rainer@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Rainer Malzbender) (05/11/91)
I recently did some work with an HP 54501A digitizing scope. It appeared like a nice product, but the owners said it wasn't very accurate. Hooking it up to a voltage reference apparently gave readings that were off by more than what you'd expect from the 8-bit A/D. I personally didn't check this. Now I am considering purchasing the newer HP54601 scope. Of course, I plan to check these things out before buying, but I was wondering if net people could send me their opinions on this beastie, or comparable units (say, scopes under or around $3K - Philips, Tek, etc.) Send email and I'll summarize if there's enough interest. -- Rainer Malzbender Dept. of Physics (303)492-6829 U. of Colorado, Boulder rainer@boulder.colorado.edu 128.138.240.246
kenw@col.hp.com (Ken Wyatt) (05/23/91)
Hello Rainer, I helped with the RFI/EMC design on both those products here in Colorado Springs and I will try to help answer your questions regarding the vertical accuracy. For the 54501A Scope... The vertical gain accuracy (dc) is +/- 1.5% The offset accuracy is +/- 2% of offset + 0.2 * (V/div) The vertical (A/D) resolution is +/- 0.4% (8 bits) The worst-case voltage measurement accuracy (using cursors) is the sum of the above three percentages. The time base accuracy is 0.005%. For the 54601A Scope... The vertical accuracy is +/- 1.5%. The cursor accuracy is +/- 0.5% of full scale or +/- 0.5% of position value (single cursor). For dual cursors, the vertical accuracy is +/- 0.4% of full scale. The horizontal (time base) accuracy is 0.01%. ------------------------------ All the above data is from our spec sheets on these two products. I believe (I know, I'm biased!) that you will find these accuracies comparable, or better than other brands. We have some other data on single-event pulse captures (single-shot signals) comparing HP scopes with other competitors which indicates our superior waveform integrity and jitter responses. If you, or anyone else, would like literature on these scopes, please leave Email. Also, Rainer, if you would like a tour of the factory, let me know and I'll be happy to arrange it. Regards Ken Wyatt Product Regulations Manager Hewlett-Packard Colorado Springs Division work phone 719-590-2852 Email: kenw@col.hp.com