Hi Welcome to the Eev blog an Electronics Engineering Video blog of interest to anyone involved in electronics design. I'm your host Dave Jones Hi It's review time again and it's another ageline oscilloscope. This time it's the big brother to the 2000 series. X Series I reviewed last time it's the 3000 x series infin Vision Oscope.

Woohoo! 1 million waveform updates per second for about three grand. Love it now because there's so much to test on a scope and there's so much similarity between the new 3000 Series and the new 2000 series. I've already done a 1H hour review of the 2000 series. I'm not going to cover any of that again in this review for this.

So if you think I'm missing something, go check out the 2,000 review cuz they're next to identical. So I'll only go through the major differences or I'll only show you the major differences that you get with the new three 3,000 series scope. And here we have the 3,000 series on the left and the 2,000 series on the right over there. and if you can't Spot the Difference between them.

Well, that's not too surprising cuz there essentially is very little difference at all. They basically share the same platform, the same design they've got exactly the same case. they use the same shazzy internally, only the PCB is different. They share the same Uh, user interface, control layout, all the controls right identical or the labeling is identical between the units.

they've all got the function G, the logic analyzer, USB, the Uh, the Uh demo signals and all that and the only real difference that's noticeable uh visually is that the 3000 has the Smart Proe interface on it, those gold contacts along the bottom that let you use uh, Smart active probes. and of course the 3000 Series is higher performance so you will get extra bandwidth and uh, extra waveform up, update speed and extra uh, some extra software functionality as well. but apart from that identical Scopes they're based on the same platform. Now here's a demo of the update rate to show the 1 million waveforms updates per second on the Uh Agilant 3000 Series here as compared to the 2000 series which only has 50,000 only 50,000 waveforms updates per second.

Now we're generating a test signal with a run pulse that actually has one missing that has one run pulse every 50,000 cycles. And as you can see on the 2000 series, it updates. you know roughly once, once or twice per second. So it's capturing that the exact same signal is captured repeatedly on the 3000 Series with the 1 million waveform updates per second.

and if we do the exact same test again but we have a run pulse that is only every only once in every 1 m million Cycles Then as you can see on the 3,000 series with 1 million waveform updates per second, you're capturing at about once or twice per second like that. But the 2000 series which still has a an excellent 50,000 waveform updates per second. Whoop! There We go. It was just there then, but you're lucky to catch that You know once every 30 seconds or something like that.

So if you're trying to find an elusive fault like that, then something like even ,000 waveform updates per second isn't enough. Imagine if you had, um, a run pulse which happened once per day or something like that, you could be sitting here until the cows come home trying to find it on even a 50,000 waveform update per second scope. And as with the 2000 series, The claimed 4 gig samples per second is only in uh, inter leave mode. So what that means is if you're only using one channel, you get your 4 gig samples per second.

as you can see here, but as soon as you switch, switch in a second Channel you only get 2 gig samples per second. It drops in half. But one of the advantages of getting the four channel uh version is that, um, because these are, uh, segmented these these two separate channels that handles them separately if you turn on Channel 3. Look, it stays at 4 gig samples per second.

so you can actually still run two channels side by side, both at 4 gig samples per second because it can handle that inside the Asic But you switch on the that one and it just can't do it. So there's a little trick and the memory depth is going to have too if you turn on the secondary Channel Just like the sample rate. One nice feature, which is also available on the 2000 series to a lesser extent, is uh where it shows these uh, trigger violations so you can actually search for and set up trigger violations. You can see that little white, um, uh, sort of triangle up there and you can see quite clearly here where it's violating.

Uh, certain conditions. So uh, what we've got set up here is we're actually searching for a rise and fall time Edge violation. So you can see the different, uh, rise and fall times there. There's a faster one and a slower one and the slower one is what we're um, actually triggering on.

We're triggering on that violation. So if we go into the search, if we press the search button up here, you'll find that we can, um, choose different types of search events and one of them is Rise and Fall time. So if we're searching for Rise and Fall time, you've got various settings and thresholds which you can actually set up and you'll notice that we're not. Um, it.

It hasn't found any violations at the moment. Okay, there's no white triangle up above there. but if we go into settings and then we adjust the time here, if we adjust the time incre increase that, it's 30 30 Nano If we keep going up, we'll find Bingo! We've suddenly got violations and you can see where it's actually violating that time there. Bingo.

It just comes and goes. You can set those thresholds and it will pick it up. It's fantastic and of course you can stop and capture that and you can actually uh, scroll through and it'll go through the event search like that you can press the left and right uh buttons here and it will jump to the next event it's You can see it's found 55 events where it's violated that you can just jump from one to the other instead of having to scroll through which you normally would with your horizontal your horizontal position Like that. You can still do that if you want, but it's just easier to jump straight to the violation.

Like that each individual violation and you can do that same violation. Search on edge uh. pulse width? uh, right? Four time run pulses and serial decoding as well if you got the serial modules installed. one of the differences, as you'd expect on any high performance oscilloscope, is 50 ohm input termination.

So if we go into the vertical menu here, you'll see you've got our input impedance. You can choose 1 Megga ohm Standard 1 Megga ohm or 50 ohm input impedance and once again, the coupling AC or DC. You don't get a ground option because uh, presumably they put the um, the little ground symbol on the side of the screen here so you know where the ground reference for your waveform is. but well, I Just want my ground option please.

And one of the major items you don't get on the 2000 series is the optional and I highlight the word optional serial decoding So you you hit the serial and you've got all the different modes you've got I S C you've got um, I2s SPI Canam Lin and you at Rs232. Not a bad selection uh at all. but I think there's one missing there and that is USB it can trigger off USB If we go into trigger here, we can see that the list of trigger options we can actually trigger from USB but we can't actually do uh, realtime decoding in USB so that's a bit of a shame really. I uh I I Was a bit disappointed with that one.

but uh, at least you can trigger off USB so you can decode it manually. but um, these serial options allow you to trigger on data like this and you can trigger on all sorts of things: start conditions, stop conditions, missing acknowledges this is uh, I I2c I've got a I2c uh signal being fed into this so you've got your um, your uh clock line and your SDA data line and you can trigger on, uh, all sorts of various items and you'll see it does realtime Hardware decoding and if you hit serial again, you can actually call up a list which will actually um list the data here which is very, very nice and there's various other options as well I won't go into them, but it really is quite a nice option for um, serial decoding. and once again, that's done all in the hardware. It's so you don't get a performance penalty or pay a performance penalty by enabling the serial decoding cuz it's all done on the Asic in real time.

And there's one other thing to remember with the serial decoding option, you don't. Actually, if you buy the option, you don't actually get all of them at once. You have to buy them uh, separately or in groups which is a bit crazy I don't I don't like that you should just be able to get them all. but I guess if you're only working on say, I2s bus, then you only have to buy the I2s bus option.

but jeez, I think that's a bit tight ass. and I forgot to mention one item which you won't find on here as well which is uh JTAG It's a shame that they don't have a JTAG decoder as well. Well, that would have been awesome. Yet another improvement over the 2000 is the trigger options.

You actually get Uh, the top three are the same. you get uh Edge pulse width and pattern on the 2000, but on the 3000 you get extra rise and full time triggering in Edge burst and run pulse triggering and set up in hold time as well which is excellent. Plus you get the USB decode and the serial decode as well so they're very valuable options and they aren't optional, they are bu in and once again, if we go into help here, we have training signals but I forgot to mention this in the previous one. these are actually uh, optional as part of the training package I I believe So they're not actually standard with the scope, but with the 3,000 you do actually get uh a few more because you get uh the test signals for the various Uh serial buses as well which is very nice.

uh for you know, schools or just for setting that up in general to make sure that you can actually um, set up your scope before you, uh, try and trigger on your actual circuit under test. and if we turn on the waveform generator option as per the Uh 2000, it is an extra cost optional extra, you get the function generator output uh down here and it's exactly the same. which is quite surprising because on the 3,000 you actually pay a bit more for that function generator option, but it's identical. It's got the same function s Square ramp pulse noise and it doesn't have arbitary.

Once again, it doesn't have uh, any of that. so it's really exactly the same Uh function generator and as I didn't as I forgot to mention in the 2000 Uh review the even though it's got like a trigger output on the back, it does not have one thing that's missing is a modulation input connector because any good function generator will have modulation capability so that you can use a secondary oscillator or in this case, they could have had it built in to the firmware. I'm sure if they wanted to modulation options for frequency and amplitude for example and that would have been brilliant, but once again, it's probably deliberately crippled to uh not eat into their function generator, otherwise you'll be getting a you know, a top of the line 20 MHz function generator built into this thing and it's a real shame I Think it is. There's a smart probe interface I was telling on new about and the 500 MHz unit comes with Uh 500 MHz passive probe which is pretty much identical.

It's a slightly bigger case to the Uh 200 MHz Uh one which came with the 2000 series. I Did find one extra feature buried away in the measurement menu. here. it's got an extra extra statistics Uh option for your main measurements and you can switch that on or off.

It comes up on the screen here and we can reset the stats like that and it, uh, calculates the stats on the current waveform. There's some extra math functions too on the 3000. so if we go into math here and they've got a couple of Uh operator options, they've got Uh Inc. They've got integral, they've got Uh D on DT and they've got square root as well.

So that's a couple of extra math functions over the 2000 series model. And this table here is a short summary of the difference between the 2000 series and the 3000 Series scopes. Uh, as you can see only eight channel, uh, digital whereas you get 16 channel on the 3,000 70 to 200 MHz bandwidth as opposed to 100 to 500 MHz bandwidth you've got basically, uh, double the sample rate and there's a huge memory difference only 100K points maximum there as opposed to 2 Meg points standard and optional. If you, uh, buy the memory upgrade, you get four Meg points once again maximum, but that changes depending on which mode you're in and the huge difference.

The big selling point point is the 1 million waveform updates per second, which is phenomenal on the 3000. Series. So to get that on a $3,000 class oscilloscope really is quite amazing. and once again, you don't get anything else um, uh, standard really.

As part of the major options, you do get the search and navigate uh function and the serial protocol um, analysis functions. But really, you don't get the segmented memory, you don't get the mass limit, you got to pay extra for those, You do get the auto probe bit and there's a couple of other minor things like the math and other things that we've um seen. There's a few minor differences, but yeah. I Expected a bit more um, standard functionality in the 3000.

Series So I was a little bit disappointed there. I've got to say, and for the 3000 Series they've got even more model options. 14 of them. Count them 14 model options which is crazy.

they had 12 on the 2,000 I thought that was too many. Now they've got the 100 MHz Herz analog bandwidth models here and here. Why? that overlaps with the 2000 series model? It's just crazy I Mean the the 2,000 series model goes to 200 MHz It makes sense to start the 3000 Series from 200 MHz and go upwards. I Don't mind those options 200 350 500.

Not bad options at all. Get rid of the 100 tight asses I Reckon they should have given you the 200 MHz in the standard price, but of course having said that I Still think the 100 MHz model entry level is still excellent value for money. but I think they could have killed the market and gone a bit better by giving you 200 MHz Come on Agilant! Once again, there's a mistake in the data sheet. There is no ground coupling on the input God what are you doing? The digital logic analyz is improved in the 3,000 still 1 gig sample per second but you get uh two Meg points maximum record length but that does does drop to 500k points if you got the analog and the digital uh s sampling at the same time.

So if you got the mix signal interface, just something to be aware of. So as you can see, the 3000 Series has quite a few nice extras over the 200000 series including a hardware frequency counter I Forgot to mention as well which the 2000 doesn't have now. Uh, you've really got to make the choice upfront which model you want to go for because unfort, even though they based on the same or similar platform Hardware Platform: Uh, you can't upgrade a 2,000 series to a 3,000 series with just a firmware upgrade so that's not possible. You got to decide up front and decisions that might want to drive.

that are the million waveform updates per second. the serial decode uh stuff like that, a few of the extra other you know, some of the triggering advanced triggering capabilities, things like that so you just going you know, make that choice up front. do I want to go with the lowc cost version or do I need? uh, you know, serial decode and and higher performance and better triggering in the 3000? Series Overall: I Think Aelin's done a pretty darn good job of positioning the 2000 and the 3000 Series models. A lot of thoughts gone into it and essentially there is.

You know these things are so good that it comes down to the fact is like you buy either like a real low-end you know, a little $400 R go or something like that. There's that price point you know the sub ,000 price point or there's the $10,000 plus uh price point which is a different kettle of fish and in between you've got these, you got the 2,000 and the 3000 Series there not much other choice. they blow most of the other Scopes in that segment out of the water. It's amazing.

Now the base model unit starts at around 2800 us do and that's for the two Channel 100 MHz version and that's pretty darn good value for money I think it I Would highly recommend though. you go for the 4 Channel version. If regardless of what bandwidth or anything else you get, go for the 4 Channel version which is about $570 odd dollar extra. Don't quote me on that, but it's not a huge amount extra when you're talking about that sort of money.

And with the extra four channels, it gives you the uh twice the sample rate if you're only using two channels, so it's it's highly worth buying the four Channel up front cuz if you buy the two channel, you can't upgrade it to a 4 Channel version later. because the hardware is actually not built in the hardware, you buy it two channel. It only Phys physically comes equipped with two channel so I recommend you get spend a little bit extra get the four up front. now.

unlike the 2000 series model that is fully bandwidth software upgradeable, Uh, from Uh 70 to 200 MHz the 3,000 series isn't quite like that. There are different differences now. Uh, the 100 MHz version can be software upgradeable via a license key to 200 MHz but uh, the 350 and the 500 MHz versions. Um, use a totally different, higher performance front end.

So if you want to upgrade from the 100 or the 200 MHz version to the 350 or 500, you physically have to send your unit back to Agant and they'll replace the main board for you now. I Don't think that actually uh costs any extra. Don't quote me on that. But yeah, you do have to physically send it back.

Uh, but if you say bought the 350 MHz version, you can buy the 500 MHz version just by the Uh software license key something to think about and the 4 channel 200 MHz version that starts at about Uh 4 grand. so that's pretty darn good value for money for a million waveform update per second scope. But once you go above that, the prices start to creep up pretty darn quick for that extra Uh bandwidth. If you go to the Uh 350 MHz uh bandwidth, you're looking at about $75,000 if you for a 4 Channel version.

If you want to jump to the 500 MHz version, you hit the 10K Mark for the four Uh Channel version. So the prices start to creep up pretty quick with the Uh 350 or 500 MHz uh front endend options. But even when the prices start going up like that for the higher with models, they're still pretty good value for money. So you've got to really compare it with the competition.

Go compare it with the Tex and the Lacro and you know, make up your own mind for your price performance. Uh, category? really? Um, they they can't match it at the moment. So as I said with the Uh 2000 series, Competition's got a lot of catching up to do and that's the thing you got to consider when you comparing Scopes You can't just look at the analog bandwidth and the sample rate and the sample memory and maybe a few other features. You know you've got to compare apples to apples.

and if you do that, you've got to include the Uh waveform update rate as well. Now you know you may try and compare this: 10 grand. Uh, you know you may compare the topof the range 10 grand version of this to another 10 grand scope. Well, you've got to look at not only the waveform updates per second.

If you do that, you've got to look at how does the Um turning on some of the features affect that sort of stuff on the Ulent? Scopes It doesn't at all. You can turn on the serial realtime, serial, decode the mask in, and those waveform updates per second. Don't drop. You still get a million waveform updates per second.

It's incredible and that depending on your requirements, not everyone's going to have the same requirements. That may be worth its weight and gold. compared to, um, you know, a bit extra analog bandwidth or a bit more sample memory or something like that. But just keep it in mind.

Make sure you compare apples to apples. Don't just rush out and say say these things oh too expensive. and then of course you start talking options. The logic analyzer on this thing is over a grand And granted I love the mixed signal capability built into here.

It's awesome, but gee, you, you pay a bit of a premium for it cuz you can buy a pretty Schmick Uh Standalone USB logic analyzer for you know, under 1,000 bucks so you know that potentially has more capability. granted it's not mixed signal and built in and it's all convenient. And you know you get the advantage of the mixed signal capability and the cross triggering and all the yada yada, all the other stuff. but yeah, you're paying a bit of a premium for that, which is a bit of a shame.

Same with the function generator. you're paying about 700 bucks for the function generator. and my opinion, it's a little bit crippled. and it's a shame because you can get a standalone AR Uh, 20 MHz function generator for around you know5 6 $700 for the same price or less.

So jeez I just just wish it was just they just didn't it as much but still superb value for money. The the Killer and this is the thing people don't understand. They think these are expensive and they're not. You go out and try and buy a million waveform updates per second and this sort of speed.

Traditionally you've had to pay you know, 10 20 grand something like that to get it and now they've They've instantly hared the prices or better. So that's where the improvement with these Scopes come from. and that's where the competition have to catch up. And then you've got the other software options like segment of memory masking the serial decodes which don't just come in one serial decode package.

you got to buy individual serial decode packages. It's just oh man, Agilant where everything's optional extra. And because Agilant have really tried to Target the educational Market With this these things I've heard heard that they are uh, bundling and education options. So if you're in an educational institution or possibly if you're a student I don't know, uh, you'll have to look up the details, but if you buy one, you'll get the free waveform generator option and you'll get the Um training signals and the training manuals and that sort of stuff plus a 15% discount bargain.

Now I Know why they've done the 100 MHz version is to give people a sense of you know, value you down at that bottom end. but I just you know I there's overlap with the 2000 series there I would have preferred if their bottom the range unit started at 200 MHz and you got that for the 2800. but I don't know I'm just being a bit greedy I guess but only because I see all this filter with the new Asic in here I See all this marvelous technology filtering down and now you're getting the million wave form updates per second for an incredible price. But they they still are in that tradition traditional mindset.

It's not just agant here, it's all the manufacturers. They in that traditional mindset where you've got to pay extra for that bandwidth. So if you're after a high performance scope in that midlevel, uh, price category, these offer superb value for money. Highly recommend them.

but go for the four Channel version. It's a winner.