12 and 16-bit oscilloscopes
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From: Chris Carlen on 13 Dec 2006 18:47 Hi: Picotech seems to be the only supplier of these in low cost <$1500 flavors. But they are discontinuing their 16-bit version which had 96dB dynamic range: http://www.picotech.com/applications/resolution.html And there USB based 12-bit versions have 72dB rather than the 80dB of the parallel port versions. I expect they will dump the parallel ports eventually. This is a shame. The 16-bit unit is killer for low frequency/audio amplifier testing and general spectrum analysis. The FFT functions on 8-bit fast DSOs from Tek and Agilent are of limited usefulness due to meager 70dB range (with averaging). I have been communicating with Pico to try to encourage them to keep the 16-bit or develop another one. They haven't been very responsive. I will email the Cleverscope and notifiy them that they might consider filling the opening Pico is leaving. -- Good day! ________________________________________ Christopher R. Carlen Principal Laser&Electronics Technologist Sandia National Laboratories CA USA crcarleRemoveThis(a)BOGUSsandia.gov NOTE, delete texts: "RemoveThis" and "BOGUS" from email address to reply.
From: Bob on 13 Dec 2006 20:16 Chris Carlen wrote: > Hi: > > Picotech seems to be the only supplier of these in low cost <$1500 flavors. > > But they are discontinuing their 16-bit version which had 96dB dynamic > range: > > http://www.picotech.com/applications/resolution.html > > And there USB based 12-bit versions have 72dB rather than the 80dB of > the parallel port versions. I expect they will dump the parallel ports > eventually. > > This is a shame. The 16-bit unit is killer for low frequency/audio > amplifier testing and general spectrum analysis. The FFT functions on > 8-bit fast DSOs from Tek and Agilent are of limited usefulness due to > meager 70dB range (with averaging). I wonder if picotech ever fixed the glaring bugs in their software? My boss bought a ADC-216 when we needed an 50KHz spectrum analyser. I'd seen picotech equipment before and reccommended buying a spectrum analyser off ebay instead. When the picotech unit arrived I connected it in parallel with a conventional scope and tried it out. I found several serious software bugs. I can't remember them all now. It has an AC voltmeter function, the spec page claims 1% accuracy. It worked ok up to about 10KHz and above that the reading were completly wrong. The hardware is just a fast ADC so the PC software did the task of adding up the area of the voltage versus time graph. A picotech support person reproduced the problems I found and promised to send a new version of the software. Months later after a few reminders they finally emailed me some software, the same buggy software I'd already been supplied with the unit. Bob
From: Chris Carlen on 13 Dec 2006 20:54 Bob wrote: > Chris Carlen wrote: > >>Hi: >> >>Picotech seems to be the only supplier of these in low cost <$1500 flavors. >> >>But they are discontinuing their 16-bit version which had 96dB dynamic >>range: >> >>http://www.picotech.com/applications/resolution.html >> >>And there USB based 12-bit versions have 72dB rather than the 80dB of >>the parallel port versions. I expect they will dump the parallel ports >>eventually. >> >>This is a shame. The 16-bit unit is killer for low frequency/audio >>amplifier testing and general spectrum analysis. The FFT functions on >>8-bit fast DSOs from Tek and Agilent are of limited usefulness due to >>meager 70dB range (with averaging). > > I wonder if picotech ever fixed the glaring bugs in their software? [edit discouraging story] Bummer. Now I'm disinclined to buy one. Any other experiences out there? -- Good day! ________________________________________ Christopher R. Carlen Principal Laser&Electronics Technologist Sandia National Laboratories CA USA crcarleRemoveThis(a)BOGUSsandia.gov NOTE, delete texts: "RemoveThis" and "BOGUS" from email address to reply.
From: SioL on 14 Dec 2006 04:13 "Chris Carlen" <crcarleRemoveThis(a)BOGUSsandia.gov> wrote in message news:elqart02lc7(a)news1.newsguy.com... > [edit discouraging story] > > > Bummer. Now I'm disinclined to buy one. > > Any other experiences out there? > I've purchased and used ADC216 specifically for the dynamic range in fft mode. For this purpose it seemed very usefull to me and I was able to troubleshoot a few things I could never have done without it. Although I can't and did not compare its operation against any other comparable unit. I admit to not having used it as a scope, analogue scope is a much better solution for that. SioL
From: Tom Bruhns on 14 Dec 2006 14:23
Chris Carlen wrote: > Hi: > > Picotech seems to be the only supplier of these in low cost <$1500 flavors. > > But they are discontinuing their 16-bit version which had 96dB dynamic > range: > > http://www.picotech.com/applications/resolution.html > > And there USB based 12-bit versions have 72dB rather than the 80dB of > the parallel port versions. I expect they will dump the parallel ports > eventually. > > This is a shame. The 16-bit unit is killer for low frequency/audio > amplifier testing and general spectrum analysis. The FFT functions on > 8-bit fast DSOs from Tek and Agilent are of limited usefulness due to > meager 70dB range (with averaging). > > I have been communicating with Pico to try to encourage them to keep the > 16-bit or develop another one. They haven't been very responsive. > > I will email the Cleverscope and notifiy them that they might consider > filling the opening Pico is leaving. > > > > -- > Good day! > > ________________________________________ > Christopher R. Carlen > Principal Laser&Electronics Technologist > Sandia National Laboratories CA USA > crcarleRemoveThis(a)BOGUSsandia.gov > NOTE, delete texts: "RemoveThis" and > "BOGUS" from email address to reply. Well, it won't fit in your "under $1500" budget, but HP/Agilent for many years has been making a 23-bit 20Ms/s card. It's not necessarily useful to 23 bits, but even by today's standards, the distortion and spur performance isn't too shabby, and was certainly cutting-edge when it was introduced. And in a stand-alone instrument, the HP/Agilent 89410, especially those made around 2001 and later, should give you pretty nice performance out to 10MHz. I can "see" signals 120dB below full scale with a dB or so accuracy with mine, if there aren't also big signals that put distortion products on top of them. There are a very few spurs that keep you from getting to that low a level at every frequency, but they are pretty low amplitude and few in number. (We'd all love to have 120dB of spur-and-distortion-free dynamic range in a 10MHz bandwidth analyzer with general-purpose inputs, but it's not likely to happen this year...) Cheers, Tom |