TSP #208 - Tektronix 2-Series 4-Channel 2.5GS/s 500MHz MSO Review, Teardown & Experiments

Is this episode Shahriar takes a look at the brand new 2-Series oscilloscope from Tektronix:

This review is organized as follows:

00:00 - Introductions & overview.
01:23 - Instrument interfaces, specifications & design.
04:00 - Detailed teardown, instrument architecture & PCB design.
12:46 - Input impedance considerations, 50-Ohm passthrough experiment, FFT usage.
16:56 - Triggering on infrequent events, runt & pulse detection, advanced triggering usage.
21:25 - Detection analog waveform anomalies, high-resolution mode, acquisition control.
23:26 - Bus decoding capabilities, packet table viewing, UART decoding.
25:56 - AFG functionality, measuring filter responses, arbitrary & noise generation.
32:22 - Concluding remarks.

[EEVblog]

Your board is significantly different than mine. When did you get yours? Mine is a qualification build from early April.

[TechBench]

Outstanding review. Specifically showing how to use the 'scope _correctly_ as opposed to what one might think how to use it based on old-school principles. Your usual in-depth testing and analysis is very much appreciated.

[Nik]

An update video would be great after they enable the digital channels and the pattern generator. I'm particularly interested in the latter's interface. Mostly how easy it is do generate standard protocols like I2C, SPI, UART, etc. Each time i need a very simple test involving one of those, i find it easiest to just hookup a MCU dev kit and write some code. I know my signal generators can do it, but usually its simple to write some code.
PS: Sorry for the spam of like 3 comments just from me.

[lord_haven]

Thanks for doing these videos. I appreciate how in depth they are!

[SirMo]

The fact that you can float it via battery pack is quite useful. Nice job by Tektronix.

[Nik]

Drinking game - drink every time he uses the FFT function.

[Chriva]

I just love that you and Dave EEV uploaded at almost the same time. Lots of stuff to be learned the next hour or so. Thank you guys :)

[Leezorc]

Big thanks Shahriar. As always great video!

[Ricardk]

I love your video as you are tearingdown the thing, but the most important, explaining ideas about how to use triggers, fft and so on. About the scope, is lovely and too expensive for my budget (>12keur x 4 channels 500Mhz).

[steve_case]

Very thoughtful experiments as always.

[simondahlberg]

I'm here because of neingag, congrats to 100k mate

[MarcelHuguenin]

LOL, just watched Dave's teardown video 😉

[MatthiasWelwarsky]

I love the glass, rotary serving plate :) I hope the girlfriend doesn't mind :-D

[simonbaxter]

5:12 like the way you lifted a few pads off when you removed the input shield! Not sure Tektronix were expecting that much of a teardown 🤣 Apart from the battery modularity option, there doesn't seem to be much different in functionality (for £10K) and performance than my Siglent SDS2504X Plus (£3K !) ... and the Siglent is 1/3rd of the price with more AWG options and protocol decoders and a 16 channel digital logic analyser !

[KeritechElectronics]

Interesting that both you and Dave got different versions of the board. I wouldn't expect Tek to send out pre-release stuff.

[ffrige]

WHAT??!!? Tek is releasing something sexier than Keysight entry level scopes?? This series 2 is pretty badass!

[Vbeletronico]

Great video! I loved how you thoroughly loaded the oscilloscope at around 25:50 and it still performed its functions and the UI was still responsive. Is that also true when you use the touch? The reason of my question is that. surprisingly, the MDO3/4 that I evaluated back in 2019 was incredibly sluggish, requiring several seconds to respond to touch and its physical controls.

[santiall]

Excelent review as always!.
I guess in the long term those pins on the front for the pattern generator front would be better than a female connector. Those female connectors have a very limited number of insertions before the contact springs loose flexibility and I guess they'd need to be replaced more often than potential broken pins.
Hijacking the thread here, it'd be very nice if you could make a tutorial of how to calibrate a VNA before performing measurements. I always have the feeling of missing something or 'being blind' when using a VNA 😁

[aetpagwtom]

Come a long way since the venerable 465B, nice video!

[alteriaautomation]

Yes It would be very interesting to see the serial options at work.