,
buying reconditioned is fine, too. LeCroy's prices are quite a bit
lower than Tek's. Are LeCroy's any good? The only thing I know
about HP/Agilent scopes are that their trigger systems _were_
terrible. Have they improved?

TIA
-Dave Pollum

I have a LeCroy Waverunner LT584L - it was ex-demo, and they threw in every
option for free ! I've owned/used HP and Tek as well, and I think that the
best summary is that different models vary widely - you need to play with an
actual sample of the scope you are interested in, rather than try to
predict. For instance, the Waverunner has deep memory, which is very useful
for serial stuff, but they forgot to update the 'knobs' that scroll back and
forth so it can take a lot of knob twiddling to get to where you want -
things like that can be annoying until you find the way round.

I'm probably about to upgrade, and it will likely be an ex-demo LeCroy
again - I like the interface and the discounts at this time of year are
good.

When you are looking, be sure to consider and price options - if you want
them added later, you will pay through the nose (and mouth and ears and ...)

I'd hesitate to buy an exotic scope on ebay - any problems and you will be
much poorer. Modern scopes are effectively not serviceable.

Dave
 
M

Mike Harrison

Jan 1, 1970
0
If you want deep memory, Tek doesn't seem to have any great offerings
(at least in the less-than-a-car price range I was looking in).

There is no IF - you DO want deep memory.
 
M

Mike Harrison

Jan 1, 1970
0
I'm considering buying a 500/600 Mhz digital 'scope for digital logic
design. I have a Tek 2465A 350 Mhz analog 'scope and a HP 16500C logic
analyzer with a 500Mhz 'scope card. All were purchased via eBay. The
scope card only has 32K record pts (which is a real PITA) and the
16500c's touch screen is not very user friendly. I've checked Tek's
web site info for the DPO4054, and LeCroy's web site for the Waverunner
and Wavesurfer scopes. For once, I have $$ to spend, so I'm
considering buying a brand new scope. Of course, buying reconditioned
is fine, too. LeCroy's prices are quite a bit lower than Tek's. Are
LeCroy's any good? The only thing I know about HP/Agilent scopes are
that their trigger systems _were_ terrible. Have they improved?

TIA
-Dave Pollum

If you have the budget then the Agilent 6000 series is well worth a look. When I was buying a 300MHz
scope a year or so ago, the Agilent stood way ahead of anything else in the price range - I know Tek
have introduced a range since then though so probably worth taking a serious louk at both.

For mixed analogue/digital use, the Agilent MSOs don't really have any competition - since having an
MSO (the original 54645D then the MSO6034A) I've only used my logic analyser once in 12 years.

Agilent will do evaluation loans for a couple of weeks so you can really give it a good try.
Warning - you probably won't want to give it back afterwards...!
The speed & responsiveness of the user-interface is way better than any Tek I've ever used.
 
Mike said:
If you have the budget then the Agilent 6000 series is well worth a look. When I was buying a 300MHz
scope a year or so ago, the Agilent stood way ahead of anything else in the price range - I know Tek
have introduced a range since then though so probably worth taking a serious louk at both.

For mixed analogue/digital use, the Agilent MSOs don't really have any competition - since having an
MSO (the original 54645D then the MSO6034A) I've only used my logic analyser once in 12 years.

Agilent will do evaluation loans for a couple of weeks so you can really give it a good try.
Warning - you probably won't want to give it back afterwards...!
The speed & responsiveness of the user-interface is way better than any Tek I've ever used.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I'm now leaning towards a HP
DSO6052 or MSO6052. Considering that I have a HP logic analyzer, what
would be the benefit of a MSO vs a DSO?
-Dave Pollum
 
M

Mike Harrison

Jan 1, 1970
0
Thanks for the comments, everyone. I'm now leaning towards a HP
DSO6052 or MSO6052. Considering that I have a HP logic analyzer, what
would be the benefit of a MSO vs a DSO?
-Dave Pollum

Deep memory and correlation with analogue channels. The ability to quickly instantly look at a
strangely-behaving digital channel with an analogue probe.
Not to mention the convenience of having it all in the same box with the same user interface.
Also has handy stuff like I2C, SPI and Nth-pulse in burst triggering - some of these can be sone on
a LA but can be fiddly to set up. With deep memory you need to care about triggering a lot less
often as you can take a 'grab anything then zoom in' approach.
I think the price difference between DSO and MSO models is the same as the price difference in the
basic model - the 'upgrade' is a set of leads and a password to enable the functionality.

Get hold of a loan unit and have a play with it. You'll soon decide what you do & do not find
useful.
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
I'm considering buying a 500/600 Mhz digital 'scope for digital logic
design. I have a Tek 2465A 350 Mhz analog 'scope and a HP 16500C logic
analyzer with a 500Mhz 'scope card. All were purchased via eBay. The
scope card only has 32K record pts (which is a real PITA) and the
16500c's touch screen is not very user friendly. I've checked Tek's
web site info for the DPO4054, and LeCroy's web site for the Waverunner
and Wavesurfer scopes. For once, I have $$ to spend, so I'm
considering buying a brand new scope. Of course, buying reconditioned
is fine, too. LeCroy's prices are quite a bit lower than Tek's. Are
LeCroy's any good? The only thing I know about HP/Agilent scopes are
that their trigger systems _were_ terrible. Have they improved?

TIA
-Dave Pollum

LeCroy is evil.

John
 
M

Mike Harrison

Jan 1, 1970
0
My MSO6034 is excellent in this respect - apart from the usual stuff ( including any/both edge
options) there is I2C, SPI, LIN, N'th pulse-in-burst, pulse-width, pattern, logic pattern+duration,
logic sequence, TV and USB.

Although with deep memory you don't need fancy trigger modes as much as you otherwise might.
 
S

Steve

Jan 1, 1970
0
LeCroy's prices are quite a bit lower than Tek's. Are
LeCroy's any good?

We bought a few LeCroy scopes this past spring (a couple of WaveRunners
and a WavePro), chosen because of the lower price. I hate them. The
user interface is terrible. They run the desktop version of Windows XP
(which crashes!). LeCroy recommends you run a virus scanner on them
and run windows updates -- which may or may not be incompatible with
LeCroy's software (we keep them off the network, but this makes it a
pain to transfer data off them for analysis). They are extremely slow
to rescale or change range.

The cheaper WaveRunners, however, are better then the more expensive
WavePro (although the protective layers on the screen of one of the
cheaper scopes looks like it may be delaminating). The expensive
WavePro was crashing constantly. Sometimes it would seem the device
under test wasn't producing any signal, but it was just that the scope
had crashed and wasn't updating the display! ("fixed" by a scope
reboot). When the touch screen stopped working, we returned it for
repair. The sales rep arranged for a loaner, faster then our 1GHz
scope. It crashed, too. When ours came back from LeCroy, the only
"repair" they did was to reinstall Windows! The touch screen worked
for another couple of months then went out again. Now the front panel
is dead. The only way to change the settings on the scope is with a
mouse, going through many menus to do something as basic adjusting the
timebase. It's going back for repair soon.

I can't believe anyone would sell a scope that crashes. Why would you
build a dedicated scope on a desktop operating system? Do you really
need to browse the web or send email from your scope? Do you want to
worry about your scope getting infected by the latest Windows exploit?
That's just wrong. As someone said elsethread, "LeCroy is evil".
 
J

Joel Kolstad

Jan 1, 1970
0
Steve said:
I can't believe anyone would sell a scope that crashes.

Same reason there's plenty of software out there that crashes? -- Most
companies, these days, feel it's better to get the product out the door with
"some amount" of testing and figure they'll issue software updates later as
more bugs are found than to extensively test the software.

The problem is that "some amount of testing" can vary *greatly* between
different companies.
Why would you
build a dedicated scope on a desktop operating system?

Because it's a lot cheaper than rolling your own OS these days or using an
embedded OS like VxWork or QNX? And programmers witih experience in desktop
OSes are a lot easier to find? A better question would be... why didn't they
use Linux, like the low-end models of their competitors do?
Do you really
need to browse the web or send email from your scope?

It can be handy to e-mail yourself data files? It is nice to be able to print
to any printer that's already on your network. (But in both cases Linux does
pretty well here too...)
Do you want to
worry about your scope getting infected by the latest Windows exploit?

Don't plug the machine into your network if you're worried about such things?
That's just wrong. As someone said elsethread, "LeCroy is evil".

John just thinks Walter LeCroy is a prick. :) I haven't heard why, although
I imagine he's expounded on it at some point.

---

I'm not really trying to defend LeCroy here -- it does sound like the
WaveRunners/WavePros aren't that great --, just defending the concept of
"desktop OS"-based instruments in general; it's clearly the direction things
like scopes, spectrum/network analyzers, DLAs, etc. are going.

FWIW, those Agilent 6000 series scopes don't run Windows...

---Joel
 
B

Ben Jackson

Jan 1, 1970
0
The speed & responsiveness of the user-interface is way better than
any Tek I've ever used.

Thats one of the wildcards in the Tek UI. You can use two scopes with
essentially the same knobs and buttons, and one is a pleasure to use and
one is a dog. The TDS64x (I think it was) series only updates from ANY
panel input between acquisitions. It's sluggish at 2500 points, but if
you crank it up to 15000 points it will drive you nuts. The same feature
will have radically different performance on different models. The
"autoset" on my TDS2014 is a real timesaver. On some of the older models
it's shorthand for "change every setting to a random value". Of course
I expect an "autoset undo" softkey to save me (which newer scopes have)
but there isn't one...
 
Joel said:
Same reason there's plenty of software out there that crashes? -- Most
companies, these days, feel it's better to get the product out the door with
"some amount" of testing and figure they'll issue software updates later as
more bugs are found than to extensively test the software.

The problem is that "some amount of testing" can vary *greatly* between
different companies.


Because it's a lot cheaper than rolling your own OS these days or using an
embedded OS like VxWork or QNX? And programmers witih experience in desktop
OSes are a lot easier to find? A better question would be... why didn't they
use Linux, like the low-end models of their competitors do?


It can be handy to e-mail yourself data files? It is nice to be able to print
to any printer that's already on your network. (But in both cases Linux does
pretty well here too...)


Don't plug the machine into your network if you're worried about such things?


John just thinks Walter LeCroy is a prick. :) I haven't heard why, although
I imagine he's expounded on it at some point.

---

I'm not really trying to defend LeCroy here -- it does sound like the
WaveRunners/WavePros aren't that great --, just defending the concept of
"desktop OS"-based instruments in general; it's clearly the direction things
like scopes, spectrum/network analyzers, DLAs, etc. are going.

FWIW, those Agilent 6000 series scopes don't run Windows...

---Joel

Joel said: "...just defending the concept of "desktop OS"-based
instruments in general; it's clearly the direction things like scopes,
spectrum/network analyzers, DLAs, etc. are going."

I used a late model Tek LA a few months ago for about a week. It ran
Windows (2K or XP???). I powered it up in the morning and powered it
off before I left for the day. It didn't take me long to figure out
how to use the LA, and it became a joy to use compared to my HP 16500C
LA.

Another point - if the entire instrument crashes, well that's really
annoying, but the instrument should _not lie_ about the signals it's
probing just because the O/S goes belly up! A non-trustworthy peice of
test gear is useless - it's a huge waste of time.
-Dave Pollum
 
D

Data

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joel said: "...just defending the concept of "desktop OS"-based
instruments in general; it's clearly the direction things like scopes,
spectrum/network analyzers, DLAs, etc. are going."

That doesn't mean it's the right direction.
I used a late model Tek LA a few months ago for about a week. It ran
Windows (2K or XP???). I powered it up in the morning and powered it
off before I left for the day. It didn't take me long to figure out
how to use the LA, and it became a joy to use compared to my HP 16500C
LA.

So the 16500C's UI isn't as good, and the one on Windows is better.
That doesn't mean that it's the best idea to run a logic analyser on
Windows.

Most of the UI doesn't come so much from the OS anyway. You probably
(hopefully) spend most of your time working within the analyser
application. On some recent Tek models, that's actually LabVIEW. (Can
they get any lazier?)
Another point - if the entire instrument crashes, well that's really
annoying, but the instrument should _not lie_ about the signals it's
probing just because the O/S goes belly up! A non-trustworthy peice of
test gear is useless - it's a huge waste of time.

And one that crashes frequently, and requires security patches (the
idea!), and spends gobs of time booting up, and uses special PC
components that go obsolete in six months, and special hard drives that
come in special cases so you can't repair them yourself, and so the
maker can charge you ungodly parts & labour cost, is also a giant waste
of time.

I hated Windows scopes when they first came out, and I still hate them
now (in case you couldn't tell). Not only do they have the same
Fisher-Price feel to them that regular Windows has, they have the same
reliability. A workman is known by his tools.

Besides, I've already got a Windows laptop, which I have to use for
work. If I have to use Windows on an instrument, I'd rather just use my
laptop, which has a bigger screen, an attached keyboard, and a known
set of foibles. So give me the PicoScope-type instruments any day, if
Windows has to be in the mix.

--mpa
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
Besides, I've already got a Windows laptop, which I have to use for
work. If I have to use Windows on an instrument, I'd rather just use my
laptop, which has a bigger screen, an attached keyboard, and a known
set of foibles. So give me the PicoScope-type instruments any day, if
Windows has to be in the mix.

That actually makes sense for data-intensive things like logic
analyzers and maybe spectrum analyzers. Scopes should have knobs and
screens.

John
 
Data said:
That doesn't mean it's the right direction.


So the 16500C's UI isn't as good, and the one on Windows is better.
That doesn't mean that it's the best idea to run a logic analyser on
Windows.

Most of the UI doesn't come so much from the OS anyway. You probably
(hopefully) spend most of your time working within the analyser
application. On some recent Tek models, that's actually LabVIEW. (Can
they get any lazier?)


And one that crashes frequently, and requires security patches (the
idea!), and spends gobs of time booting up, and uses special PC
components that go obsolete in six months, and special hard drives that
come in special cases so you can't repair them yourself, and so the
maker can charge you ungodly parts & labour cost, is also a giant waste
of time.

I hated Windows scopes when they first came out, and I still hate them
now (in case you couldn't tell). Not only do they have the same
Fisher-Price feel to them that regular Windows has, they have the same
reliability. A workman is known by his tools.

Besides, I've already got a Windows laptop, which I have to use for
work. If I have to use Windows on an instrument, I'd rather just use my
laptop, which has a bigger screen, an attached keyboard, and a known
set of foibles. So give me the PicoScope-type instruments any day, if
Windows has to be in the mix.

--mpa

Data said: "So the 16500C's UI isn't as good, and the one on Windows is
better.
That doesn't mean that it's the best idea to run a logic analyser on
Windows."

The only application I ran on that Tek LA was the Logic Analyzer. And
yes, the Tek LA's GUI was much better than the HP16500C's GUI. But,
don't forget the 16500C is several generations older than the Tek LA
(TLA5000 series?) that I used. I'd love to get a more modern LA, but
can't afford one.
-Dave Pollum.
 
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