Scope Month 2017 Megathread

[Fred27]

This has been discussed (a lot). I'll try to summarise.

You pay VAT and import duty on anything coming into the country from outside the EU. It is based on the value of an item, not what you paid for it. It's the recipient's responsibility, not the seller's. Sometimes marking a lower value on the package will work (e.g. Chinese eBay items) but sometimes it won't.

[JoeN]

FYI, on the "Customs Invoice" PDF I received, the PDF indicates a value of "152.48" (no monetary unit).  Not sure if that number is the same for everyone or converted to local currency.  I assume that number is dollars for me.  In any case, I have no idea how they arrived at that.  Anyone else see a different number?  Additionally, it is coded as "Goodwill/Giveaway/Donation/Gift".  Maybe these facts will help people with customs.  Being in the US, I rather expect not to be hit with customs on this.

[Fred27]

Mine was also $152.48. Let's see if that is taken as the value for VAT purposes. I'd have thought it would, but you never know.

[Redpillow2]

Sorry for being a bother, I'm in the same boat as Ghostus. No shipping email yet.

What's Josh's email?

[Ghostus]

Sorry for being a bother, I'm in the same boat as Ghostus. No shipping email yet.

What's Josh's email?

His email is scopemonth@keysight.com
He told me that he sends a new set of tracking information each day so he'll send me it as soon as it ships.

[dentaku]

I drew a path on Google Maps with all points it's gone through and the total distance is a bit over 17000 km. It went over the top of the Pacific then all the way across Canada to the Atlantic. FedEx emailed me an update now that it's reached my province saying it won't get here today so it should arrive on Monday instead. That's just what happens when you live in a remote area.
FedEx is lucky we have house numbers now.
When I was younger, delivery people needed to ask random locals to find someone's house. Canada post is still handier than courrier companies because you can pick up your parcel at the post office.

[dentaku]

FYI, on the "Customs Invoice" PDF I received, the PDF indicates a value of "152.48" (no monetary unit).  Not sure if that number is the same for everyone or converted to local currency.  I assume that number is dollars for me.  In any case, I have no idea how they arrived at that.  Anyone else see a different number?  Additionally, it is coded as "Goodwill/Giveaway/Donation/Gift".  Maybe these facts will help people with customs.  Being in the US, I rather expect not to be hit with customs on this.

Yup, same for me. I'm not sure how it works in Canada yet but I  guess I'll find out on Monday.

[FireFlower]

DHL contacted me today to give my email and identification number for customs but still no shipping mail info from Josh 

I was expecting it was about my aliexpress delivery and almost sent them wrong invoice because they asked for it but then noticed shipping from malaysia. a call back to them and seems like customs & VAT has been paid already 

[ComanderKai77]

DHL contacted me today to give my email and identification number for customs but still no shipping mail info from Josh 

I was expecting it was about my aliexpress delivery and almost sent them wrong invoice because they asked for it but then noticed shipping from malaysia. a call back to them and seems like customs & VAT has been paid already 

Very kind from Keysight.
I hoope I get in the next few days a shipping message.

[dentaku]

I now have proof that Dave Jones has tiny hands
I just unboxed my DSO1102G and it's even smaller than I imagined.
That you Daniel, Josh and the rest of the team who made this ridiculously big contest happen.

[ComanderKai77]

I now have proof that Dave Jones has tiny hands
I just unboxed my DSO1102G and it's even smaller than I imagined.
That you Daniel, Josh and the rest of the team who made this ridiculously big contest happen.

We need a banana for scale 

[dentaku]

Well, it looks like one of my probes is defective. The compensation signal is all slanted looking and I can't fix it just by twiddling the little adjuster on the probe (it gets better but nowhere near correct). At first I thought it was an AC versus DC coupling this but it doesn't seem to make any difference if I change it.

When I do a Probe Check it gives strange results too. Most of the time it just tells me "The probe attenuation on channel 1 is not correct. We are unable to detect its attenuation so please set it to the correct value and start Probe Check again." but sometimes it tells me the probe is set to 100.0:1 which of course is impossible with this probe. It's the same if I use channel 2.
The probe is set to 10X and the scope channel is also set to 10.0:1. Setting them both to 1X gives the same error.

The other probe seems to work fine though. The signal is nice and square and the test works.

I guess tomorrow I'm going to have to find out who to contact at Keysight.

[JoeN]

My first thought would be to measure impedance through the probes and see if they match.  That won't tell you everything or even close to it but it might back up that something is obviously off because I would think they should measure the same.

[awilson]

Well, my scope turned up on Friday and I haven't stopped playing with it since. It's a fantastic piece of kit and I'm really grateful to Keysight for sending it to me.

You've made a middle aged man very happy.

[dentaku]

My first thought would be to measure impedance through the probes and see if they match.  That won't tell you everything or even close to it but it might back up that something is obviously off because I would think they should measure the same.

Well about as much as I can do with the equipment I have is measure the resistance from the tip of the probe to the center pin of the BNC when switched to X10 and the good one measures around 9 megaohm as you'd expect and the other doesn't measure on my meter at all.

At X1 the good one is 400ohm and the other still gives me no ohms reading on my multimeter.

I guess I'll go find the correct part of the Keysight website or forums to ask about this now.

At least now I have more information to give them. Thanks for the help.

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

My first thought would be to measure impedance through the probes and see if they match.  That won't tell you everything or even close to it but it might back up that something is obviously off because I would think they should measure the same.

Well about as much as I can do with the equipment I have is measure the resistance from the tip of the probe to the center pin of the BNC when switched to X10 and the good one measures around 9 megaohm as you'd expect and the other doesn't measure on my meter at all.

At X1 the good one is 400ohm and the other still gives me no ohms reading on my multimeter.

I guess I'll go find the correct part of the Keysight website or forums to ask about this now.

At least now I have more information to give them. Thanks for the help.

The fastest way to get a replacement is to call up your local call center - they should get you taken care of quickly.

[dentaku]

OK, I spoke to someone yesterday and they're going to try and figure something out. He wasn't sure what to do considering I won the scope in a contest and they probably haven't had any calls about the DSOX1102G and probably also the N2140A probes yet because it's so new.

I also tried to register the scope on the website and it says "Unrecognized Serial Number" so I got an e-mail from someone who requested I send them the exact URL and a screenshot of the page.
I remembered that the integrated DVM was a free option you get with product registration.

[ComanderKai77]

I wonder how many scopes they send per day.

[nihtila]

I see few UK winners, did you need to pay taxes/customs or do you know if invoice will follow?

[Ghostus]

Have you not received the tracking number in your email, too?

[plazma]

I received SMS messages from DHL today. They want 25€ for handling the customs. I'll call them tomorrow and tell them to leave the package at the customs. I can do it myself for free. I did not receive any email from Keysight but still got the invoice after emailing and asking for it them.

[amitchell]

Ok, here it is next to its older cousin. Frozen banana for scale.

[dentaku]

Ok, here it is next to its older cousin. Frozen banana for scale.

You're not taking into account the variability in banana sizes.

[plazma]

DHL contacted me today to give my email and identification number for customs but still no shipping mail info from Josh 

I was expecting it was about my aliexpress delivery and almost sent them wrong invoice because they asked for it but then noticed shipping from malaysia. a call back to them and seems like customs & VAT has been paid already 

Just called DHL and this was also the case for me. They were sorry for sending me wrong SMS messages. I should get my scope on Tuesday 

[Fred27]

There did seem to be some confusion around SMS messages. I got texts about someone else's delivery but emails about mine. I almost rescheduled the shipment for the other recipient before I realised it wasn't mine!