Early last week I received a Tektronix TBS1202B-EDU oscilloscope through the post from Element14. Since my old analogue oscilloscope died about 2 months ago, I was in my element when the Tektronix unit arrived!
Here's an account of my first experiences with the TBS1202B-EDU.
First Impressions
The oscilloscope arrived in a well packaged condition along with safety instructions, list of contents, CD containing documentation, 2 x 200MHz probes with accessories, a kind reminder and instructions on updating the firmware and finally a certificate of traceable calibration.
The TBS1202B is a very smart looking, compact piece of kit. The controls are very tactile with nice silky touch rubberised buttons and plenty of dials for me to twiddle till my hearts content!! (ps. some of them even press in, total touchy feely bonus!).
A really nice touch is the colour coding linking the input connectors to their specific vertical controls. All of the controls are nicely grouped together based on their function which really does help to quickly find the button or dial you need.
A final word (last but by no means least significant) on the physical features of the TBS1202B-EDU is the screen! I know I'm used to using a smallish analogue scope but I have had the experience of using digital scopes from time to time and never have I seen a screen so big on an oscilloscope. Plugging it in and pressing the 'on' button, I expected it to be a relatively low quality display but to my surprise the resolution and colour depth on the pictures as it was booting up were far above and beyond anything I would have expected.
It's nice to know that Tektronix are paying attention to designing useful well laid out controls and designing in good quality output displays to this range of oscilloscopes.
Finding My Way Around
After doing some quick probing and getting used to the basic controls I had a quick look through the course ware system that's included with the '-EDU' range of oscilloscopes which has some basic examples and looks to be a very promising feature (not only to be used for course ware but it also strikes me as being a possible reference archive to keep on your scope, rather than writing up lessons, you could store some basic circuits, write out some popular data sheets and possibly even add some references such as resistor colour code look up guides and value conversion sheets. I know it's designed to store lessons for use in educational settings but it is definitely a feature that can be exploited to increase the usefulness of the oscilloscope on your workbench *1)
[*1 mini project for a quiet day]> copy a commonly used data sheet into the course ware system to test proof of concept.
My next call was to head over to the Tektronix website and soon found a few videos to help find my way around the many features the scope has to offer. The most useful to start with is http://uk.tek.com/product-features/tbs1000b-and-tbs1000b-edu-series-making-measurements which guides you through finding your way around the functions and measurements that are provided. There are a couple of instances where the video lost me, occasionally there are parts where the video has been cut and you can miss how to navigate to the features that are currently being demonstrated but they're easy enough to find for yourself with some perseverance.
Firmware Update
I'd put off the firmware update for long enough, so I followed the instructions that were included in the box and headed over to Tektronix website to download the latest update, all seemed to go well but no matter what I tried I was unable to get the update to be recognised and install.
I went back to the website and downloaded an earlier update thinking they might need to be installed recursively, indeed the earlier update installed without a hitch and I downloaded and started reading the user guide from the website (rather than from the CD) while I was waiting for it to complete.
Once done, I retried the latest update; once again, it wasn't being recognised as an update so I went back to Tektronix website to see if there had been others with the same problem, it seems that people originally had trouble installing the previous update when it was released and it was resolved by changing the file name. This was solved eventually in general by Tektronix changing the name of the update file on the website.
The latest update is a file called 'TBS1KB_3.TEK'. It seems that you have to remove _3 from the file name for it to be recognised as an update file by the oscilloscope so it becomes 'TBS1KB.TEK'. Sure enough! changing the file name does the trick and this update installs just as easily as the previous one.
* as a side note, I have emailed quality (at) tektronix.com to bring this to their attention and hopefully resolve it or make a note on the download page to guide people in successfully keeping their equipment up to date.
Thoughts And Observations
The Tektronix 1202B-EDU is a great piece of kit and is going to become invaluable, I have plenty of projects coming up in the near future that I will need to be using the scope for.
My old oscilloscope was a 20MHz analogue model that worked well for the technology I was using at the time, the 1202B-EDU is a 200MHz model at 2 GS/s. While I managed for so long with a very much lower specification, most of the projects I worked on were using micro controllers that run on 20MHz clocks (or in the case of the PIC18F4550 when it came out could be used at 40MHz by utilising the PLL's that are there to enable USB capabilities to the device). However, times are moving forwards quickly and with the new generation of technologies producing easy entry devices operating in the range of at least 100MHz to way beyond 1GHz means that a higher bandwidth model of oscilloscope will become a necessity for even newcomers to electronics let alone experienced people.
If you are in the market for an oscilloscope, then it is worth saving and spending that little bit more on a higher bandwidth and sample rate model to be able to scope out signals produced by the new range of zippy small
small board computers, modern signal bus speeds and not to mention FPGA's becoming a now accessible design tool that are been produced with a focus towards ease of development and bringing them into the domain of the hobbyist.
In short, embedded development systems have evolved to the point where an independent developer or inventor is now capable of developing on technology that was until recently in the domain of professional enterprises with teams of engineers.
If you're going to be working with any of these professional technologies then it's just as important that you use professional test equipment. The Tektronix TBS1202B-EDU is in the realm of a professional piece of equipment. I would consider getting the TBS1202B model instead (rather than the -EDU model) since it offers a more comprehensive data logging system albeit at t he expense of the course ware feature.
I'll be documenting some of my experiences using this oscilloscope in the near future as I work on the varied range of projects that I have scheduled.
Lucie
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