RoadTest: Tektronix MSO2024B Oscilloscope
Author: migration.user
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Independent Products
Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True
What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?: I have considered PC attached oscilloscopes in the past, as I am just breaking into the electronics space.
What were the biggest problems encountered?: Some signals where hard to isolate, this could be due to my inexperience.
Detailed Review:
Introduction
First and foremost I want to thank Element 14 and Tektronix for the opportunity to evaluate their product. For someone who is somewhat new into the digital circuits and hardware devices, this oscilliscope packs a lot of features to help me understand what is going on behind the scenes with the electronics I experiment with. I intend this to be a multi part review, starting with an initial impression. First, the oscilloscope inlcude the components necessary for me to begin exploring both analog and digital circuits. This included 4 TPP0200 CatII Passive Probes with 200MHz of bandwidth, a P6316 16 channel digital probe, and for test purposes a DPO2EMDB embedded serial triggering and analysis module. Additional modules are available including a DPO2CONN, ethernent and video out connectivity module, and the DPO2COMP computer serial and analysis module.
For the sake of transparency, I will be looking at this scope from the point of view of someone who as worked with electronics for many years, but mainly as a tinkerer. To that end, this review will contain my impressions from that perspective. To begin with, I was fortune enough to have a problem with my Onkoyo SR-606 amplifier. The unit was not producing sound. I located the problem component, a bloated electrolitic capacitor, and I removed it for testing. I setup an arduino mega 1280 to act as a pulse generator via the blink function, and tuned the frequency to 60hz (16.6ms). I then added a know good capacitor to another channel and ran proceeded to test the capacitor (on a different). The 7 inch TFT LCD was easily readable and included the capability to modify the trace based on the output of the channel, thereby providing a visual reference to the output of that circuit. Additionally, I could easily see the difference between the two capacitors with enough confidence to know it was blown.
This intial review is intended to be part of a series. I have several other devices I would like to monitor and test, including a controller (RAMP 1.4) for my 3d printer, and digging into the output from my weather station via the digital probe. At this point I am not going to adjust the review dropdown's yet. I want to do more testing prior to providing a final score. Stay tuned more to come.
After traveling in South East Asia for the Past 3 months I
have returned. I have been to Kuala
Lumpur and Bangkok, sampling their electronic wares on the way. None the less there is no place like
home. Now back to the review. Over the past couple of months and as part of
my 3D printing hobby, I have been building a Kickstarter device called a
filastruder. The purpose of the
filastruder is to turn plastic pellets into usable filament. As part of that process I need the ability to
wind up the newly produced filament. To
that end, I have employed an electronic control board based on the work done by
Ian Johnson.
The reason I mention this is because this is the basis of my
digital tests. The winder has multiple
components, including optical sensors, MOSFET’s, and as the driver an arduino
reading signal inputs from these components.
In order to understand when the filament needs to be wound and at what
speed, I need to be able to test for the filament’s position based on voltage
coming from the sensor. I was able to do
this utilizing the analog input. In
addition, I needed to track how PWM is being applied to the MOSFET to control
the speed of the winding motor. One of
the features of this scope is to see both Analog and Digital signals at the same
time. Moreover, I have two MOSFETS controlling
two separate motors, one for the spool winder, the second a filament ‘puller’. Being able to see the PWM pulses for each of
these motors on the same screen made debugging much simpler.
One concern I have is the ability to isolate the PWM
pulses. This may have been from my lack
of experience, but it was somewhat difficult to get the entire pulse on the
screen. Nonetheless, the Scope performed
the testing function and I was able to see the pulses.
Based on what I have been able to do with the scope so far,
I am going to score the product. I
intend to come back and add to this review as time permits and as I am able to
use it to test additional components and boards.
