LeCroy Wavepro 254 R&D Oscilloscope acquisition now settled - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2020, 06:52:26 pm
content: Now I have some time on my hands due to the current situation that is affecting all of us, would you like to bring you up to date on the big scope purchase.For those of you that vaguely recall my exploits earlier in the year with the Tektronix MSO64 it was a bitter sweet experience. I was not enamoured with the Tek at all despite it being our first choice (all that glitters certainly is not gold!)Sticking points for myself, very average GUI, having to access certain functions via apps (tools etc) rather than direct access ala' Keysight or even Rigol.The rather daft idea of dragging a channel that you no longer wish to use across the other side of the screen to 'bin it' I am now aware this has been rectified in the last FW update.The boot up time is quite frankly a joke, averaging 5 minutes 35 seconds, (Tek's own OS not W10 option!) then it ability to crash on a regular basis. In the 10 days I had the unit on loan my reboot time (after freezing or crashing) was close to 120 minutes wholly unacceptable.The unit I did not find intuitive at all, the screen is also a touch dark and no hdmi and the 12 bits ADC technical manipulation at various frequencies and sample rates.I am sorry but for this outlay it should be as close to spot on as possible, I totally accept that ALL scopes in this arena will have bugs and small issues due to the complex nature of these devicesThen we move on to the cost with the options:-6-BW-1000 Installed Option; 1 GHz Bandwidth £21,400.006-PWR Installed Option; Power measurement and analysis £3,020.006-SRAUDIO Audio serial triggering and analysis (I2S, LJ, RJ, TDM) £1,820.006-DJA Installed Option; Advanced jitter and eye analysis £6,310.00THDP0200 Differential PROBE; 200 MHZ HIGH VOLTAGE PROBE £1,890.00TMDP0200 Differential PROBE; 200 MHZ £1,890.00TCP202A Probe, AC/DC Current; DC coupled, £ 2,520.00TCP0020 Probe, AC/DC Current; 20 Amp; 50 MHz £ 2,720.00TCP0150 Current Probe: £4,610.00To be fair we really need 2.5Ghz which is £28,600Gives a total of £54K+vat to be fair we were offered 30% of the scope itself, but next to zero on any of the software or probes.So the Tek MSO564 was sampled, tried and well really did nothing for our applications though the Tru-view probe is quite special but so is the price and I will not purchase any piece of equipment to be shoe honed a corner by ANY brand.After speaking to Wuerstchenhund at great length he suggested to take a closer look at the Keysight MSO 'S' Infiniium series and the LeCroy HDO 9000He did mention that the LeCroy only has one vertical control knob and that some folks are quite against this (not as much as the nearly six minute boot up time!) and that the Keysight has a few quirks of its own.Next up was the Keysight, right out of the box this is more like it, far more intuitive, easier screen manipulation, access of measurement tools so much better.Quieter as well, interestingly I found myself switching on the S series everyday as it was so nice to use (YMMV and I understand we all have our own preferences)It's a very good scope, great flexibility, far more easier to use on a daily basis coupled with easy drop down menus and accessibility.For the equivalent model with equal software and probes abilities the cost was around £6500 less before any discounts were applied.All the staff that would be using this scope as well as myself were very positive about this unit.If you are looking to spend this sort of outlay on any quality tool it really needs to be able to do what you require of it and in a manner the technicians like to use said scope plus you really need to look at ALL options in this sector.Next the LeCroy, after speaking at length with the UK team about our specific requirements a loan of A Wavepro 254 was arranged and duly delivered by two gents who really knew their product.After a brief rundown (three hours!) of the basic and slightly more advanced features of the scope. So now its play timeAs Wuerstchenhund hinted, the LeCroy has a few of its own foibles, however it was straight out of the gate form the offset.I will say All of the scopes we tested had a decent high build quality to them, the Rhode was very nice, the Tek was just a posh well equipped hulking bench hoggerThe Wavepro 254 was not far behind but managed to look far less imposing the the Tek, colour maybe?The LeCroy is just so nice to use, its natural and fluid and intuitive, the tools are so much nicer to use than all of the other brands (though Keysight a good second).The in-depth capability of the tools is quiet something, as is the noise floor on this great scope, easily managed to best LeCroy's own figures on virtually every published figure.The way the screen is laid out just works pure and simple, the serial data decoding tools arh these are a total joy. Power analysis very good as well, though we do have a high quality dedicated power analyser. Probes just worked, calibration very simple and straightforward.The loan unit come with ever conceivable option, the amount of choice was over whelming plus the 8Ghz BW and yes 5Gpts of memory, extra ram, two SSD's.Boot up time to full W10 and scope running 1 minute 44 seconds average.Also the PC section the LeCroy is more advanced faster etc I believe.For my purposes I BW restricted to 2.5Ghz, and disabled all of the functions We were not going to use (which took about 25 minutes to do this!)Within the remaining hours of that afternoon I felt very comfortable with the Wavepro and quite confident to grasp its basics enough to try out a experiments the following day.The LeCroy did freeze on me three times, however it did boot straight back into windows I did not have to switch the unit off ala' Tek.Found a couple of bugs related to specific probes, however it did not stop me from exploring the scope at all. (these have been traced to a faulty probe not the scope).Below are some noise measurements, at a BW limited to 2.5Ghz, 50Ohm, zero filters and No ERES, open port, unit been running for 40 minutes. 20G/s and 20p/s on the HTB with hindsight increasing the HTB would have proved beneficial I suspect!Will follow up with P II shortly

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2020, 01:12:47 pm
content: The second installment of this review concerning the LeCroy Wavepro 254 and the Keysight S series Infiniium scopes I will now sum up.So diving into the jitter, SDA, power analyzer and spectral analysis section for this write up. Our criteria for this purchase is for the study/design of high quality ultra low noise power supplies, high speed serial data applications and audio data and clock properties. A couple of nice features on this scope is the ability to use the DFP2 (sensible cost option) a digital filter package which is a full of useful and neat features.https://teledynelecroy.com/options/productseries.aspx?mseries=301&groupid=80One item I really must mention is the Lab notebook which is standard on this model, its so simple and just so easy to use why any of the other big four have brought out their own versions yet us surprising.https://teledynelecroy.com/doc/this-interactive-notebook-is-the-ultimate-in-documentationSo down to business the first series of screen shoots are from a new audio word clock device we are working on, these images are fixed at four times red book multiples 176.4Khz.The first images show the basic waveform with the relevant meas attributes that I was looking at, the next with curses added, after that with the basic jitter package and followed up with a coupe of serial data images from the wonderful SDA III tool set. Plus some ripple current spectral analysis as well.https://teledynelecroy.com/options/productseries.aspx?mseries=405&groupid=103As you can see the layout is easy to interpret and understand screen is really crisp and clean with the right amount of brightness and colour, the pinch and zoom are just spot on as well a good step up from the Tek (which itself wasn't too bad).The analysis speed is fast and the whole scope just gives you confidence that what you are seeing on the screen is as accurate as it possibly can be (I have no doubt the Keysight S series did this as well).Next up part three with some 10Mhz measurements with the full SDA III suite

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2020, 01:47:51 pm
content: Finial section you will be pleased to hereThis last section is about some investigations we were looking into around the 10Mhz region for word clock generation and distribution.These last few images were made using the full SDA III suite looking at all forms of jitter, eye patterns, bath tubs, histograms etc.Simple to set up, yet ultra insightful and easy to determine any or possible issues relating to serial data pathway issues plus its really intuitive to use, best serial data package out there by far imho.In case you had not worked it out yet, the LeCroy Wavepro 254 is one superb piece of test equipment and we love it (odd I know?) It simply does what you ask of it without fuss and just gets you the results as a piece of equipment at this level should do accurately and informatively.Cost wise the basic unit is around £3K more than the equivalent Keysight or Tek models, it has a better processor, display faster boot up, equal to or slightly more sample memory. The big 5Gpts memory cost do not ask it is expensive! A 500Mpts option before discount was £8000.So with the like for like current and differential probes, 200Mpts of memory, 2.5Ghz bandwidth, the following software:- DFP2; AUDIOBUS TD; DIG-PWR-MGMT; JITKIT; -PWR; SDAIII. The costs were more than comparable with the Tek before any discounts yet with much better and more in depth unit in our view.I must point out that the Tel MSO64 has 25G/s to the LeCroy Wavepro 254's 20G/s although the Wavepro's deep memory potential makes a total mockery of the Tek 250Mpts maximumThought I would share an image of all the possible clock recovery options this Wavepro had built in and then in a head to head contest with the Rigol MSO 8000 which did surprisingly well, no its no Wavepro but it a lot better than you would give it credit for.Ok yes it is our new R&D scopeIf you are looking to upgrade you current R&D scope then I would suggest looking at both the Keysight S series and the newer LeCroy Wavepro range both are most excellent devices.A big thank you to Wuerstchenhund for all his assistance and invaluable experienceAlso to Tv84 for being a real decent human being

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2020, 06:30:46 pm
content: Thanks Sig. I was completely sure that this forum was missing the valuable information that you, with your hands on experience, can provide. Your unbiased comments are always welcome!