Keysight Trade-in and Free MSO Deal(s)

[JonM]

Keysight currently has a free MSO upgrade deal (as discussed in a thread last week) as well as a trade-in deal. Sadly, the deals cannot be combined, in case anyone else had the dream that I did.

I decided to trade in my Agilent scope and just order a DSOX3024T. I figure that I can always add MSO later if I determine that it will be useful for my non-profit research.

Yes, I do wish that the Keysight had more data memory and could do longer FFTs. One of my planned projects is an open source interface to R where I know that I can do long FFTs quickly as well as do other signal processing and statistics. Unknowns are how quickly I will be able to get data out of the scope via the LAN interface and display the results (way slow compared to the scope for sure).

I had considered buying a much lower end scope but was swayed towards Keysight by their educational videos, Scope Month, and the trade-in offer. I probably had the maximum number of entries possible for Scope Month and was in Dave's supporters drawing to no avail, but I might be buying the new scope for less than the tax on a fully loaded MSO3104T prize.

Of course no one is ordering the DSO models with the free MSO deal available, so there is no stock and I am two weeks into a five week wait for delivery.

Jon (back to lurking mode for now)

[bingo600]

Nice scope selection.

/Bingo

Ps: How did you enter Daves contest if your post count is 1 , including the above post ?

[Wuerstchenhund]

Yes, I do wish that the Keysight had more data memory and could do longer FFTs. One of my planned projects is an open source interface to R where I know that I can do long FFTs quickly as well as do other signal processing and statistics. Unknowns are how quickly I will be able to get data out of the scope via the LAN interface and display the results (way slow compared to the scope for sure).

Well, the DSOX3kT has an optional (yes, you have to pay extra for that  ) Ethernet port and that is 100Mbit, which isn't much.  The other alternative is the built-in USB2 port, which is also slow.

Only you can say if that is sufficient.

I had considered buying a much lower end scope but was swayed towards Keysight by their educational videos, Scope Month, and the trade-in offer. I probably had the maximum number of entries possible for Scope Month and was in Dave's supporters drawing to no avail, but I might be buying the new scope for less than the tax on a fully loaded MSO3104T prize.

Any reason you focussed on Keysight? Because in this very scope class the most bang for buck is the LeCroy WaveSurfer 3000, which offers more and costs less. You get more memory (10Mpts, and 1Mpts FFT), a larger screen, access to a wider range of probes (LeCroy doesn't artificially limit probe compatibility), and you don't get gouged for things like network and monitor ports, something that should really be standard these days.

LeCroy regularly does trade-ins and you might even be able to get the MSO option plus all options on top of it. If you really want to trade in, as usually just selling on the old scope and buying the new one without trade-ins is the better option.

Just sayin...

[JonM]

Thanks for the comments. I was in Dave's Patreon supporters drawing, obviously not in the Supercontributor drawing.

My first digital scope, in 1984, was a LeCroy when they were an independent company expanding out of the physics market. Several friends had gone to work for them and I was a beta tester for their first arbitrary waveform generator, so I have some fond experience with them. I did not consider the possibility that they would take a trade-in of an Agilent scope...

I did order the (fairly expensive) LAN/VGA interface for the Keysight so we will see how fast waveforms can be downloaded. The Agilent I have has only a serial port and long waveforms in binary mode can take 45 minutes to transfer! I also have a box of 200 floppy disks that I was saving for use with the Agilent scope and now I will be able to get rid of them. I am "downsizing" which is part of the reason for doing the trade-in. I'll have a much more capable scope in a smaller footprint and there will be no temptation to keep the old scope.

Jon

[HighVoltage]

Look at the Keysight ebay store. You might get a better deal there and usually huge discounts are available, if you ask. May be even a better deal than a trade-in and sell your old scope separately

[electr_peter]

Hi, Jon,

Welcome to the forum. Good luck with Keysight scope.

One of my planned projects is an open source interface to R where I know that I can do long FFTs quickly as well as do other signal processing and statistics

This sounds very interesting as I also use R for programming/statistics/etc. Please post and share your experiences with scope - R integration and results of signal processing analysis. Do you you plan to release FFT procedures and signal processing in a package or github?

[Wuerstchenhund]

My first digital scope, in 1984, was a LeCroy when they were an independent company expanding out of the physics market. Several friends had gone to work for them and I was a beta tester for their first arbitrary waveform generator, so I have some fond experience with them.

Interesting. I guess that was the LeCroy 9100 AWG?

I did not consider the possibility that they would take a trade-in of an Agilent scope...

Pretty much every big T&M manufacturer gladly accepts trade-ins of kit made by someone else (as long it's another big brand), it's a way to get competing kit off the street 

[TheSteve]

Look at the Keysight ebay store. You might get a better deal there and usually huge discounts are available, if you ask. May be even a better deal than a trade-in and sell your old scope separately

The ebay store is certainly worth a look, one example is the MSOX3104T for 6584.00 USD shipped right now - and they seem to be selling quite a few of them.

[memset]

The ebay store is certainly worth a look, one example is the MSOX3104T for 6584.00 USD shipped right now - and they seem to be selling quite a few of them.

Not sure what they mean by "e-Promo", but that sounds like a crazy deal, at least for eligible countries.

[nctnico]

Pretty much every big T&M manufacturer gladly accepts trade-ins of kit made by someone else (as long it's another big brand), it's a way to get competing kit off the street 

Unfortunately the NL dealer of Lecroy seems to think otherwise. I'd really like to try the Wavesurfer 3000 but they just don't seem to know how to make me an offer I can't refuse. Meanwhile the money went somewhere else though.

[JonM]

Hi, Jon,

Welcome to the forum. Good luck with Keysight scope.

One of my planned projects is an open source interface to R where I know that I can do long FFTs quickly as well as do other signal processing and statistics

This sounds very interesting as I also use R for programming/statistics/etc. Please post and share your experiences with scope - R integration and results of signal processing analysis. Do you you plan to release FFT procedures and signal processing in a package or github?

I will post the scope interface code at https://github.com/meekj  hopefully soon after I get the scope. It might be a quick update of what I did with the Agilent serial port in perl. For the direct R interface I will try some of the network access packages and fall back to using C++ with Rcpp if needed. I have one (alpha release) Rcpp package to read network packet capture files into R on github now.

For the actual FFT I am using the fftwtools package and then doing a simplistic power spectrum calculation.

[JonM]

My first digital scope, in 1984, was a LeCroy when they were an independent company expanding out of the physics market. Several friends had gone to work for them and I was a beta tester for their first arbitrary waveform generator, so I have some fond experience with them.

Interesting. I guess that was the LeCroy 9100 AWG?

In the end it was a 9109, maybe that was just a certain option set. I would have needed the maximum number of data points for the application.

I did not consider the possibility that they would take a trade-in of an Agilent scope...

Pretty much every big T&M manufacturer gladly accepts trade-ins of kit made by someone else (as long it's another big brand), it's a way to get competing kit off the street 
[/quote]

I never tried asking for a tread-in deal expect when they were advertised. It's good to know that they might be negotiated.

Thanks,

Jon

[Wuerstchenhund]

Pretty much every big T&M manufacturer gladly accepts trade-ins of kit made by someone else (as long it's another big brand), it's a way to get competing kit off the street 

Unfortunately the NL dealer of Lecroy seems to think otherwise.

That's the problem with resellers, no matter who they represent. Some of them are beyond useless, and if there's no mfgr office in your country then things can get a bit difficult.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I never tried asking for a tread-in deal expect when they were advertised. It's good to know that they might be negotiated.

But always remember that trade-in takes away from your leverage for negotiations, and that in general you're always better off to sell your scope separately and just pay cash.