Memoirs of Fls'Zen

Sunday, February 27, 2011

New Oscilloscope

Over the last year I regularly entered the monthly scope giveaway at Tektronix's ScopeCentral. Other than the monthly drawing it is a nice place to go to for information on oscilloscope, both in regard to reference and technique. My persistence paid off—in January my name was picked! I'm now the proud owner of a brand new MSO2024. The prize is technically a TDS2002B, but they gave me a better one, probably due to the fact that some people drawn aren't able to accept sweepstakes prizes. On the other hand, it could be because the machine was built 2 years ago. Considering the big scope scale they're having now (up to 25% off), they might have upgraded me to move stock. Whatever the case, it's an awesome oscilloscope!

It only took a couple hours to get used to the interface provided by the MSO2024. It's notably different than the HP 54111D I've been using. I know, it's almost as old as me, but I got it for a couple hundred bucks. The MSO2024 is 200MHz, but the modern features it offers outweigh the slower speed. The 16 digital channels it offers make it simple to trace program execution alongside whatever I'm trying to acquire on the scope at the time. I just have to pulse some bits in my code and have them connected to digital lines in the scope.

I could wax eloquent for pages about all the niceties available in a modern piece of equipment such as the MSO2024, but it suffices to say that I'm very impressed by it. If I didn't win this one, but had the opportunity to use one for a few days, I'd probably buy one as soon as I could. Five grand is well worth what it has to offer. (I didn't mention the USB connectivity (storage, NI) and expansion options. Go find out for yourself!)

Within a few month, I expect to sell my HP 54111D on eBay. Given that I have a set of HP probes with all their accessories for it, I can probably sell it for a pretty penny. Hopefully I can sell it for enough that I can buy one of expansion cards that enable the MSO2024 to analyze and trigger on buses. I'm not sure which one to get, though. Probably not the CAN, LIN one.

And finally, for posterity:

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