(Note: The photo we have used here is in no way signifying that we will be partnering with Teledyne LeCroy in a dedicated lab series...not yet anyway)
While we are releasing this article, we are currently in the midst of speaking to two of the brands that makes Digital Storage Oscilloscope regarding a potential dedicated lab series in the near future which will allow us to deep-dive into their range of products as we explore not just their functions and features, but also help you as a user and potential customer to understand how you can make the best of their products. Whether you are a hobbyist, or professional maker, or you are researching on DSOs to prepare a proposal to present to your management to explain why your department needs a new upgrade of testing equipment, these upcoming lab series are going to be the only source of content you might ever need.
(Updated) After publishing the article, we decided to include some of the specific models as well as the link to their direct product info page. These models that we have listed under each brand are also the models we hope to showcase as part of the dedicated lab curriculum for that particular brand.
Maximising Your DSOs
One of the most important questions you might be asking after you have paid $10,000 or $20,000 on your first high-end DSOs is probably going sound something like this, "Okay, so now that I have paid for this, how can I maximise it to it's fullest potential?"
Many times, professional makers we speak to, they don't really know how to maximise their DSOs' potential. After speaking to many of them over the years, we did discover that 90% of the time, first time professional makers only understand how to operate up to 40% of the DSO's functions and features. And up to 60% of the time, most of them didn't even know that the oscilloscope can perform certain useful tricks and tests. The funny thing about engineering is that you have to sometimes explore a product beyond what is described on paper. It's all about being creative, and understanding fully what your scope can actually do or has.
And up to 60% of the time, most of them didn't even know that the oscilloscope can perform certain useful tricks and tests.
With our dedicated onlinelabseries, we are going to help every professional maker to understand how to make the most of their testing devices. We will explore not just what each individual model & device can really do, but we are also going to show you some tips and tricks, stuff that you can never really learn from a product manual or from a textbook. There are actually ways you can make the most out of your testing equipment without damaging it in anyway, or endangering yourself. As the creators of those lab series (potentially with each brand listed below), we want to always emphasise the importance of safety. Do not endanger yourself or those around you if you are unsure of what to do. And always make sure that you are grounded when working with electronics of any capacity.
As the creators of those lab series (potentially with each brand listed below), we want to always emphasise the importance of safety. Do not endanger yourself or those around you if you are unsure of what to do. And always make sure that you are grounded when working with electronics of any capacity.
Brands We Want to Showcase in a Dedicated Lab Series
For many of the brands we want to showcase, we are going to focus on Digital Oscilloscopes mainly those between the 300 - 500 MHz range. For our lab series, we intend to focus on the 500 MHz range since it is the upper bracket in terms of bandwidth and it should cover most of the potential use-cases that might warrant a need to upgrade your existing testing equipment. As stated in a separate article on our website, we are also looking at a potential brand sponsor who's also going to provide us with a 1 GHz model which will be showcased and used throughout many different lab series over the next 12-months or longer. You can read more about the related articles here: https://www.onlinelabseries.com/articles/what-mso-dsos-are-we-looking-at / https://www.onlinelabseries.com/articles/testing-tools-scopes-other-useful-electronics-equipment
Contrary to what some might think, when it comes to deciding on whether or not we want to feature a particular brand in a dedicated lab series, we can be very particular with our choices of brands. Why do you think we say that? It's very simple. We believe in showcasing only the brands that we think has the potential to go even further in the near future. If not why showcase them at all. Another really important reasons for picking them is also because they cover a wide enough range of devices that ensures those who's learning about them can continue to use them in their own projects or in their next career after following along with our dedicated lab series.
Just because a brand comes to us and offers to sponsor us their products for a dedicated lab series doesn't mean that we will take them on. At OLS, we have a commitment to showcasing only the most relevant brands in the market & field, not just for the last 10 years, not just right now, but also for the next 5 to 10 years or more.
At OLS, we have a commitment to showcasing only the most relevant brands in the market & field, not just for the last 10 years, not just right now, but also for the next 5 to10 years or more.
Keysight Technologies
(Click here to visit their website: https://www.keysight.com/en/pcx-x2015004/oscilloscopes?nid=-32546.0&cc=SG&lc=eng&tab=fea)
The very first brand that we want to showcase on this list is Keysight Technologies. From all of the brands you will read about on this list, Keysight is the Big Daddy of them all. If you were to browse their range of oscilloscope, they have so many choices to pick from. But more than the choices itself, it's the range in terms of bandwidth capabilities that really excites us the most.
Taking money out of the question here, if all you need is something that is of the highest quality versus function and feature ratio, we recommend Keysight Technologies.
Regardless of whether you are a growing IoT start-up or a professional maker yourself, Keysight would probably be the first brand you want to consider first. Another great thing about scaling with Keysight is that their products are top of the line. Taking money out of the question here, if all you need is something that is of the highest quality versus function and feature ratio, we recommend Keysight Technologies. They might not look as sleek or rugged like the LeCroy oscilloscopes, but they definitely get the job done.
Model(s) we are looking cover for the dedicated lab series for Keysight Technologies:
MSOS054A High-Definition Oscilloscope: 500 MHz, 4 Analog plus 16 Digital Channels (Infiniium S-Series Oscilloscopes)
MSOX3054T Mixed Signal Oscilloscope: 500 MHz, 4 Analog Plus 16 Digital Channels (InfiniiVision 3000T X-Series)
MSOX4054A Mixed Signal Oscilloscope: 500 MHz, 4 Analog Plus 16 Digital Channels (InfiniiVision 4000 X-Series)
Rohde & Schwarz
(Click here to visit their website: https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/sg/products/test-measurement/oscilloscopes/overview_63663.html)
Can we just admit it? We at onlinelabseries really do love the range of products from Rohde & Schwarz, eventhough we never owned one before. There is this saying that sometimes the first impressions are always very important. Having done a research online and speaking to various members in the testing tools community, Rohde & Schwarz does appear to be a pretty standard go-to-brand. As a matter of fact, they do have one of the widest range of options in terms of bandwidth to sample rates ratio.
Scaling Your Engineering Team / Project / Product with Rohde & Schwarz
Another really important reasons why we want to showcase Rohde & Schwarz is because of their range of bandwidths within certain models like the R&S®RTE1000 oscilloscope which ranges from 200 MHz to 2 GHz in bandwidth. Why is this great? Well, if you are a budding maker, planning to turn your new idea into an actual product and then growing from there, Rohde & Schwarz is a great brand to scale your product & projects with. As a potential end user, this also means you won't have to switch brands in between your growth & scaling. In most cases, switching of brands involve re-learning about the product's functions and features, which then equates to more time, more money, and that is time and money taken away from working on your project / product.
So, if we are going to feature a brand of testing equipment, we will most certainly want to do that with Rohde & Schwarz.
Model(s) we are looking cover for the dedicated lab series for Rohde & Schwarz:
Tektronix
(Click here to visit their website: https://www.tek.com/oscilloscope)
Another brand of oscilloscopes that we would love to host a dedicated series about is Tektronix. It is important for readers to understand this - at onlinelabseries, we do not select brands to showcase based upon personal user's opinions about the product. It is true that regardless of whichever brand of oscilloscope you buy from this list, there will always be a small handful of individuals who thinks that the products doesn't do what they think it should do. No, onlinelabseries aims to focus on brands that have products that many engineers are already using right now, as well as brands with products that allow users to scale with in the near future.
If the brand/model/products have the options for scalability, chances are, they won't go out of fashion any time soon.
Like Rohde & Schwarz, Tektronix is another brand that you will read a lot about online, as well as in some of the most famous electronics video blogs on YouTube. From the looks of it, it does provide a strong impression that if you decide to go with Tektronix as a professional maker, it is a brand that you can grow and scale with for the next few years at least. By getting from Tektronix, you can be sure that you probably won't need to switch to another brand over the next 3~5 years at least, or maybe ever.
Model(s) we are looking cover for the dedicated lab series for Tektronix:
Teledyne LeCroy
(Click here to visit their website: http://teledynelecroy.com/scopes/)
Teledyne LeCroy is probably one of the most advance looking oscilloscopes you can find on the market right now. When you look at their product's design before even considering the models that they have, their products can literally make an engineer drool. With that impression, it also creates an impression of quality, substance, at the same time price tag. If you want an oscilloscope that doesn't just do the job, but also looks amazing on your workbench (especially like in our case for the lab session showcase across the other lab series), then we would recommend getting Teledyne LeCroy. Who says rugged testing equipment can't look amazing?
If you want an oscilloscope that doesn't just do the job, but also looks amazing on your workbench, then we would recommend getting Teledyne LeCroy.
Excellent Product Design Creates Perception of Product Quality & Excellence
At onlinelabseries, we are not exactly concerned about the pricing of the products we want to feature. What we believe in is showcasing quality products, and usually great quality products don't come cheap too. Also, we want to focus on their potential use-cases, and exploring everything that you can do with their products (their value). By being able to showcase all the problems that their products can be used to solve and overcome, it will make the pricing seem more justifiable. Just like we were mentioning in the earlier part of our article, most customers and users don't use 60% or more of the testing equipment that they have bought, surely they will feel the pricing is crazy. But if they (referring to the customers/users) actually understood how to use those 60%, their perception and mentality will be very different.
But if they (customers/users) actually understood how to use those 60%, their perception and mentality will be very different.
The only reason LeCroy isn't very high up on this list is because the highest bandwidth in this case is only 4 GHz. But we still want to showcase this brand because their bandwidth capability is more than enough to scale for any professional maker (building their small empire for the next decade).
Model(s) we are looking cover for the dedicated lab series for Teledyne LeCroy:
Rigol
(Click here to visit their website: https://www.rigolna.com/products/digital-oscilloscopes/)
The second last brand on the list that we want to talk about is Rigol. In the maker's community, there will always be that one brand you will hear and see people talking about. Eventhough Rigol doesn't really have models and products that scales beyond the 1GHz bandwidth range, they are still a brand that can be considered if you are just a budding professional maker. Safe to say, by getting Rigol's products, you can probably still scale your product and projects for the next few years until you decide to take on a more serious endeavour.
But let's say you are only interested in design simple products and ideas, then Rigol is really more than enough to cover your project needs. In terms of longevity and scalability in comparison with some of the brands listed above, Rigol clearly doesn't share the same potential of project application scalability.
Model(s) we are looking cover for the dedicated lab series for Rigol Technologies:
GWInstek
(Click here to visit their website: http://www.gwinstek.com/en-global/products/Oscilloscopes/1)
Last on our list, we thought it would be worthy to include this brand, GWInstek. Now, GWInstek doesn't have any models that serve the 1 GHz range, but we think that it would be a brand worth considering if you are looking to move pass the entry-level projects that you are working on.
But in reality, that is how human psychology works. We always like to look at what's the best, look at what's the cheapest in that range and then work our options from there.
Paying attention to some of the feedbacks and discussions within the testing equipment community, GWInstek does present as a last resort option when picking good quality and reliable oscilloscopes. This doesn't meant that their product aren't good. But in reality, that is how human psychology works. We always like to look at what's the best, look at what's the cheapest in that range and then work our options from there. Covering a dedicated lab series on GWInstek is also good because there are many budding makers living in countries and cities where GDP is honestly low, which also means, the ability to afford a high-end oscilloscope like Keysight or Rohde & Schwarz is probably out of the question.
Model(s) we are looking cover for the dedicated lab series for Rigol Technologies:
In Closing
Alright, pheww, that really took quite an effort to compile. We certainly hope that with this little guide, it will help you to decide on the brand to invest your money with, measuring it against the product/project scalability as well as brand reliability over the next 5 to 10 years. We definitely look forward to securing some of those dedicated lab series we have shared in this article as well as in our related articles, so make sure to check out our announcements for more upcoming updates.