Small-footprint, moderate-price scopes provide big picture
By Dan Strassberg -- EDN, April 1, 2004
LeCroy unabashedly proclaims that its new Wave-Surfer series of digital scopes targets Tektronix's (www.tektronix.com) market-leading TDS3000 family (Picture). The TDS 3000s have won the hearts of many users who need compact, moderately priced scopes but who don't need and usually don't want the complexity of advanced waveform analysis. One of the Tek family's big attractions is the small footprint the lunchbox-sized units occupy on crowded lab benches.
LeCroy designed the WaveSurfers to use approximately the same bench area, yet, thanks to a significantly taller case, incorporated a 10.4-in.-diagonal SVGA LCD whose area is 2.64 times as great as the TDS3000s' lower resolution 6.4-in. displays. Although the huge display is but one of many differences between the scope families, another physical difference is particularly noteworthy: The WaveSurfer's case lets you attach the scope to either of two optional stands with articulated arms. One stand clamps to the edge of your work surface occupying only a few square inches but enabling you to position the scope close to your eyes and above everything on the bench, providing a true close-up view of waveform details.
A nontechnical issue guided the user-interface design. Like Tektronix with the TDS 3000s, LeCroy will sell the WaveSurfers through distributors—a first for the company, which employs a direct sales force to sell its higher priced products. Without the customer support that such a sales force can provide, however, instrument operation had to be self-explanatory—no small feat for a product that offers such a wide array of features.
A key to simplifying the user interface was to make the big LCD touch-sensitive, although you can use a USB mouse if you prefer. Zooming in on a waveform area of interest involves nothing more than touching one corner of the area and swiping your finger to the opposite corner. When you remove your hand from the screen, the scope highlights the area you defined and automatically displays a magnified view. Despite the simple user interface, the WaveSurfers are Windows XP-based and incorporate internal hard drives. They run the full spectrum of Windows applications and incorporate multiple USB ports, enabling the use of USB printers and, for removable storage, USB CD/RW and flash drives.
Another difference between the WaveSurfers and the TDS3000s is the WaveSurfers' deep memory—optionally 2M points/channel (500k points standard) when you use no more than half of the channels—versus 10k points/channel for the TDS3000s. The WaveSurfer family comprises six models—two- and four-channel units with bandwidths of 200, 350, and 500 MHz. All units have a maximum sampling rate of 2G samples/sec with no more than half the channels in use. Base prices range from $4190 to $8490.
LeCroy Corp, 1-800-453-2769, www.lecroy.com.
