Agilent MSO7000 series opinions wanted

[Sailor]

Accurate time measurements between the two cursors is dead easy on the Tek MSO4034. Position a cursor and the zoom window over a point of interest in the whole-trace display and then zoom in and position the cursor as required. The cursor measurement window shows the delta-T to the other cursor, with up to 9 digits of precision. See the attached screen shot. The actual number of displayed digits does reduce slightly as you reduce the zoom magnification. Making a measurement to a similar accuracy on the Rigol is painful. You have to do a subtraction operation yourself, and it is necessary to disturb your trigger delay in the process. I have been looking at the cursor example illustrations in the Agilent 7000B User Manual, and I only see six digits displayed, but I notice that the examples have only short delta-T intervals between the cursors. As you can see in the screen shot, I am measuring tens of milliseconds.                                                               
                                                                                                               
Can someone with a 7000-series Agilent tell me the best accuracy they can get with a similar measurement?       

[mikeselectricstuff]

PS What did you mean 'beware - watch out for those with the battery option pre-installed?

I've not seen the battery option but I imagine you lose the probe compartment and add some weight

[alex.forencich]

Accurate time measurements between the two cursors is dead easy on the Tek MSO4034. Position a cursor and the zoom window over a point of interest in the whole-trace display and then zoom in and position the cursor as required. The cursor measurement window shows the delta-T to the other cursor, with up to 9 digits of precision. See the attached screen shot. The actual number of displayed digits does reduce slightly as you reduce the zoom magnification. Making a measurement to a similar accuracy on the Rigol is painful. You have to do a subtraction operation yourself, and it is necessary to disturb your trigger delay in the process. I have been looking at the cursor example illustrations in the Agilent 7000B User Manual, and I only see six digits displayed, but I notice that the examples have only short delta-T intervals between the cursors. As you can see in the screen shot, I am measuring tens of milliseconds.                                                               
                                                                                                               
Can someone with a 7000-series Agilent tell me the best accuracy they can get with a similar measurement?     

Looks like the resolution is always 10 ps.  This is the 'scroll resolution' at 500 ps/div (increment per knob detent).  So if the unit is ms, then you can get times like 1.23456789 ms. 

Edit: And at a unit of 1s, you can get 1.23456789012s.  Probably not going to be particularly useful as at 500 ms/div, it only goes at 800 kSa/s. So that means you have a sample every 0.00000125 s, a difference of 5 orders of magnitude compared with the 10ps resolution. 

[Neganur]

PS What did you mean 'beware - watch out for those with the battery option pre-installed?

As far as I understood from the description of an auction for a used MSO6104, the battery option completely replaces the normal power plug and you need to buy an Agilent power supply, which is not included in the auctions. It probably doesn't have to be an Agilent PSU but it's just something to look out for that might generate additional cost.

[Sailor]

@Neganur   Oh, right, that's a nice 'gotcha'!

@alex.forencich   Wow, picoseconds I don't need, but if those nine digits hold up when the delta is in the tens of milliseconds then that's great.

Thank you both.

[mikeselectricstuff]

PS What did you mean 'beware - watch out for those with the battery option pre-installed?

As far as I understood from the description of an auction for a used MSO6104, the battery option completely replaces the normal power plug and you need to buy an Agilent power supply, which is not included in the auctions. It probably doesn't have to be an Agilent PSU but it's just something to look out for that might generate additional cost.

Looking at the manual, it appears that there is an external PSU - as the scope must have the circuitry to generate all its rails from the battery, it seems likely that the external supply would be single voltage. It's possible it may have some charge logic.
There is a 12V charging lead available, which doesn't look like it has much to it, so could be a simple 12V in. Even though the list price is $166!

http://www.home.agilent.com/en/pd-1081765-pn-N5429A/12-v-automotive-adapter?nid=-33523.635258.00&cc=GB&lc=eng

Considering the battery option is a pretty small niche, it seems unlikely they'd do more than buy in a standard mains adapter brick and slap their name on it.
 

[Carrington]

These oscilloscopes (6000 and 7000 series) only needs about +15 V (DC) to operate.

RED     -> + RAIL ~ 15V (DC).
BLACK -> GND.
BLUE   ->  One of these pins must be the LINE TRIGGER source and the other must be related to the battery (I'm not sure about this).

[Grad]

I saw in this tread ( https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-mso-500060007000-anyone-hacked-these-scopes/275/ )
it only works wit the 06.16.0001A firmware. My MSO7034A has the 06.20.0000.

can someone tell me where to find the 06.16.0001A sys7000A.jzp file or send it to me?

Thanks in advanced,
Grad

[HighVoltage]

can someone tell me where to find the 06.16.0001A sys7000A.jzp file or send it to me?

Thanks in advanced,
Grad

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