[time-nuts] HP Reliability

Attila Kinali attila at kinali.ch
Mon Feb 15 04:17:56 EST 2016


Moin,

Taking this off-list as this is getting far too OT.

On Sun, 14 Feb 2016 14:20:52 -0500
"William H. Fite" <omniryx at gmail.com> wrote:

> They don't wonder; they know very well. But they're stuck. Consider
> oscilloscopes. Why pay for a Keysight or Tectronix or LeCroy or, God
> forbid, a Rohde & Schwarz when, for the vast majority of applications, a
> Rigol will give you everything you need at 1/N the cost?

No, it doesn't. A Rigol might be a usable replacement if you cannot
affort a real instrument, but it far from being something you want
to rely on. Yes, a Tek scope starts from 1000$ up while a Rigol is
half or even a third of that price. But you get all kind of weird
effects when you use a Rigol. Which means you are never exactly sure
whether you see an actual effect of your device or it's just some
weirdness of your measurement equipment. 

The price of Tek/Keysight/R&S does not come from the parts. By far not.
It comes from the fact that they ensure that you can measure with
confidence. Half of this is done by proper design (not only schematic,
but also layout and mechanics) and by doing extensive production tests that
do check for various problems, that are not easily seen.

When it comes to instruments where analog makes up 90% of the performance
and you cannot hide problems with digital processing, then Rigol
comes to the same price as the others.

Eg the DM3058 5.5 digit DMM costs 620€, that's just actually, 40€
more expensive than an U3402A. And mind you, the specs of the DM3058
are worse than that of the U3402A.

> The hugely expensive, overbuilt gear that we grew up with is yesterday's
> news; that's why we can scarf it up so cheap on the 'bay. Lots of labs and
> manufacturing facilities now consider basic gear like DSOs, SAs, DMMs,
> PSUs, and sig-gens as disposable as cell phones.

Definitly not. Yes, these have become basic gear you just have in an
electronics lab. But they are handled with care and you don't just buy
another if you just haven't have one at hand. Proper gear is investement.

				Attila Kinali

-- 
It is upon moral qualities that a society is ultimately founded. All 
the prosperity and technological sophistication in the world is of no 
use without that foundation.
                 -- Miss Matheson, The Diamond Age, Neil Stephenson


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