NanoVNA V3 (6GHz)

[thinkfat]

That I'm not getting. Import goods are now taxed at the source, so this will ease the load on customs and post offices at the destination.

This is what the politicians try to tell you... The reality, at least in Portugal, look like this:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&u=https://www.dn.pt/sociedade/clientes-desesperam-com-encomendas-retidas-na-alfandega-14072601.html

Regards,
Vitor

I think that's made to sound more dire than it actually is. At least now there's a framework in place for 3rd country vendors to tax purchases upfront. As for myself, I have had shipments stuck in customs and returned already before that date. I was very happy when JLCPCB introduced a tax-upfront deliver option last year, I've been using it ever since and never again had to deal with the extortion practices of DHL.

[bestel]

This is what the politicians try to tell you... The reality, at least in Portugal, look like this:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&u=https://www.dn.pt/sociedade/clientes-desesperam-com-encomendas-retidas-na-alfandega-14072601.html

Regards,
Vitor

Weird, here in France there is no such problems (As a company and as a customer), so they should just hire more staff I guess


Speaking again about best alternatives to NanoVNA V3, my LibreVNA arrived and I'm quite pleased.
By default it warms up higher than +55°C, so I added a little 40x50mm cooler on top which give me +/- 50°C fanless.
I've add a 60mm 12v fan set at 5v which gave me 33°C at room temperature = 22°C.

I've attached the result after a SOLT calibration (done at 30°) of what happen if I stop the FAN.

Of course you can re-calibrate at this temperature.
It's not a problem, I've done this just to reduce the "warm-up" time and to have more control about it.

I've also tested the SWR of my "aviation band" antenna.

Ask me if you want me to do some measurements

[JohnG]

I cant stop laughing seeing how people through 6GHz left and right in this topic. Have any of you measured anything at these frequencies?  And I assume you guys have the calibration standards and patch cables for the frequency range, right?

Like any other difficult topic, some will learn a bit, some will give up, and some (a few) will become so interested that they become very good at it.

In the meantime, some history on even higher frequencies: https://www.cv.nrao.edu/~demerson/bose/bose.htm

John

[edigi]

That I'm not getting. Import goods are now taxed at the source, so this will ease the load on customs and post offices at the destination.

Nope. Some of the imports are taxed at the source, others are not. This means checking each of them at the customs, even that ones that are already taxed, and they have some handling cost (even the taxed ones). If it's paid fast/online smaller, otherwise higher. The non-taxed by default have higher handling cost that is progressive depending on the tax value. Naturally if ​there is something wrong with the electronic taxation information there is double taxing that can be claimed back but it's pretty much unclear what should happen if some item taxed at customs is lost on the route later on and so on.
(Note: It's not uncommon to lose things even with EU origin in Feucht, happened already with me...)

I don't want to hijack this thread with the details as I could write pages about the mess created by bureaucrats and anyhow it somewhat varies country by country (yes, there are such aspects) and totally uninteresting outside of EU.

What's relevant for this thread is that IMHO for NanoVNA v3 a better distribution than for the previous version(s) would be nice (as I still don't know today if my first copy of the v2 was (a redistributed) original one or a good copy and with the presumably significantly higher cost v3 I guess fewer people will be willing to take risks related to distribution).

[bestel]

That I'm not getting. Import goods are now taxed at the source, so this will ease the load on customs and post offices at the destination.

Nope. Some of the imports are taxed at the source, others are not. This means checking each of them at the customs, even that ones that are already taxed, and they have some handling cost (even the taxed ones). If it's paid fast/online smaller, otherwise higher. The non-taxed by default have higher handling cost that is progressive depending on the tax value. Naturally if ​there is something wrong with the electronic taxation information there is double taxing that can be claimed back but it's pretty much unclear what should happen if some item taxed at customs is lost on the route later on and so on.
(Note: It's not uncommon to lose things even with EU origin in Feucht, happened already with me...)

I don't want to hijack this thread with the details as I could write pages about the mess created by bureaucrats and anyhow it somewhat varies country by country (yes, there are such aspects) and totally uninteresting outside of EU.

What's relevant for this thread is that IMHO for NanoVNA v3 a better distribution than for the previous version(s) would be nice (as I still don't know today if my first copy of the v2 was (a redistributed) original one or a good copy and with the presumably significantly higher cost v3 I guess fewer people will be willing to take risks related to distribution).

If it varies country by country inside the EU it mean that is just a problem with "your country" and not the European bureaucrats.

When I want to buy genuine I just buy from a "certified reseller" (which can be tricky with open-source design, but it's easy to found out).

[Mechatrommer]

Ask me if you want me to do some measurements

i think the best thing is to create another review thread for "LibreVNA".. i would love to see the review and performance and linked here. here unfortunately i've titled "NanoVNA V3", maybe too early than i expected.

[Just_another_Dave]

Not trolling but genuinely asking:
Would an ISo900x certified company accept such test equipment like the NanoVNA3?

Short answer: yes
Longer answer: Definitely for R&D, because you cannot be limited to existing equipment if it does not meet your R&D needs, and if you are the researcher/developer, making a case for whatever you need should be part of your skill set.

You can even make a case for using something like it as part of a production process, though it may be a lot of extra work to justify, qualify, and document accordingly. The latter may cost more than purchasing high-end equipment when all is considered, but even then, you are still building test fixtures and setups and there is just as much room here for something to go wrong. You can get ISO900x certification and have well documented processes that you follow completely, and turn out crap. You need to have a documented process to deal with crap (I am not kidding).

John

For R&D a VNA that measures up to 6GHz for that price is totally worth it if it’s precise enough to be useful while debugging prototypes (I once worked for a big company that used oscilloscopes for measuring s-parameters in R&D because VNAs where considered too costly and unjustified for the amount of measurements that they needed to take). Then, a high end one can be used if precise measurements are needed without risking to damage it with early stage prototypes

Additionally, it can be quite useful for university labs, so students can learn to use VNAs without damaging equipment that costs thousands of euros

[OwO]

V3 targets the higher end market and it is critical that we reach specs that will remain competitive for at least 5 years, and ensure all software support are completely polished and stable. I'd delay the release by a year if it means I can get that dynamic range 10dB higher. There is no point releasing yet another cheap 6GHz VNA because the market is flooded with that already, and it takes many many years to recoup development costs. Viewed in that light, a time to market edge of months or a year is completely insignificant and it would be foolish for us to chase that extra few months of sales, because all the money is made in the steady trickle of sales in the years that follow.

On why we don't use distribution: we do. All V2 Plus4 on Amazon are genuine with local US stock. But it adds a 2x price premium, so a V3 sold through distributors will either cost $1000, or it will have almost no margin (very bad idea). Will the extra exposure offset the higher price? Maybe, maybe not. It is up to us to do the market analysis. For the lower cost products, the answer has been a clear no. The direct store maybe sells half the volume compared to an all-out distribution strategy, but the direct store makes a reasonable profit margin, whereas the units sold through distribution do not.

TL;DR if you need it urgently, the Arinst VNA-DL is probably the best bang for buck right now. We will take our time to ensure the performance is the best possible and software is mature and full featured out of the box.

EDIT:
We don't look at the waitlist size, but rather how many joins per day there are. We have a lot of data on waitlist conversion rate and dropoff rate vs time, but what is applicable to the V2 Plus4 doesn't necessarily apply to the V3, so we aren't betting on anyone in the waitlist actually buying.

The biggest cost is not the production run, but the development. Hence the development was paused at a very crude prototype (that was used to set specifications) until we were convinced there is enough interest. Everyone here are paid good rates, so development easily runs into 6 figures, which makes the production run costs look like peanuts. The good news is there is sufficient interest, so development can proceed.

[Mechatrommer]

The good news is there is sufficient interest, so development can proceed.

glad to hear from you again OwO. i just replied to your PM. good to hear that there will be hope for this device to see the light, and good news for me, i'm still doing other projects so there is no urgency yet and i can still wait so far for the NanoV3 release. the biggest problem for me with other alternatives is as i mentioned in PM that they do not support NanoVNA-QT GUI SW(or NanoVNA-QT doesnt support them, either way) and the most important feature for me lies in the SW itself, not the HW, quite unfortunate for me. so the best, affordable and acceptable option for me right now is still the 4GHz NanoV2, so i'm still waiting. cheers.

[edigi]

I'd delay the release by a year if it means I can get that dynamic range 10dB higher.

If you relax the overly ambitious current targets for dynamic range (120dB dynamic range to 3GHz, 100dB dynamic range to 6GHz) by 20dB even that is 10dB more than what is realistic at this price point in my view.
Sure it can help if the IFBW is set to very narrow, but that has very little practical value (especially above couple of 100MHz that the v1 can still do).
Most people who intend to buy it plan to do it not because the very narrow BW at several GHz or very good DR, think about that.

Of course as its your project you're free to do it whatever way you like it. Just my two cents.

[OwO]

>100dB @ 6GHz has already been achieved by the last prototype, at a not very narrow IFBW so still reasonably fast sweeps. >120dB @ 3GHz is a bit harder but we'll get there.
We don't want to release something only to have it be undercut by chinese vendors selling at no margin a year later, so it's highly critical to have that performance edge, which I've seen that professional customers are willing to pay much more for, and invest a good amount of effort into anticopy protection mechanisms.

Depending on how the design goes, we may end up with two offerings, a high end version below $1000, and a lower cost version below $500. I can not go into much more detail than that because it's important market research information that I'm sure the predators are after.

[Mechatrommer]

Depending on how the design goes, we may end up with two offerings, a high end version below $1000, and a lower cost version below $500. I can not go into much more detail than that because it's important market research information that I'm sure the predators are after.

+ with what you have written in PM... do your team have mechanism to stop other cloners from reverse engineering your super duper highly speced product when its out? do you have good guarantee that your product will be on top of the food chain for a longer time? like its so fucking difficult to reverse engineer?

[OwO]

+ with what you have written in PM... do your team have mechanism to stop other cloners from reverse engineering your super duper highly speced product when its out? do you have good guarantee that your product will be on top of the food chain for a longer time? like its so fucking difficult to reverse engineer?

Yes.

[Mechatrommer]

+ with what you have written in PM... do your team have mechanism to stop other cloners from reverse engineering your super duper highly speced product when its out? do you have good guarantee that your product will be on top of the food chain for a longer time? like its so fucking difficult to reverse engineer?

Yes.

so now its a matter of price (affordability) and equally talented like you people (competition)

[hajkrem]

@OwO - So far I had to disassemble and fix 3 times so far my HXCQS NanoVNA Plus4 (last time noisy measurement in the whole frequency range). Browsing the mailing list, none of my issues were unique, and there must be widespread quality issues regarding manufacturing and part sourcing. I discourage everyone from buying hobby-level instrument with epoxy-blobs on it, as it makes both understanding and repair harder. I also find somewhat cynical of you talking about predators, when your team are the ones who derailed the open-source NanoVNA brand and converted it eventually into a closed hardware.

[Mechatrommer]

I discourage everyone from buying hobby-level instrument with epoxy-blobs on it, as it makes both understanding and repair harder.

yes we are well aware we should buy pro-level such as Keysight FieldFox. we are waiting for your review on that...

I also find somewhat cynical of you talking about predators, when your team are the ones who derailed the open-source NanoVNA brand and converted it eventually into a closed hardware.

make your own thread, this is not ethical thread, and its already being discussed somewhere you can find it OwO defending themselves in long story. in short iirc, V2 is totally developed by them and is not the same as earlier V1... otherwise, you should show us some Copyright application on the name "NanoVNA" owned by who and where.

now i can see you already complaint about your V2 damage in V2 thread, thats a wise move, but not here, please. and we dont have such nasty blobs on our V2 board, so it must be unfortunate for you, i'm sorry. imho you must have it returned when first time receiving it in such condition. cheers.

[hajkrem]

It's pretty on-topic. Facts:
1. V2 units shipped by this design team had (have?) quality issues.
 - https://nanorfe.com/forum/CH0-has-gone-noisy.html
 - https://nanorfe.com/forum/Quick-question-about-device.html
2. Official V2 units have epoxy blobs as an anticopy-mechanism, which decrease our ability to repair.
 - https://groups.io/g/NanoVNA-V2/message/1151
3. OwO talks about anticopy protection of the v3 design.
 - https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/nanovna-v3-(6ghz)/msg3815639/#msg3815639

You say it's all fine, because it's cheap. The fact that people are buying the v2-s support this claim. However this argument will not hold when the pricepoint enters the territory of used brandname equipments (~1kUSD).

This whole thing would not be an issue if the v3 designers come up with an original name and register it as a trademark, just as they forced the LibreVNA guys to do the same. In this case there is no need for severe copyright mechanisms, and people tend to buy from teams that keep developing the software as well anyway - especially in the 1kUSD range.

[OwO]

If it isn't ESD damage, it is covered by warranty and you can simply message the seller for a replacement. Given that we've shipped many thousand units already, some reports of defects is to be expected, but every warranty request so far have been honored. V3 series will also be produced on a separate line with tighter QC on PCBA since at the higher price it can be afforded, and full AOI has been recently enabled for V2Plus4 as well so there should be less defects.

We used to open source designs, but can no longer do so for a reason: https://nanorfe.com/forum/About-clones.html
V3 will actually have another name, but I can't say what the name will be yet until the trademark has been registered.

Anyway I will not argue with you about the correct way to do V3, we will execute our plan based on our market research and whether or not it succeeds is our problem. What is certain though is we are leaving the low cost hobbyist segment and will be moving to higher quality (and higher cost). V3 is likely to be over budget and won't meet the price target listed on the site, but we might be able to get it under $1000.

[JohnG]

It's pretty on-topic. Facts:
1. V2 units shipped by this design team had (have?) quality issues.
 - https://nanorfe.com/forum/CH0-has-gone-noisy.html
 - https://nanorfe.com/forum/Quick-question-about-device.html
2. Official V2 units have epoxy blobs as an anticopy-mechanism, which decrease our ability to repair.
 - https://groups.io/g/NanoVNA-V2/message/1151
3. OwO talks about anticopy protection of the v3 design.
 - https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/nanovna-v3-(6ghz)/msg3815639/#msg3815639

You say it's all fine, because it's cheap. The fact that people are buying the v2-s support this claim. However this argument will not hold when the pricepoint enters the territory of used brandname equipments (~1kUSD).

This whole thing would not be an issue if the v3 designers come up with an original name and register it as a trademark, just as they forced the LibreVNA guys to do the same. In this case there is no need for severe copyright mechanisms, and people tend to buy from teams that keep developing the software as well anyway - especially in the 1kUSD range.

You are free to also develop and improve the NanoVNA as you wish, and you can check all the boxes and fix all the things you don't like that others are doing. You should also be prepared for the many people who will complain bitterly about your work.

In the meantime, I welcome the availability of these instruments and am thankful for the tremendous effort into making the multi-GHz realm accessible for a cost that is two or more orders of magnitude less expensive than it was even 10 years ago.

And, used, working instruments in the $1k range are not readily accessible. All the ones I have seen in that range have damage or failed parts, have obvious physical damage, and are sold as is. And, they all came with exorbitant shipping charges.

John

[OwO]

Anyway "V3" at this point is just a vague concept though, it may or may not end up being a product as we may just opt to license the design instead. It's just a hobby project at this point since all I've seen indicates the market is so small that you shouldn't take it too seriously. Or I may just go and take the 6 figure job at a big technology company doing cutting edge R&D and be gone with this race to the bottom crap, maybe I'll decide that's where I want to be in life instead.

Anyway I don't want anything to do with open source anymore, what I've realized is that without IP protection everything becomes a commodity market, and in a commodity market it's big corporations with economy of scale and control that win at the expense of smaller innovators ("walmart effect"). IP is the only thing that allows a small innovator to stand a chance against those that are bigger and more powerful. My earlier open source efforts have all ended up helping vendors that don't pay for R&D and harming small players like MiniVNA, PocketVNA, NanoVNA-F by BH5HNU, etc. Open source is a meaningless ideal that could do more harm than good. Please watch the TV series Fate/Zero and Madoka Magica (+ the movie), and understand that life is too short to be infatuated with ideals and principles.

[nctnico]

If it isn't ESD damage, it is covered by warranty and you can simply message the seller for a replacement. Given that we've shipped many thousand units already, some reports of defects is to be expected, but every warranty request so far have been honored. V3 series will also be produced on a separate line with tighter QC on PCBA since at the higher price it can be afforded, and full AOI has been recently enabled for V2Plus4 as well so there should be less defects.

We used to open source designs, but can no longer do so for a reason: https://nanorfe.com/forum/About-clones.html
V3 will actually have another name, but I can't say what the name will be yet until the trademark has been registered.

Anyway I will not argue with you about the correct way to do V3, we will execute our plan based on our market research and whether or not it succeeds is our problem. What is certain though is we are leaving the low cost hobbyist segment and will be moving to higher quality (and higher cost). V3 is likely to be over budget and won't meet the price target listed on the site, but we might be able to get it under $1000.

Will V3 have a bigger screen and capacitive touch instead of resistive?

[OwO]

Right now all we have is the VNA core prototype (built out of many small modules). The final design could be anything at this point, display/no display, 4.3 inch vs 4 inch, capacitive vs resistive touch, full two port vs T/R + transfer switch. You can post your ideas and suggestions, I can't promise anything but I will read this thread occasionally and keep all the suggestions so far in mind.

In the mean time please do watch these masterpieces (might be available on Netflix):
https://myanimelist.net/anime/10087/Fate_Zero
https://myanimelist.net/anime/11741/Fate_Zero_2nd_Season
https://myanimelist.net/anime/9756/Mahou_Shoujo_Madoka%E2%98%85Magica
https://myanimelist.net/anime/11981/Mahou_Shoujo_Madoka%E2%98%85Magica_Movie_3__Hangyaku_no_Monogatari (this movie is the sequel to the TV series)

[hajkrem]

Thanks, it was an impressive answer. As I understand you plan to compete with something like the TTR500, which at $12k is already a nice deal. That's something I'm considering now. If a reputable brand, like Siglent were selling something similar for $5-6k, I would have bought that already. I'm looking for used stuff in the sub-$2k range. My tindie/ebay/etc limit is $1k though, and only if the design is open, and I can source part long after the seller/warranty is gone. I consider myself a typical customer, and I doubt your market research shows anything significantly different.

[Mechatrommer]

V3 is likely to be over budget and won't meet the price target listed on the site, but we might be able to get it under $1000.

bad news..

It's just a hobby project at this point since all I've seen indicates the market is so small that you shouldn't take it too seriously.

the increased price will make it even smaller...

Anyway "V3" at this point is just a vague concept though, it may or may not end up being a product as we may just opt to license the design instead.

more bad news..

 

[nctnico]

Right now all we have is the VNA core prototype (built out of many small modules). The final design could be anything at this point, display/no display, 4.3 inch vs 4 inch, capacitive vs resistive touch, full two port vs T/R + transfer switch. You can post your ideas and suggestions, I can't promise anything but I will read this thread occasionally and keep all the suggestions so far in mind.

I have some kind of NanoVNA model (*) and what bugs me the most is the small screen. It would be nicer with a bigger screen. More in the area of 7" or 8" so it is still a small device but you can operate it with your fingers instead of a stylus. I'm also not a fan of the resistive touchscreen but this could be a component choice related issue of the particular model I have. It would also be nice to have reasonable spectrum analysis features (good enough for generic spectrum analysis and EMC pre-compliance use). My reasoning behind my suggestions is that currently I have a big-ass loud spectrum analyser which can do a lot of things but it is not very practical. The NanoVNA OTOH is a neat device but the screen is simply too small to use it extensively. Something that combines the convenience of a bigger screen and small size which can do both network analysis and spectrum analysis would be a good candidate to replace my spectrum analyser.

* H4 from nanovna.com ; I hope some of my money went into your pockets as a reward for your efforts.