Choosing Lab equipment for our new electronics lab.

[free_electron]

ditch the function generator. you;re never going to use it.

if you going to do motor drive : get multiple power supplies

Really? I intended to use it for PWM control along with testing inputs / outputs against noise and various such things.

If you want a generator that can do that you will need to look at a multichannel one that has ARB capability and you will for sure require a buffer amplifier to be able to inject signals.
most Signal generators can not generate PWM signals (unless they have ARB capability) If you want to go all the way up to EMC you will need a machine that can do several hundred MHz , a serious amplifier and you will need current coils as well. but you may be better off generating PWM signals with a small microcontroller board as you hive finer grain control.

For a scope i would not look at the 3000 series from Agilent (keysigh.. Agilent name will stick for a long time. There's even people still calling it HP) but bump it up to the 4000 series. The advantage is that those machines are software upgradeable. If, in the future you find you need more bandwidth or memory that can be 'unlocked' by buying the key. Beats having to buy a whole new scope. So you pay for what you need right now and you pay the difference to get a better machine in the future as opposed to a totally new machine.

i would look into getting some good , used, power supplies that are stable under harsh load conditions if you will be playing with drive technology.
Be carfull with beack-emf coming from your system that could ruin the power supplies , or pumpt the output above what you have set it to. Most supplies cannot handle current being forced in to  them , you may want to get a supply that has a so called down programmer or even a two or four quadrant supply. ( sink and source both in voltage and current mode )
added bonus if you get one of those : you can use em as amplifier for a signal generator if you want to inject 'garbage' into a system under test. Most four quadrant supplies have an analog control input in the back. simply drive the signal in there and the basically become a power amplifier.

[don]

@TCWilliamson - do yourself a favor and think about the work you are doing and what you need the tools to do.  Then go to all the different manufacturer websites and see what they offer in your price range, just below and just above budget.  Compare specs.  Focus on the differences and see what is important to you.  Read datasheets, check out the manuals.  Then search Google on those scopes.   Watch YouTube videos, ask questions about how they operate on the forum.  Get a demo if you can. 

But asking "what scope should I buy" is not going to get you far. Why?  Because lecroy, tek, agilent all make excellent scopes.  Regardless of what anyone tells you. And when you ask a general purchasing question, many people will reply with brand loyalty or brand hatred.  And that has nothing to do with the capability of a scope serving your needs on your bench.   

If that sounds to daunting then you probably need to spend more time on your design and developing your test plan so you know what tool needs to do.   Then you can ask specific tool questions and get some good responses.  Until then you might as well name three sports teams and ask which is the best.  If you need to learn about scopes features then throw out some questions along those lines.  Anyway, just a suggestion - its hard to filter through a lot of responses implying fact when they are extremely subjective. 
Edit - I reread this thread after posting and see you are getting some good  research here and there.   I get concerned when people say buy A, don't buy B without ones feature needs in mind.  But looks like you are filtering through that. My response probably more against that than suggesting you are not doing your homework - good luck.

[EEVblog]

But that has little to do with the WaveSurfer 3000, and which easily gives the old DSOX3000A and even the "new" DSOX3000T a run for its money.

The 3000X series uses a now 4 year old ASIC. The New 3000T uses the same ASIC.
The Waveserfer 3000 was release 12 months ago, so it sure had better give the Agilent a "run for it's money", in fact it had better do a lot more than that considerign how new it is.
I don't know what nctnico is on about it being 10 y/o technology, it was ground breaking and state-of-the-art 4 years ago. So much so that no one could touch Agilent for several years.

[EEVblog]

For a scope i would not look at the 3000 series from Agilent (keysigh.. Agilent name will stick for a long time. There's even people still calling it HP) but bump it up to the 4000 series. The advantage is that those machines are software upgradeable.

The 3000X is also software upgradable in the same way.
The 4000X has the exact same performance, just with a bigger screen and some more decode options etc. But as far as everyday use scopes goes the 4000X is identical to the 3000X

[Wuerstchenhund]

The 3000X series uses a now 4 year old ASIC. The New 3000T uses the same ASIC.

It's not just the ASIC. The 3000T is essentially a 3000 just with touch functionality added and a slightly higher sample rate.

The Waveserfer 3000 was release 12 months ago, so it sure had better give the Agilent a "run for it's money", in fact it had better do a lot more than that considerign how new it is.

I'd say it does, it offers a lot more functionality than the DSOX3000(T), while being noticably less expensive.

The WS3k even does quite well against the DSOX4000, which costs a lot more (roughly the same as the WaveRunner 6zi, which again is a much more advanced scope than the DSOX4k) while suffering from the same problem of a tiny sampling memory.

The area where the WS3000 does lack, though, is in the number of supported decode formats (the DSOX3k supports more), although LeCroy is working on expanding them. But unless you need to decode one of the formats that's not available on the WS3000 I'd say the WaveSurfer is the much better scope these days.

I don't know what nctnico is on about it being 10 y/o technology, it was ground breaking and state-of-the-art 4 years ago. So much so that no one could touch Agilent for several years.

It was (at least for the low end sector, as there already were >1M wfms/s scopes before then) but it also shows that Agilent/Keysight have drawn themselves into a corner with their focus on the waveform update rate, and it won't get better.

For a scope i would not look at the 3000 series from Agilent (keysigh.. Agilent name will stick for a long time. There's even people still calling it HP) but bump it up to the 4000 series. The advantage is that those machines are software upgradeable.

The 3000X is also software upgradable in the same way.

It is, as is the WaveSurfer 3000, but bandwidth upgrades are pretty much a gimmick in my opinion. If you do the upgrade quite soon after buying the scope then you end up paying much more than just going for the higher bandwidth model in the first place. And if you upgrade the scope years later then you're usually better of by just selling the scope and getting a new one, which will usually come with better performance and more features.

[Wuerstchenhund]

@TCWilliamson - do yourself a favor and think about the work you are doing and what you need the tools to do.  Then go to all the different manufacturer websites and see what they offer in your price range, just below and just above budget.  Compare specs.  Focus on the differences and see what is important to you.  Read datasheets, check out the manuals.  Then search Google on those scopes.   Watch YouTube videos, ask questions about how they operate on the forum.  Get a demo if you can. 

Be careful with Youtube videos, though, because a lot of them are made by someone who is still in the "buyer's euphoria" phase, and quite often doesn't have enough experience with competing products to draw a reasonable conclusion how the particular scope stacks up against the competition. And then there are "thank you for the free scope" type of reviews (which seem to have increased for scopes from a certain manufacturer that was once at the top but is now closer to the bottom of the barrel).

If you spend several grand on a scope then you really should get a demo, period. Not just a demonstration, get a loaner scope for a few days so that you can evaluate it in your environment and useage scenarios. If a manufacturer refuses then they obviously don't want your business, and in this case simply move on.

[EEVblog]

I'd say it does, it offers a lot more functionality than the DSOX3000(T), while being noticably less expensive. the WS3k even does well quite against the DSOX4000, which costs a lot more (roughly the same as the WaveRunner 6zi, which again is a much more advanced scope than the DSOX4k).

I don't know why people think the 4000X is special, it's not. Exactly the same ASIC as the 3000X, the same screen resolution, the same memory, the same sample rate, the same touch zone triggering, etc. It just has an extra 0.5GHz bandwidth, physically bigger screen, two AWG's, and a few bells and whistles.
But essentially the same scope.

I don't know what nctnico is on about it being 10 y/o technology, it was ground breaking and state-of-the-art 4 years ago. So much so that no one could touch Agilent for several years.

It was (at least for the low end sector, as there already were >1M wfms/s scopes before then) but it also shows that Agilent/Keysight have drawn themselves into a corner with their focus on the waveform update rate, and it won't get better.

Of course they have.
They are working on it, bet your bottom dollar.
They had the market to themselves for a sold 3 years, now they'll cop a few years of slower sales until their Megazoom 5 comes out.
Then it's likely the other brands will be on the backfoot again unless they can preempt that.

[rf-loop]

But that has little to do with the WaveSurfer 3000, and which easily gives the old DSOX3000A and even the "new" DSOX3000T a run for its money. I have used the DSOX3000, and spent some time with the WS3000, and the latter is simply the much more capable scope, and at a pretty decent price, simple as that.

Do you mean May 2014  launched Siglent SDS3000 what also sold as WaveSurfer 3000?

[Wuerstchenhund]

For a scope i would not look at the 3000 series from Agilent (keysigh.. Agilent name will stick for a long time. There's even people still calling it HP) but bump it up to the 4000 series.

Really? The DSOX4000 is a bumped up DSOX3000 (which as Dave already stated can also be bandwidth upgraded) and probably the most unattractive scope in the whole Keysight lineup.

A DSOX4054 brings you the same 5GSa/s and the same tiny 4M sample memory the DSOX3k(T) suffers from, at a price of a whooping $14,255. That's the same price bracket you can already get the 600MHz version of these instead:
http://cdn.teledynelecroy.com/files/pdf/waverunner_6_zi_datasheet.pdf

Keysight makes good scopes but the DSOX 2k/3k/4k are somewhat simple scopes based on their old MegaZoomIV ASIC, which in turn was designed for Agilent's intended waveform update 'race'. But the ASIC is holding the scopes back in terms of sample memory, and the whole design is pretty limited in terms of processing and functionality, which now shows more than ever.

The WR6zi in the sheet above is also an older design (and soon to be replaced by a successor) but it still offers 20GSa/s and 16Mpts (software upgradeable to 40GSa/s and 128M), and functionality-wise is in a completely different league than the DSOX4k (I've worked with both scopes Series and the DSOX4k really is no match for the 6zi). And that at a similar price (I've even seen the 600MHz WR606zi on sale from LeCroy for less than $12k, including several software options).

And it's just one example of what else is out there.

I can't see why these days anyone would want buy a DSOX4k.

[Wuerstchenhund]

But that has little to do with the WaveSurfer 3000, and which easily gives the old DSOX3000A and even the "new" DSOX3000T a run for its money. I have used the DSOX3000, and spent some time with the WS3000, and the latter is simply the much more capable scope, and at a pretty decent price, simple as that.

Do you mean May 2014  launched Siglent SDS3000 what also sold as WaveSurfer 3000?

Yes, the May 2014 launched WaveSurfer 3000, of which the hardware has been designed in a cooperation between LeCroy and Siglent, and where the software is provided by LeCroy, and which Siglent will sell as SDS3000 in the Chinese market only.

It's a completely different thing than just buying SDS1000 scopes and rebadge them for resale.

The WS3k/SDS3k thing is actually quite clever. LeCroy is using Siglent's strenghts (which is producing good hardware at low costs), while they keep their finger on the hardware design and keeping Siglent away from the software. The result is a very nice scope at a really decent price that even Keysight can't match. And since LeCroy is offering the WS3000 at a decent price there's little incentive for grey imports of the SDS3000, which will not be supported outside China by Siglent anyways.

And even though Siglent is the manufacturer of the WS3000 the scope has the same support as any other LeCroy scope (of which many are made by various 3rd parties), i.e. 3yrs warranty as standard and full support for 7 years after ending of production of that Series.

[EEVblog]

And even though Siglent is the manufacturer of the WS3000 the scope has the same support as any other LeCroy scope (of which many are made by various 3rd parties), i.e. 3yrs warranty as standard and full support for 7 years after ending of production of that Series.

You mean that same support (or lack of) that made the WaveAce such a debacle?
How do you know that the WS3000 firmware is 100% Lecroy?

[nctnico]

ditch the function generator. you;re never going to use it.

if you going to do motor drive : get multiple power supplies

Really? I intended to use it for PWM control along with testing inputs / outputs against noise and various such things.

If you want a generator that can do that you will need to look at a multichannel one that has ARB capability and you will for sure require a buffer amplifier to be able to inject signals.
most Signal generators can not generate PWM signals (unless they have ARB capability)

Nonsense. Just use the variable duty cycle. No need to go wild for some prototype testing.

[Ice-Tea]

Allow me to add something to this topic aside from the scope pissing contest.

You might wanna look into a power meter, I myself have some decent experiences with Yokogawa, example:



Especially if you will be doing non-isolated designs, get differential probes, such as these:



Get current probes, either of the clamp type or the TTI meter Dave reviewed some time ago. Within the limitations of the thing, it's awesome.



I personally feel a thermal imager (FLIR has obviously good stuff) is a great adition, especially with power electronics.

[nctnico]

But that has little to do with the WaveSurfer 3000, and which easily gives the old DSOX3000A and even the "new" DSOX3000T a run for its money.

The 3000X series uses a now 4 year old ASIC. The New 3000T uses the same ASIC.
The Waveserfer 3000 was release 12 months ago, so it sure had better give the Agilent a "run for it's money", in fact it had better do a lot more than that considerign how new it is.
I don't know what nctnico is on about it being 10 y/o technology, it was ground breaking and state-of-the-art 4 years ago. So much so that no one could touch Agilent for several years.

I guess I misread that somewhere but still the memory is short. To make matters worse: when in run mode the memory per channel is divided in half. One half is used for display and one half is used for acquisition. This is the same on the much older models. They probably upgraded the ASIC for faster/different memory but the basic functionality is very old.

I played quite a bit with a different Keysight oscilloscope and one thing I didn't like was that at low s/div settings (for looking at high frequency signals) the intensity grading stops and you end up with an acquisition spanning many screen. But that could be me not knowing how to change this behaviour.

[Wuerstchenhund]

And even though Siglent is the manufacturer of the WS3000 the scope has the same support as any other LeCroy scope (of which many are made by various 3rd parties), i.e. 3yrs warranty as standard and full support for 7 years after ending of production of that Series.

You mean that same support (or lack of) that made the WaveAce such a debacle?

The WaveAce is a debacle because it's essentially a $300 Siglent scope with a different label sold at closer to $1900. It's pure Siglent, 100%, including the buggy firmware. I had a Siglent SDS1102CML (essentially a WaveAce 1012 with smaller sample memory) myself, it's an OK scope from a cheap Chinese brand that was dirt cheap, and because of that I think the bugs were acceptable (the low price has to come from somewhere). It's not OK however if that's what you get from a big brand for the price equivalent of a Agilent DSOX2k.

Support couldn't help because the firmware is Siglent, and as with the SDS2000 they are pretty slow in fixing the issues (and often introduce new problems along the line, which doesn't help).

I know a few (large) customers that were pretty pissed with these scopes, which mostly ended up being taken back by LeCroy because Siglent couldn't sort out the problems.

Why it's still on sale is quite frankly beyond me. From what I've seen all the WaveAce has achieved so far is to damage LeCroy's reputation. It's a 'me-too' product to be present in the low end probably because they feel they have to, similar to Tek's TBS1000 scopes. I can't see them selling many of them, and whenever it comes to low end scopes their sales staff seems to deflect interest to the WaveJet 300T instead (probably because they know that the WaveAce is crap).

How do you know that the WS3000 firmware is 100% Lecroy?

From discussions with a few peple in LeCroy. The WS3000 is a X-Stream scope. X-Stream is one of LeCroy's important technologies (it's in all their midrange and highend scopes up to the 100GHz LabMaster), and there's a lot of IP in this software. The WS3k is an embedded scope (it runs W7 Embedded) with limited processing so it runs a cut-down version of X-Stream, but there's still a lot in it that could be beneficial to a competitor. There's no way they will open this to any 3rd parties.

Siglent is licensed to use and resell it in their SDS3000 (which is marked as "Powered by Teledyne LeCroy"), but they don't have any access to the source or the internals of the software (and I frankly doubt that Siglent even has the expertise to work with the source). One of the advantages of this is that (unlike with WaveAce) most of the few bugs that were there after the scope has been launched have been fixed in a very short time, as it happens with the other X-Stream scopes.

[CM800]

And even though Siglent is the manufacturer of the WS3000 the scope has the same support as any other LeCroy scope (of which many are made by various 3rd parties), i.e. 3yrs warranty as standard and full support for 7 years after ending of production of that Series.

You mean that same support (or lack of) that made the WaveAce such a debacle?
How do you know that the WS3000 firmware is 100% Lecroy?

Dave,

What would you suggest? After all you have tried and used a huge load of scopes over many years.

From what I have worked out, the highest frequency I will likely come across (other then the pure-sine clock coming into the micro controller) is the quadrature encoded output of a high speed, high resolution encoder. Going at the highest, crazy specifications we would ever look at:

4000RPM motor (67 turns per second)
10000 line encoder quad encoded (40,000 pulse per rev)
67*40000 = 2.68MHz

For a square wave like that... what kind of bandwidth on the scope should I really look for.

EDIT:

Did some more math using wolfram and I worked out that the 41st Harmonic is a fairly good waveform shape, 41*2.68x10^6 = 109MHz, I would go with 200MHz, giving me some buffer.

[EEVblog]

Support couldn't help because the firmware is Siglent, and as with the SDS2000 they are pretty slow in fixing the issues (and often introduce new problems along the line, which doesn't help).
I know a few (large) customers that were pretty pissed with these scopes, which mostly ended up being taken back by LeCroy because Siglent couldn't sort out the problems.

That was my point. If Lecroy can't intervene and get Siglent to fix these things, then that does not bode well for any sort of relationship between Siglent and Lecroy. What if the WS3000 for example starts to ship with hardware faults (because it's Siglent hardware), the same debacle could ensue.

[EEVblog]

Dave,
What would you suggest? After all you have tried and used a huge load of scopes over many years.

You said budget isn't that important, so I'd go for better than the entry level stuff like the D1054Z.
Maybe a Rigol DS4014. 4CH, 4GS/s, very deep memory, nice intensity graded display, for under $2500
But there are many choices at those levels, Keysight, Tek, Lecroy, Hameg. So that would be a minimum, just because it's not your money 

[nctnico]

Support couldn't help because the firmware is Siglent, and as with the SDS2000 they are pretty slow in fixing the issues (and often introduce new problems along the line, which doesn't help).
I know a few (large) customers that were pretty pissed with these scopes, which mostly ended up being taken back by LeCroy because Siglent couldn't sort out the problems.

That was my point. If Lecroy can't intervene and get Siglent to fix these things, then that does not bode well for any sort of relationship between Siglent and Lecroy. What if the WS3000 for example starts to ship with hardware faults (because it's Siglent hardware), the same debacle could ensue.

I think Lecroy builds the Wavesurfer3000 themselves and sells the hardware to Siglent. Look closely at this picture from Siglent's website:

Yes it says 'Assembled in USA' on the back.

[Wuerstchenhund]

That was my point. If Lecroy can't intervene and get Siglent to fix these things, then that does not bode well for any sort of relationship between Siglent and Lecroy.

Not really. The WaveAce were bought as finished product, designed by Siglent, built by Siglent, maintained by Siglent. LeCroy got exactly what they ordered, which is a low end scope that gets the same firmware updates as the Siglent original. In hindsight it certainly wasn't a good decision on LeCroy's part to buy in some bottom-of-the-barrel scope, but at the end of the day they got what they ordered and paid for.

What if the WS3000 for example starts to ship with hardware faults (because it's Siglent hardware), the same debacle could ensue.

No, it can't. The difference is that for the WS3000, LeCroy has had it's finger on the hardware design (and also showed Siglent a few things along the lines of how to do scope design properly), something they hadn't done on the WaveAce. The WS3000 design has followed the same quality and reliability criteria as for other LeCroy scopes. Outsourcing production doesn't change that.

There's really no need to worry because the WS3000 is produced by Siglent. Outsourcing has always been part of LeCroy's business strategy, and is one of the rare cases where it actually made sense. The WaveRunner LT/WavePro 900 (both LeCroy developed) were made by Iwatsu. Some of the WaveRunner (M)Xi/(M)Xi-A and WaveSurfer Xs/Xs-B were made by another electronics manufacturer in Malaysia, and so on. Nothing new here. LeCroy could have produced the WS3000 themselves in the US, but then the scope would have cost probably at least 30% more, which is a difficult sell in this price class.

The WaveAce is shit, no doubt about that. But the WaveSurfer 3000 is as much LeCroy as any of their other midrange and highend scopes. I had a chance to play with one for a day, and it's really an outstanding scope in this price segment.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I think Lecroy builds the Wavesurfer3000 themselves and sells the hardware to Siglent. Look closely at this picture from Siglent's website:
Yes it says 'Assembled in USA' on the back.

"Assembled" is not the same as "Manufactured". It's enough to put the rear cover on and put an English manual and a US mains lead in the box to call something "Assembled in USA".

I guess the "Assembled" refers to the skin (plastic outer shell) being put on in the US. They probably ship the naked chassis, and the Siglent calibration sticker seems to support that.

[G0HZU]

For the stuff you are looking at I'd say you could be happy with any modern/mainstream standalone DSO.

However, if you are going to be taking your work beyond some research/fiddling and onto some formal acceptance testing then I'd suggest you choose equipment with a decent and reliable ATE capability. Usually this means Agilent/KS is the safe ((least buggy) option so maybe go for a 4 channel scope from the low end of the 3000 series. A good engineer will make do with any of the scopes mentioned so far but even a good engineer will struggle with poor ATE support.

I'd echo what free_electron said about PSU choice and I'd be tempted to look at used HP/Agilent PSUs for best value vs performance vs ruggedness vs ATE capability. Also some of them can be used as a programmable active load.

Also, Ice-Tea made some very valid suggestions about the probes and the thermal camera.

In your case, I think the scope choice really does just boil down to personal preference and (possibly) decent ATE performance/reliability. Maybe try and get a demo/trial organised and ask the rep about ATE interface options if you feel you may need to do any automated testing.

I'd also suggest some form of multi channel logger system that can log various things during trials or soak tests. At work we make our own and often this stuff
is designed into the gear itself but in your case you'd be using an external system. You can buy ATE gear like this but it's usually quite expensive. The cheap option is a self built USB powered MCU with a decent external ADC with maybe 16 channels for logging stuff like temperature sensors, various voltages, currents and maybe even vibration or movement.

[CM800]

Ideally, I would love a 3kW power supply for up to 200V @ 15A with current / voltage limiting.
Sadly I think that would cost as much as a new car and It would be cheaper to just make one myself at work.

I have no clue where I could buy a 4 quadrant powersupply.. it sounds like godsend but I have a feeling it costs as much as a small house for 3kW...

[nctnico]

It depends on what kind of car you buy. I'd get several power supplies you can connect in parallel or series. That way you can use several power supplies for various projects or connect them together for one big project. You can look at power supplies from Chroma. Farnell also carries some reasonably priced brands. When dealing with motor drives reverse EMF can be an issue though.

[CM800]

It depends on what kind of car you buy. I'd get several power supplies you can connect in parallel or series. That way you can use several power supplies for various projects or connect them together for one big project. You can look at power supplies from Chroma. Farnell also carries some reasonably priced brands. When dealing with motor drives reverse EMF can be an issue though.

The drives I intend to make will have a circuit to protect themselves from EMF using a dump resistor and a mosfet.