New Agilent scopes - 1000B series?? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: flolic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 06:42:08 am
content: Am I missing something? Agilent introduced (rebranded Rigol) scopes with few years old technology?Who will buy that?http://www.agilent.com/about/newsroom/presrel/2012/31may-em12051.html

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 06:59:06 am
content: How sad.After all the effort they went to with the new X series (which isn't much more expensive than this), they go back to rebadging Rigol again?Obviously some new dufus in marketing who has to prove themselves, based on info some other dufus from sales who can't sell the low end X series to save their life (and that's hard tonotbe able to do that).Dave.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 07:50:03 am
content: ..and they can't even be bothered to change the model numbers..!And why bother with a 70MHz? I wonder if there are 2 seperate varicap bandwidth limiters for 50 and 70..?

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 08:01:44 am
content: Agilent =

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 08:18:47 am
content: Maybe Rigol made an offer Agilent just couldn't refuse.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 08:23:25 am
content: It's funny that their low end scopes offer go/no-go mask testing - but on their higher end scopes you have to pay for the privilege!

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 04:32:02 pm
content: Well they may look like rigols, and they probably are built in the rigol fabs , they are not identical to the rigols ! take a close look at the fronpanel and compare with rigol...More buttons , more knobs. This is a full custom job and not a 'slap a sticker on it' like lecroy does...Here is what i know about the history of the Rigol / Agilent scope .. ( the first models 1000 , and i believe also some 5000 and 6000 models not the new ones )Agilent sat on technology used in their 546xx series for a long time after they were discontinued. The infiniium pricepoint was too high and they really needed a budget line. however there was no room in their production lines. so they went to the far east to look for a partner.Agilent would provide base firmware, deliver the processing technology, help with design and rigol would fab it.They made a number of permutations. Agilent got first pick. the permutations not selected by agilent were given to rigol as compensation and rigol could market those as they saw fit. That is how it all started.So it looks like this time they went back , picked an existing platform , tweaked it , changed control panel and firmware ( the agilents have always had features that the rigols did not have.. agilent reserved those for themselves )Why they went back.. probably because the 2000 and 3000 are still too expensive for the bottom end of the spectrum and they see companies like atten and rigol and owon move a truckload of scopes.. LeCroy offer simple rebrands... so agilent probably figured : if we go back to our old partner, pick an existing platofrm , help them a bit with firmware and tweak the control panel because we really want controls per channel.. we can have a cheap scope too with virutall no development cost to us. And it'll move enough so we make a fast buck.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 04:41:30 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on June 01, 2012, 04:32:02 pmAnd ... anybody smart enough probably isn't going to buy right electron ?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 06:45:33 pm
content: I don't know. I'd have to read the full specs and compare them to rigol/atten/owon/wingpangpong offerings. You can't judge a scope by its frontpanel...All i know is that new agilent 1000b series i not a simple 'slap a label on it' job. there are some differences. Are they worth the money ? that is another question ..

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 07:22:36 pm
content: Thanks for the inside story, free_electron. I downloaded the users manual, and anyone familiar with the Rigol 1052e will see quite a large number of similarities. Some interesting differences is the scope probe has high frequency compensation, and has the attenuation adjust pin. But the spec sheets suggest they are nearly identical. Although the buttons are rearranged, even the signature Rigol case, with that annoying side AC power input the the cable holder [ see lower left of the photos] are easily seen as identical.One thing for sure, it again suggests Rigols 1000 series are a poor man's Agilent, compared to the Atten being the poor man's LeCroy Waveaces!

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 08:40:05 pm
content: QuoteNo - 5000 and 6000 are fully Agilent designs, with a couple of ASICs

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2012, 11:12:17 pm
content: Quote from: saturation on June 01, 2012, 07:22:36 pmits more of the original 1000 series a partnership where agilent brought technology to the table and dictated what they wanted. And then rigol sold the permutation agilent did not want/ need.With Lecroy its more of , lets paint it black , put our logo on it , triple the price and run with it ... they didn't bring any technology to the table. even the mid range scopes in the 30K$ range of lecroy are actually Iwatsu designs... Lecroy just picked the case color ...

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 02, 2012, 01:27:14 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on June 01, 2012, 04:32:02 pmFrom what I am aware, it happened the other way around.Rigol were the first beside the "big 3" oscilloscope makers to develop their own 1GS/s ADC front end, leading to the 5000 series scope. Agilent didn't help with the design of that at all, it as all in-house Rigol. If they did help, they likely would have offered their front end technology instead of Rigol hacking it together with overclocked off-the-shelf bits.Agilent saw that 5000 series scope and decided it was an easy way for them to bring a low cost scope to market, so they rebadged it (the Agilent 3000) and helped Rigol test and refine the firmware.Dave.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2012, 03:45:31 am
content: When i wrote models 5000 and 6000 i was talking agilent, and i was wrong those are not rigol built machines.But the original agilent 3000 series ( not the 3000 X series and 2000 that you have, there was a different, now obsolete 3000 series ) was a rebadged rigol. I got my numbers confused there a bit.It was a partnership though.Here is the original agilent 3000 series:http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/product.jspx?ct=AGILENT_COLLECTION&id=1000003120%3aepsg%3apgr&pageMode=OV&cc=US&lc=eng&cmpid=zzfinddso3000The new agilent 2000 and 3000 x series are pire agilent designs and are asic heavy.Even that spear processor is a custom job. Even though ST sells the spear chip as a standalone product there is something particular about it.The spear chip is in essence a cpu with some fixed peripherals and a massive ULA. ( uncommited logic array . Think of an fpga without the 'f'. Meaning it is not loaded from an external memory. The array is mask programmed through metallisation ).So it is in a crossbreed between a fixed SOC and a full asic. You can design you own special functions , provide rtl and st will inject you custom logic in the spear device.That's what agilent did in the x series. They use the ula to make a multiplane graphics engine to control the display. So waveform data doe not run throught the processor. It is written directly into videoram. The processing happens in the frontend.That is why, even with relatively low horsepower, they can still do very fast response screen updated.By the way..those machines run windows CE as operating system.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2012, 02:20:49 pm
content: I am a happy Rigol DS1204B user, but sometimes I ask myself the question:Is there anyone in the world paying 3000 -> 6715 euro for the toprange Rigol (ex. DS6104) scopes?Or is it just a Marketing trick, pretending this same brand also has really professional stuff?

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2012, 02:49:35 pm
content: Yes, this is key. Whether it was engineering joint venture, ODM, OEM etc., besides Rigol, we see with Agilent's choice to purchase Escort [ now Agilent's HH line], Agilent chooses well.We read of some concerning quality issues in eevblog discussions of competing Owon or Hantek models versus the Rigol 1052e. Agilent could have gone to Owon, Hantek or Atten, yet chose Rigol for whatever internal reasons. Regardless, I would infer it benefits Rigol's more by getting its engineering and production processes blessed by Agilent.By contrast, we see LeCroy and Atten in at least the Waveaces, and that speaks poorly for LeCroy.Quote from: free_electron on June 02, 2012, 03:45:31 am

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 04, 2012, 05:33:49 am
content: Quote from: Galenbo on June 02, 2012, 02:20:49 pmNo marketing trick, the Rigol 6000 is good, and proving quite popular in the mid range scope market. They are not minor player any more.Dave.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 04, 2012, 02:46:37 pm
content: Nice to hear that.But it must be challenging to pay 6000 euro for a new chinese brand, instead of buying an Agilent/Tek/...I can imagine the aftersales service and business contacts are very different for such devices,compared to my internet aquired base-model..

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 04, 2012, 02:53:40 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on June 04, 2012, 05:33:49 amIs the support, documentation and software also in the league of the big boys? The documentation for their low-end models sucks compared to the Agilent/Tektronix manuals I've seen, even the Agilent-rebranded manual was clearly inferior to the manuals for their own designs. Reports about support for the < $1000 models haven't been too great either, no reply being the most common form of support. How does their accessory line-up look compared to Agilent/Lecroy/Tektronix these days?

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 04, 2012, 05:30:43 pm
content: The DS4000 has still critical bugs (measurement cursors in zoom mode) and lacks several features (several automatic measure functions are missing like area or counting pulses/edges, no A/B trigger for different channels). Besides, as Agilent scopes, they seem to always measure in the display buffer. Even worse, in contrary to Agilent scopes, they seem to limit the automatic measurement to three digits (Agilent DSOX3000: 5 digits). The worst thing however is that they seem to also limit the readout of manual measurements to three digits: E.g. 800.123µs is displayed as 800µs (Agilent scopes can easily measure down to the 1ns range manually).There are other limitations compared to a DSOX3000, e.g. there doesn't seem to be any way to search in the (very large) sample buffer. There's just some weird correlation feature which looks nice on screenshots, but seems kinda pointless to me for nonperiodic stuff.Besides, support is a major issue of course. When I last contacted Agilent, they answered immediately and called me back if I was satisfied. When I last contacted Rigol, they simply ignored me. This is a no-go for professional use. For private use, it might be something different.The only benefits I see for the DS4000 compared to Agilent DSOX3000 are:- at least 1k€ cheaper (even without memory update and mask test)- much larger sample memory- sensible gating implementation for measurements (Agilent engineers just doesn't seem to understand this)- dedicated auto/normal trigger key (less important as you can configure utility key on the DSOX3000)All in all the DS4000 looks very interesting for hobby users, especially if they would fix/improve their software a bit. But for professional they're still out of discussion from my point of view.So I must agree: I really don't know who would buy a DS6000. It's too expensive for hobbyists and too risky for professionals.

author: NeilR
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 23, 2012, 10:27:54 am
content: In my opinion, it is the service support behind the manufacturer that should really be considered, especially the higher in price the product becomes.It doesn't matter whether you are a small or large company, T&M equipment is an important investment and the higher the priced instrument you buy, the more emphasis you should place on after sales support and back up.I work for a specialist T&M distributor in the UK and we supply equipment from manufacturers worldwide, large and small, and it is the confidence we have in the larger manufacturers that I feel justifies a realistic premium. We are also lucky that we have our own service facilities.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 23, 2012, 11:25:46 am
content: Quote from: Galenbo on June 04, 2012, 02:46:37 pmDepends on who's buying and why.Sometime you simply won't have the R&D/project budget for the big name scopes, so it's often a wiser choice to go for the better bang-per-buck Rigol in those cases.You'll usually get decent support out of the local dealers on the Rigol scopes if things go wrong.And you likely won't be around at the company past the warranty period anyway :->Dave.