Oscilloscope Throwdown! HD

Ben is happy because he’s standing in front of a table full of oscilloscopes. Felix wants to know what oscilloscopes are and why they’re here. In this episode Ben and Felix evaluate oscilloscopes from Tektronix, Rohde & Schwartz, and Keysight. They discuss the differences between the scopes, what they can do, and put them through the paces. Visit the Ben Heck Page: http://bit.ly/2hEVrtO Visit sudo Sergeant: http://bit.ly/2wThMu6 View Ben’s Raspberry Pi Hacks: http://bit.ly/2kJrzkK See Felix’s Favorite Linux Distros: http://bit.ly/2g7Lntb Win prizes for your electronics projects: http://bit.ly/2xFmKPo Oscilloscopes are available from element14: Keysight DSOX1102G : http://bit.ly/2yf0Nq5 Rohde & Schwarz RTB2004 : http://bit.ly/2zlXriH Keysight MSOX3054T : http://bit.ly/2xD6IAX Tektronix MSO58:5-BW-2000 : http://bit.ly/2zm6yA6 The first scope they look at is the Keysight DSOX 1102G. It’s a smaller scope, it’s slower, it’s only 70 mHz, but it’s basically Keysight’s introduction to the entry level range of affordable scopes. As such, it only has 2 channels. Scopes should have at minimum 2 channels because observing the differences between 2 signals is quite important. They discuss some of the basic features of the scope, how it differs from the other scopes, and then they’ll use it to reverse-engineer the data signals going to the LCD screen of a portable DVD player. They are trying to find the TTL pins on the LCD screen because they want to hook it up to a Raspberry Pi. They come across some strange signals on the LCD that they weren’t expecting so decide to run the same tests with the next scope which is at a higher speed grade. The next scope that Ben and Felix look at is the Rohde & Schwarz RTB2004. It features four channels, universal knobs, a touch screen, and is about 4x faster than the last scope. Of all the scopes the team looked at, the Rohde & Schwartz RTB2004 boots the fastest. Felix points out that the firmware on it is rtos, a real-time operating system that’s open source. As the scope has more memory, it allows you to capture a “wider” event, such as the entire frame of a video signal. The scope has triggers on video where it finds, not just a low pulse because the video is an analog signal, but it looks for the specific stair-stepping that indicates that it’s the edge of an NTSC line and it can sync to it. A trigger is a when you set your scope to look for a certain type of signal. When a scope is triggered it can pause (‘run single’ setting) or align the display to the start of the event. The Keysight MSOX3054T is the next oscilloscope the team looks at. At 5 gigs per second and 500 mHz it’s a little faster than the Rohde & Schwarz scope they just got done looking at. An FPGA powered demo board is included with the scope and gives the team a range of signals to learn their new scope with. One of the signals is SPI, which stands for serial peripheral interface and is used with such things as SD cards, sensors,