[sdiy] Oscilloscope on a Budget 200

Sat Jun 4 12:35:08 CEST 2016

The DS1054Z — which is indeed a four-channel scope, and a dramatic leap
forward from the old DS1xxx scopes — is $20 cheaper (retail pricing from
Emona Instruments here in Sydney) than the DS1102E. The venerable old
DS1052E is still cheaper, but it's a pretty poor cousin (I still own one,
though)

I've used both. The DS1054Z has a far nicer display, more channels, more
features and better controls.

Dave Jones from EEVBlog has a great review video series covering the
DS1054Z, worth a look. IIRC He specifically covered what the big leaps
forward from the DS1xxx series were. Here's the summary video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETCOhzU1O5A

John

On 4 June 2016 at 20:13, Simon Brouwer <simon.o at brousant.nl> wrote:

> 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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