[sdiy] Oscilloscope on a Budget 200

Sat Jun 4 12:13:51 CEST 2016

Hi, 

Personally I think the price difference is not so big that I would risk the hack
not working anymore or even causing a problem with the instrument. 
By the way, the cheapest model of the Rigol DS1000Z series is not a four channel
oscilloscope, is it?

Anyway, less than 400 Euro for a compact two channel 100MHz oscilloscope with
long sampling memory (DS1102E)  sounds like pretty good value. 

Best regards
Simon

> Op 3 juni 2016 om 20:47 schreef MTG <grant at musictechnologiesgroup.com>:
> 
> 
> I'm happy with my Rigol DS1102E. Missed out on the hack though as I 
> bought mine before that was figured out.
> 
> GB
> 
> On 6/3/2016 11:29 AM, sleepy_dog at gmx.de wrote:
> >
> > 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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