Where art thou?
This time I have discovered issues that are trigger-related, but more suitably filed under “general displaying issues”. Still using the “1.01.01.18R2” firmware.
Just have a look at the video. No more words…
This DSO has been on the market for at least 2 year now. I wonder why it still has these issues – or how it passed inspections.
There are a couple of reasons that may explain some of it:
a) nobody bought one, therefore no feedback.
b) people just don’t complain.
c) people only use it for the most basic stuff and simply don’t notice.
d) the number of complaints haven’t reached a certain threshold for Lecroy to recognize it as a “Great disturbance in the force”.
I’m starting to wonder if all “low-end” scopes of the big players out there (Tektronix, Agilent, Lecory) are prone to these BUGs. They certainly share a good deal of the hardware / design. Using a well-known design / firmware from another company is not necessarily a bad thing – IF it works and has been tested thoroughly.
Most (if not all) of the issues I’ve discovered so far should have been noticed and fixed before this thing was released into the wild. All of them are apparent in normal use.
Do they still beta-test new hardware nowadays?
The WaveAce/Rigol/Atten scopes all seem to use the same OEM firmware. I have an Atten ADS1102CAL, the screens are almost identical to yours except for the manufacturer name. I have also found lots of bugs with the firmware – triggering, display and of course the adjust knob craziness!
I am pretty amazed that LeCroy chose to rebadge such low end cheap Chinese scopes like these. I paid £229 (including shipping) for the Atten, I was not expecting Tektronix quality, and I would not expect to ever see firmware updates either. Its good enough for occasional hobby use.
But if I was buying LeCroy brand and paying £1500, I would be expecting top end quality, so I can’t imagine what the heck happened at LeCroy.
Well…
Scenario 1)
Lecroy has completely been taken over by the bean counters. They’re only interested in ‘shareholder value’, bi-quarterly reports, and ‘cash-flow’. Once a product is sold, it’s not their business anymore.
They really don’t care what is sold or in which state it is. If they find something that fills a gap in their product lineup it is squeezed in – ready or not. Product testing is irrelevant, users will report bugs anyway. Firmware fixes on their low-end scopes (anything below 200k$) will not happen. Too costly, not worth the effort.
Scenario 2)
A newly-appointed management ‘dude’ was getting ‘creative’. Trying to take over the low-end DSO market with cheap rebranded hardware, didn’t think it was necessary to do any testing, but still charge the customers for the ‘brand name’.
Scenario 3)
It was just a blunder, they are terribly sorry, will double their efforts, everything will be fixed and it won’t happen again. Promise!
—
Now which scenario is more likely?
Personally I hope to create enough unpleasant publicity to make someone at Lecroy think about their reputation. Will it work? Probably not ;-(
Well, I have started a new blog to tackle the issues.
http://www.waveace224-sucks.com
Maybe it will wake someone up. I can still hope…