TSP #87 - Tektronix MDO4104C-6 Mixed Domain Oscilloscope (MDO4000C) Review, Teardown and Experiments

[@w2aew]

After the coaxial balun, the additional signal injection (at 28 minute mark) is the dither injection.

[@oriole8789]

This is no different than creating training classes for professionals. Complex, well-polished, mild-mannered, strong focus on problem-solving. Non-trivial effort indeed. I could not do what you're doing, and I've done plenty of tutoring in my life. Thank you sincerely, very interesting. Hopefully between patreon and manufacturer relations, you'll keep getting the resources you need to keep doing this. :) Pretty lab is pretty, and hopefully still feline-friendly. My take on all the recent Tek stuff is that it will drive some people crazy, but it will absolutely do the job at the same time when you get used to its idiosyncracies. Best value for the money, I absolutely admit that. Indeed there are no other instruments that integrate so much mixed signal functionality into one box. However, if cost is not a big issue, I can't help but think that a combination of other higher-performing instruments would create a better lab experience in general, even if you have to get creative about tying them together at times (I point this out because no one works in mixed domain 100% of the time). There isn't a single Keysight instrument that performs so poorly in the update rate and UI department, and R&S is just worlds away altogether. It feels that when it comes to this element, Tek's stance is basically: "Yeah, we don't care. It works eventually, so just be patient." It's frustrating because high-performance CPUs are hardly a challenge these days. You didn't even bother to check what their CPU was, because indeed it's trivial. Put something beefier in there, stick on a fan if necessary. It's unfortunate because the slow CPU will translate into a total fear of ever zooming out to a longer timebase without making a coffee first. To draw an analogy - it's the difference between a car with 70hp which will indeed get you around the country, but it's hardly going to be an experience that you'll look forward to every day, and you'll dread hills as much as you'd dread long timebases with the Tek stuff. Does user experience not matter? Does a pleasant and agile employee experience not translate into creativity and exploration? How awkward is too awkward? 100% focus on problem-solving for the employer at the expense of misery for the lab workers, as if they don't have enough as part of the job? Honestly, I'd cough up the cash for something that doesn't torture my employees. Also, given how brilliantly well designed most of the hardware and software is, it almost seems like a decision by a stubborn manager, or a technical reason such as not wanting to add expense/issues by switching to a higher-power PSU that may be necessary or that this issue just wasn't escalated enough. The bottom line is that It feels like it's running on a Raspberry Pi. This was my personal opinion, and Tek, send this man some cookies for doing what he's doing for you.

[@w2aew]

Note - at 45:50, the Frequency vs. Time trace is not taking the peak of spectrum result vs. time, but rather is plotting the first derivative of the arctan(Q/i) - to basically show instantaneous frequency vs. time.

[@keithlambell1970]

A very instructive video. Easily the most professional demonstration of investigating complex issues in a digitally controlled RF circuit I have ever seen.

[@gotbread2]

What you are doing is a great benefit for electronics engineers everywhere. Im amazed at how much work you put in this and how well you explain it. I and many fellow colleagues greatly appreciate your effort. I have no patreon currently but i strongly consider getting it just to help you with this channel!

[@w2aew]

Note also that you can start 'zooming' by simply turning the inner knob - you don't have to hit the zoom button first. Similarly, you can move the Spectrum time back and forth with simply the Pan knob, no need to hit the zoom button first.

[@Thesignalpath]

w2aew thanks for the additional information. How did you like the review?

[@w2aew]

Great job, as always. Really good, practical, real-world example experiments that illustrate the unique value of the MDO4k. If I recall correctly, zooming in by simply rotating the inner Wave Inspector knob will result in zooming at the center, regardless of where you left the zoom pan position before. (Hitting the zoom button returns to the last used zoom position). I'm away from my scope right now, otherwise I'd verify this myself. One more thing - I totally agree with you - the MDO4K is one of *my* favorite instruments in my lab too!

[@nraynaud]

Thank you for coming back, I was in withdrawal, watching shipwright videos at unreasonable hours of the night.

[@wither8]

That dude is equally awesome for entirely different reasons. The first time I heard him speak I immediately thought "there's no way he wasn't either from the Cape or RI" ahaha. I love watching old timers document their craft and go into the historical development of the field. I.e., Mrpete222's channel is something that should go into the National Archives because it's such a comprehensive document on the evolution of a field. (As an aside, Keith Fenner does a good job too on capturing another era of evolution since his training was all hand cranking against the Mitutoyo inside micrometers and Browne and Sharpe gage sets, not the HAAS probe and G-code. Not making a value judgment one way or another, just interesting to note.)

[@senohpi]

thank you for the video, interesting to see what the MDO4000-series are capable of!

[@binarybox.binarybox]

I found the video really interesting. Thank you. The power of the MDO4104C is incredible. As you say, finding the cause of the noise bursts and noise on the L.O. would have been very time-consuming without the 4104C .

[@kikprog]

Thanks for a video, and i wish it will be good year for you Shahriar!

[@rysend]

Awesome! Really, really appreciate your effort of putting together these amazing, detailed videos - Thank you!

[@JetNmyFuture]

This one was good enough to go back and watch it again - taking notes the second time. Going to confirm my Patreon now.....

[@JetNmyFuture]

Why does this video not show up in Patreon?

[@MinnoW12]

Great video! And as usual, amazing detail and complexity. Do you plan on making videos if the process you went through to decide what the circuit under test will be? As a hobbyist, It would be interesting to see you think through that process. It could just be a simple, raw video of the creative process. Looking forward to the next video! My jaw dropped when that camera panned around to bring the bench into view! Looking forward to the lab walk through! Be nice to also get a quick description of what each thing does and why.

[@bzuidgeest]

Very capable instrument. I agree everyone should own one. Now if I could just remember where I left that sock with the spare 16000 euro's... my hobby bench will be updated in no time at all :) You are very lucky to have or have access to all that equipment.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Sounds very echoy - need some soft furnishings!

[@Thesignalpath]

Yes, right now there is nothing in here but the lab! I will work on improving the sound quality.

[@PrincipalAudio]

Close miking using a lavalier mic can help with reducing room reverberation. If using a mic separately from the camera, hypercardioid mics are probably the best for recording dialogue in echoey rooms. When summed to mono, your voice should sum to be a little louder versus the room reverb. Noise reduction plugins that auto-analyse the audio can help to reduce the reverberation time a little and give the impression that you're in a less echoey room. Hope these tips help a little! :) Jim.

[@Thesignalpath]

Thanks, I will look into it.

[@thewyliestcoyote]

Or you could just compute the auto-correlation matrix of sound signal and compute the whitening filter, then filter the audio signal. No need for some soft furnishings ;).

[@MarcinKurczalski]

thewyliestcoyote whichever is easier to do xD

[@feedback-loop]

Let me go ahead and thank you for this great review.

[@xDevscom_EE]

Thanks, worthy video for every second of it. Learned few things from that well-defined experiment. Having MDO4054C on my bench I can confirm it's a nice capable instrument. Glad to see much longer new bench setup. You might need to add upper shelve soon to prevent instrument overload. Never enough space... Btw, what's the ALTERA FPGA? Looks like Arria to me.

[@AureliusR]

Did they fix the update rate yet? I guess we'll find out when he gets to the experiments.

[@dryerzinia]

That was awesome. How did you couple the I2C noise into the VCO power-supply, where you using it for the I2C pullups?

[@galileo_rs]

Frequency hopping is not encryption, first 2 trouble shooting examples were kind of simple, everything else was great (as usual). Great to see that your lab is running, those stackable shelves are great BTW.

[@Thesignalpath]

Thanks! Frequency hopping is used for encryption and cryptography especially by the military who are not bound by FCC regulations. With advanced SDRs it is harder and harder to just rely on frequency hopping. Almost all system employ other means of encryption as well.

[@ChipGuy]

The shelves are great, indeed. Just from stuff you can get at the hardware shop. They sell those nice stainless steel feet in various lenghts and some nice wood wood panels that are ideal for that kinda purpose. And all of that costs usually

[@galileo_rs]

+The Signal Path There is no encryption with only FH, hence it is not encryption. In IT security that's called obfuscation. Well known topic in wireless net security etc. I expect a lot of cool projects when LimeSDR comes out, 60MHz of bandwidth for that amount of $ ...

[@galileo_rs]

+Chip Guy Vids I tried to find those locally, could not find any. A friend has a TIG welder, so another project in the works :)

[@ChipGuy]

Good idea: I got some similar to those, just shorter: www.hornbach.de/data/shop/D04/001/700/355/95/DV_8_5132401_01_4c_DE_20140603091936.jpg

[@MauroSedrani]

Amazing, as usual!

[@Zadster]

I may have involuntarily squeaked slightly when the camera panned across the lab and I saw the test gear...

[@idooggoodi]

Hi Shahryar thanks for the great video. why they used the three attenuation on the rf signal path and then an amplifier exactly afterwards !?

[@babybearkill1]

would love to see a detailed video on the construction and physics involved with a yig oscillators and other uWave boxes of nutty goodness. nerdgasm material.

[@kirkpennock2997]

Love the short add.

[@AF6LJSue]

This was really good, a most powerful tool.

[@catt87]

Very interesting review. Thank you for this.

[@damny0utoobe]

Shahriar, +The Signal Path, this is a very expensive piece of equipment. How do you roll in the cash to take this apart for your youtube channel. Are they RMA scopes?

[@PelDaddy]

Thanks for sharing. Well presented, and an interesting topic.

[@k1mgy]

Bravo! How did you solve the isolation issue?

[@LarsBerntzon]

Really impressive review

[@raymundhofmann7661]

Isn't the last vco stage for dithering away spurs in the LSBs of the 8 bit ADC and to give more predictable dynamic?

[@Thesignalpath]

Its possible...

[@waleedalsharif1183]

Thanks for everything you learn me more and more information and data about electronics my names waleed I have one question and appreciate a lot if you response i want a steps to start learn more about electronics like for example read first about analog books or equipment and secondly about digital component mr.shariar i need a simple plan to read further in advanced electronics please help and thanks.

[@javierpallalorden]

Amazing video, you are a genius!

[@wither8]

4 adc front-ends means 4 attempts to get the nitric acid or aqua regia temp/time configurations correct. de-cap and rev-eng my good man, in the name of science !

[@bobfuller]

Jeez, I actually understood some of that. I must be learning something. LOL

[@qwaqwa1960]

Yeah, Tek seems to be falling down re long-term firmware support. The original MDO4k is already orphaned.

[@truemorpheus]

What kind of Altera FPGA is used in the MDO?

[@xXxbastek]

whether you use surface plate as a pad?

[@hoodaly]

Great video, but you shouldn't say "I fixed the issue, something with isolation" without showing what you do.. as I am not doing this daily I would love to see how the physical change affects the wave form, that would be very instructive

[@evka85]

Of course the heatsinks only come off of ICs that we have no info on, because the others are "not interesting"

[@ArmandDuPreez]

Wish my bench rack would bend like that under the weight of instruments...

[@AnatoFIN]

Armand Du Preez You Can get to it cheaply by buying old, heavy and nonfunctional gear from eBay :-p

[@PlasmaHH]

In case you plan to ever use that marble/granite board for putting a circuit on that you are running: electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/229417/unusual-chemical-reaction-on-pcb-smps-circuit

[@alperenalperen2458]

Neat lab you have :D

[@nictamer]

The shield looks cast, not machined.

[@wither8]

Looks like an sha1 digest but I'm too lazy to count the chars (too lazy to even pipe the string to 'wc')

[@rickjljr11]

does that cost around $23,000?

[@OneBiOzZ]

What's that AD clock generator?

[@AlexTaradov]

IC from Analog Devices that deals with clock conditioning and distribution. No idea which one is used in this design.

[@TKomoski]

Cool Cool Cool ...

[@siavasharash5448]

بعید میدونم کسی این ور دستش به همچین طلائی برسه.شما با این اسیلوسکوپ های رایگول که ارزون هم هست موافقید؟ تو یو تیوب کلی فیلم از مشکلات اساسی که دارن پیدا میشه

[@erflb]

My dream of consumption that I hope to realize!

[@gacherumburu9958]

👍👍

[@NourMuhammad]

You need micro lens!

[@homolupus1]

Looking at a board supplied to you is not quite tear-down though. Tells nothing about the system design in the unit. If anything, the board with a few connectors and chips, is the boring part.

[@GeorgeTsiros]

no rs232 won't buy :p

[@teemoinvietnam1356]

senpai

[@siavasharash5448]

سلام،عزیز شما ایرانی هستید؟

[@Thesignalpath]

Yes!

[@daveblane6442]

Audio bad. -- body mic is needed. Your new room is WAY too live.

[@qwaqwa1960]

Battery!? Yuck. Stupidity++.