Siglent SSA3000X and SSA3000X-Plus Spectrum Analyzers

[tautech]

An instrument  sample sent to Dave for a review / tear-down would come in handy to promote those new lines.
Recently the Siglent SSA3032X appeared as "available ready to ship" from Batronix (Germany), so they actually exist ....

You bet they do. I do know they've had to do some tweaks but AFAIK they're nearly finished those and I'll probably get a demo unit in my next shipment. The worry is; how many other accessories will I need as well? 
Near field probe set, cabling, waveguides, it's terrifying.
It'll be a new learning curve.......

[nowlan]

Had hoped that Allan/w2aew (or is he only tektronix now?)  or Signal path would get demo units.

[Performa01]

The worry is; how many other accessories will I need as well? 

Decent cables with BNC and SMA quality connectors; high quality RG58 C/U as a bare minimum, RG223 or RG400 are much preferable. You need a really good shielding in order to make use of the dynamic range of a decent SA.

Bunch of adaptors SMA/BNC, BNC/N ...

DC block to protect the SA input

Couple of fixed attenuators, a set of 3/6/10/20dB will be handy, but is hard to obtain with BNC for bandwidths >1GHz, so you'll probably have to go for SMA, hence you need the adaptors...

Couple of 50 ohm dummy loads for BNC/SMA

Wideband power splitter/combiner

Optional: Directional coupler

And most importantly: two decent RF signal generators.
At least one of them should provide good phase noise performance.
The 2nd generator together with the power combiner is needed for IM tests in order to determine the 2nd/3rd order dynamic ranges...

You certainly won't need a waveguide for frequencies up to 2GHz...

[nctnico]

An instrument  sample sent to Dave for a review / tear-down would come in handy to promote those new lines.
Recently the Siglent SSA3032X appeared as "available ready to ship" from Batronix (Germany), so they actually exist ....

You bet they do. I do know they've had to do some tweaks but AFAIK they're nearly finished those and I'll probably get a demo unit in my next shipment. The worry is; how many other accessories will I need as well? 

Just a piece of wire to use as an antenna and you can look & listen at radio stations. One of the interns I coached needed a spectrum analyser for his project but he mostly used it to listen to the radio 

[Siglent America]

There will be at least one review coming that I know of but I am guessing it will be in May at the earliest.

There is a new software program for the SSA3000X's called EasySpectrum. I have used it briefly on several occasions and it has some nice features. EasySpectrum has 3 basic modes of operations:

1) A virtual front panel program with the ability to control multiple spectrum analyzers.

2) An EMI program for pre-compliance testing that mimics much more expensive EMI receivers used at certification labs. It also significantly speeds up these typically slow measurements - when using the quasi-peak detector - by jumping to a zero span mode when a peak response is reached during a scan. I have seen it speed up a quasi-peak detector-based EMI measurement from hours down to a few minutes.

3) A SCPI command remote control routine for sending and receiving SCPI commands to the spectrum analyzer for testing and debugging.

EasySpectrum can be found and downloaded here:
http://www.siglentamerica.com/prodcut-gjjrj.aspx?id=1546&tid=227&T=2

You will need to first download one of the NI Visa drivers such as V5.4.

[markone]

There will be at least one review coming that I know of but I am guessing it will be in May at the earliest.

Mmmh, seems running quite late, in the meanwhile i would not expect those things fly off the shelves without something more than youtube marketing video clips and downloadable docs ...

[Siglent America]

Our introduction has been rather slow. We made some improvements to the TG flatness which has slowed it down. That is part of the reason behind the late review.
One of the EMI magazine editors told me last week he was about to begin his review.

We will try to make several application videos here in the USA and post them to YouTube.

The manual and datasheet are on the SiglentAmerica website but it appears to have a problem today. I will check on that.
You can download the documents on the corporate website at
http://www.siglent.com/ENs/prodcut-wd.aspx?id=1299&tid=18&T=2

It's rather slow, at least here in the USA. I will check on our Documents page for the SSA3000X.

[TheSteve]

Please consider sending one to the Signal Path as previously mentioned as Shahriar is one of the few reviewers who will really "test" the machine and not just show us some signals.

[tautech]

Please consider sending one to the Signal Path as previously mentioned as Shahriar is one of the few reviewers who will really "test" the machine and not just show us some signals.

I couldn't possibly confirm Shahriar will be getting one to review, it's not my place to do so. 

[nctnico]

Please consider sending one to the Signal Path as previously mentioned as Shahriar is one of the few reviewers who will really "test" the machine and not just show us some signals.

I second this because a spectrum analyser isn't easy to test properly! But I'm afraid it won't happen because the firmware likely takes at least two years to get to a useful state as we have seen with all previous Siglent equipment.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I second this because a spectrum analyser isn't easy to test properly! But I'm afraid it won't happen because the firmware likely takes at least two years to get to a useful state as we have seen with all previous Siglent equipment.

You think the SDS2000 firmware is already in a useful state? 

[bson]

Anyone have any experience with these yet?  I'm in need of a basic SA and a little lunchbox like the SSA3021X would be perfect...  But I'm not sure I want to be the first to try the waters on this one.  On paper the specs look like a step up from the Rigol DSA815 an the nice big screen looks fantastic.  I'd get it with the tracking gen, and for my needs amplitude accuracy isn't a huge deal.  I'm looking at characterizing some RF circuitry and can easily normalize for the test setup(s).  More looking at DUT response than weak radio signals and I'll be using attenuators more than amplifiers (although one of my DUTs is in fact an experimental wideband RF amplifier).  Maybe some very basic EMI sanity checking.

[markone]

But I'm not sure I want to be the first to try the waters on this one. 

Sooner or later someone will have to do it 

Anyway i'm wondering if :

Our introduction has been rather slow. We made some improvements to the TG flatness which has slowed it down.

imply substantial TG hardware changes and if there is a way to be assured to get definitive design version.

AFAIK it was declared as "available" in some webshops a lot of time ago

[Bob S]

Has anyone tried calling Siglent or a rep? I have to order a SA next week and would like to get any information I can. It will be purchasing by a customer and only be used by me for a specific job but I may end up with it. I did another job in which I had to purchased the DSA815 for a customer and it worked okay but I would like to try the Siglent this time if I can get any positive feedback.  Lets keep this post going as I think a lot of people may be interested in what is intended to be a very competitive piece of equipment.

[markone]

Has anyone tried calling Siglent or a rep?

Maybe you can send a PM to "Siglent America" Eevblog poster and ask directly for what you need.

This 3ad is rather old and still we struggle to get anything related to those SA, only docs, datasheet and marketing presentation.

[Wuerstchenhund]

Has anyone tried calling Siglent or a rep? I have to order a SA next week and would like to get any information I can. It will be purchasing by a customer and only be used by me for a specific job but I may end up with it. I did another job in which I had to purchased the DSA815 for a customer and it worked okay but I would like to try the Siglent this time if I can get any positive feedback.

You should ask yourself if you can afford to spend the money on something which very well could turn out to be another SDS2000, i.e. a product that is thrown on the market so full of bugs as to being useless. Not sure if that is what you want to present to a customer.

Lets keep this post going as I think a lot of people may be interested in what is intended to be a very competitive piece of equipment.

For SAs there are lots of options out there, new and used. Even more so if you don't need a tracking generator.

[rfboy]

i hope, rigol will respond to the new market situation with a free "bandwith upgrade" via firmware for DSA815... 

[markone]

i hope, rigol will respond to the new market situation with a free "bandwith upgrade" via firmware for DSA815... 

The new market situation is still unknown ...

[CustomEngineerer]

i hope, rigol will respond to the new market situation with a free "bandwith upgrade" via firmware for DSA815... 

Thats not going to happen.

[Siglent America]

Greetings.

The SSA3000X spectrum analyzers are selling and they are shipping. The flatness of the TG is perfectly usable in most applications. It has some ringing as you approach the upper end on the 3.2 GHz model (SSA3032X). This can be subtracted out easily using the Normalize function in 1-2 keystrokes. We wanted to improve the design so we did make some changes. The improved version has a very flat TG over the entire range - at least the one I saw at the factory did. Last I heard, we were looking at late April for the new design to begin shipping.
The current version cannot be retrofitted to become the new version. The PCBs are different.

If you would like to see any particular screen shots then please let me know. I will take a shot of the TG across the full 9 KHz - 3.2 GHz (SSA3032X) or 9 KHz - 2.1 GHz (SSA3021X) if you like.

Steve

[nctnico]

Is there any way to see if the SA has the improved TG or not? Model number? Serial number?

[Siglent America]

Is there any way to see if the SA has the improved TG or not? Model number? Serial number?

I don't yet know but I will know soon. There had originally been talk of a different model number but that has not been confirmed to me yet.
I will check with the factory and let you know.
Steve

[Bob S]

I spoke with one of Siglent's local US distributors today and I was told that he has yet to sell a single unit. Lead time is ~ 1 week so they do sound available. I told him I was concerned about a new design and no return policy and nothing was offering to settle this concern. He even recommended I stay with Rigol (having used them in the past). I think if Siglent is going to make any serious headway into this market, they should either get some serious unbiased reviews out there or offer a fair or at least comparable return policy to that of Rigol. I would still consider trying it but without a return path, I wont be the first to purchase one based solely on speculation. If Siglent is interested in having a first EEVblog review and is willing to cut me some return slack, let me know.

[nctnico]

You couldn't get it on loan for evaluation at all? I'd try another distributor because IMHO you should be able to evaluate test equipment especially when it costs a couple of thousand dollars/euros.

[tautech]

I spoke with one of Siglent's local US distributors today and I was told that he has yet to sell a single unit. Lead time is ~ 1 week so they do sound available. I told him I was concerned about a new design and no return policy and nothing was offering to settle this concern. He even recommended I stay with Rigol (having used them in the past). I think if Siglent is going to make any serious headway into this market, they should either get some serious unbiased reviews out there or offer a fair or at least comparable return policy to that of Rigol. I would still consider trying it but without a return path, I wont be the first to purchase one based solely on speculation. If Siglent is interested in having a first EEVblog review and is willing to cut me some return slack, let me know.

See reply #33

As Steve has indicated the TG is being tweaked for better performance, I've also been told next month until the tweaked series are available and they're likely to be identifiable with a factory code as part of the SN #.


From a famous movie: Patience Grasshopper's.