3 ms·

Sure when you can't find connectors, power cables, comparable software or accessories. You got your instrument compared to a traceable reference but good luck g

by mike50 7y ago

Sure when you can't find connectors, power cables, comparable software or accessories. You got your instrument compared to a traceable reference but good luck getting an adjustment or repair performed. This only applies to dumb instruments (power supplies and dc electronic loads) but remember the technology you are measuring is eventuality going to have performance that exceeds your ability to test.

dreamcompiler 7y ago
What is this "software" you speak of? Seriously, I strongly prefer test equipment from the pre-software era. Test equipment shouldn't have to boot, and it shouldn't be dependent for its operation on the shitty non-realtime junk we call operating systems nowadays.
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  As do I. That said, there is something to be said for the economics of using software to compensate for manufacturing tolerances in hardware. 3D printers are a good example of taking a crappy platform and making it perform reasonably precise things using clever software. Of course sometimes that software is in an FPGA design :-). I expect that once the Xilinx RFSOC starts ending up in test gear you'll see some more cost effective GHz gear but very unhackable due to the FPGA nature of things. Of course no amount of software is going to make the front end conditioning circuits quieter (well I suppose simulating them and designing from that might but not on the instrument itself). That will always need a certain expertise to design and implement.
- InitialLastName 7y ago
  I dunno, I've been doing a lot of RF analysis lately as my company has been re-upping our capabilities in that regard. We went from an 80's spectrum analyzer (the Rohde and Schwarz rep laughed at us when we called to ask for calibration data... "that machine was made before you were born") hooked up to an ink plotter to a mid-level Rigol analyzer. It really made me appreciate being able to recall the settings for the scan I ran last week, dump the data for the new scan, baselines and a few variations I wanted to try, and compare them all in Excel back at my desk (alongside the results from the external compliance lab).
  - dreamcompiler 7y ago
    Fair point. Sending data back and forth is certainly useful. My main gripe is with "instruments" that are themselves just applications on a PC with a little bit of external A/D interface hardware. I prefer standalone boxes, perhaps with a data interface but not dependent on it.
- moftz 7y ago
  The newest Keysight spectrum analyzers all run Windows 10. Even an older Tektronix scope I use daily runs XP. The XP install has crapped out a few times but it has a recovery partition built in so it's trivial to restore it.

by mike50 7y ago

dreamcompiler 7y ago

What is this "software" you speak of? Seriously, I strongly prefer test equipment from the pre-software era. Test equipment shouldn't have to boot, and it shouldn't be dependent for its operation on the shitty non-realtime junk we call operating systems nowadays.

ChuckMcM 7y ago
As do I. That said, there is something to be said for the economics of using software to compensate for manufacturing tolerances in hardware. 3D printers are a good example of taking a crappy platform and making it perform reasonably precise things using clever software. Of course sometimes that software is in an FPGA design :-). I expect that once the Xilinx RFSOC starts ending up in test gear you'll see some more cost effective GHz gear but very unhackable due to the FPGA nature of things. Of course no amount of software is going to make the front end conditioning circuits quieter (well I suppose simulating them and designing from that might but not on the instrument itself). That will always need a certain expertise to design and implement.
InitialLastName 7y ago
I dunno, I've been doing a lot of RF analysis lately as my company has been re-upping our capabilities in that regard. We went from an 80's spectrum analyzer (the Rohde and Schwarz rep laughed at us when we called to ask for calibration data... "that machine was made before you were born") hooked up to an ink plotter to a mid-level Rigol analyzer. It really made me appreciate being able to recall the settings for the scan I ran last week, dump the data for the new scan, baselines and a few variations I wanted to try, and compare them all in Excel back at my desk (alongside the results from the external compliance lab).
- dreamcompiler 7y ago
  Fair point. Sending data back and forth is certainly useful. My main gripe is with "instruments" that are themselves just applications on a PC with a little bit of external A/D interface hardware. I prefer standalone boxes, perhaps with a data interface but not dependent on it.
moftz 7y ago
The newest Keysight spectrum analyzers all run Windows 10. Even an older Tektronix scope I use daily runs XP. The XP install has crapped out a few times but it has a recovery partition built in so it's trivial to restore it.