[sdiy] Oscilloscope on a Budget 200

[sleepy_dog at gmx.de]

One *could* buy the cheapest, 50MHz of the Rigol DS1000Z series scopes: 
4 channel, simple "analog trace simulation", 1GSa/s (shared),
and *if* one has no moral qualms about that, find out how to "hack" 
(keygen, easy) it to the 100MHz version with all the bells and whistles: 
extra trigger modes, protocol decoding and what not.
The Rigol DS1054Z is currently at about 400,- USD.
Rigol seems to have established themselves as a (the) Chinese quality 
manufacturer of measurement gear. I would not by a long shot equate that 
to all the other Chinese gear out there. Look at the teardowns at YT / 
eevblog.

Steve


Am 03.06.2016 um 19:31 schrieb Bruno Afonso:
> We recently got a MSOX2024A (agilent) and they even included all  > possible software add-ons, it was a promo they were running end of > 
last year. I still have to test the MSO part of it but it's > 
feature-packed for an entry level oscilloscope. Everything seemed > 
better compared to the tektronix models. I'm no expert in > 
oscilloscopes but even for my simple electronics work it has a bunch > 
of useful features that our older TDS2024 does not have. > > I asked the 
EEs around here and it basically comes down to what you > know and 
trust. A lot of people like the high end tektronix > oscilloscopes, 
which is not relevant to this discussion. The appeal > of these USB 
oscilloscopes is high but at the end of the day, nothing > beats some 
dials and a built-in screen. But if you're on a budget... > > > > On 
Fri, Jun 3, 2016 at 7:34 AM Richie Burnett > 
<rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk <mailto:rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk>> > 
wrote: > >>> Some of the cheap Chinese copycat models will quite happily 
show >>> you a 20MHz signal as a 1kHz signal if you have the timebase 
set >>> to 100us/div. That really confuses students (>.<) > >> and if it 
doesn’t confuse the user at least she or he loses time >> when ruling 
out artifacts. > > *Exactly*  It ultimately comes down to a question of 
how much your > time is worth?  If you're doing hobby stuff for fun and 
have plenty > of time to learn about aliasing and artefacts then by all 
means get > something cheap and get cracking.  But if you are running a 
business > with products to get out the door and deadlines to meet, (or 
have > very limited hobby time but a bit of spare cash,) then it's worth 
 > buying the best that you can afford. > >> I’m not looking for 
something cheap but rather affordable (seeing >> that as an investment). 
 > > What do you class as affordable? > >> I remember Tim Stinchcombe 
bringing his TDS 210 to Cambridge, which >> is not a handheld but a lot 
more portable. > > The TDS210 is nice, but quite old now.  You can 
probably pick up > later Tek TDS1000  and TDS2000 series units 
second-hand now, and they > are more capable scopes. > >>> Conversely 
the likes of Agilent and Tektronics either show a nice >>> shaded smudge 
of HF, or filter it out completely, but never >>> undersampled. > >> 
What would you prefer? Filtering? > > I am a fan of HP / Agilent or 
whatever they're calling themselves > this week. > > I've got a DSO6034A 
on my bench which I think is excellent even > though it's nearly ten 
years old now.  It's quite a high spec but I > do a lot of work at MHz 
frequencies, and it is essential to my > livelihood.  Models with less 
channels and less bandwidth will be > cheaper, and can probably even be 
picked up second-hand now too.  (In > the ten years that I've had it, 
I've only encountered one tiny bug in > the firmware, where it very 
occasionally powers up with the 50-ohm > termination enabled on one of 
the channels, and you have to unplug > the probe and reconnect it for 
the termination to switch off!) > > A few years ago I compared Agilent's 
current offerings with Tektronix > in the same price range, and felt 
that Agilent had the edge in three > areas: > > 1. More responsive user 
interface.  The Tek user interface at the > time felt under-powered and 
laggy.  Not so much of a problem for a > newbie finding their way 
around, but frustrating for anyone who knows > their way around a scope 
and makes quick adjustments to controls, if > the display takes a while 
to catch up. > > 2. More features built-in for the price.  The Agilent 
scope had most > maths features like FFT built-in, where they cost extra 
money for the > same features on the equivalent Tek models.  (These days 
even the > cheap Chinese models usually have the maths features 
built-in!) > > 3. Better anti-alias filtering and more intuitive display 
of > "difficult waveforms".  Things like looking for runt pulses or > 
corrupted data that only happens every once in a while. > > These days 
the swing might be back towards Tek or even LeCroy might > have a more 
budget offering? > > -Richie, > > 
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