[sdiy] Best scopes for the money, 2020?

[Tom Wiltshire]

Another +1 for the budget digital scopes. I have an Owon, not a Rigol, but they’re in the same price bracket. I think I paid €400-500 inc VAT, dual channel 100MHz, probably ten years ago now. It’s fantastic. The digital storage features and measurements are a massive step up over the 20MHz analog scope I had before. And it’s portable.
I’ve used it doing a lot of synth and effect pedal work, so audio stuff, and also PIC and dsPIC development, so basic microprocessors, SPI/I2C, UART comms debugging, DACs, finding out why you can’t get data out of the EEPROM, etc etc - the usual stuff.

My opinion is that most of the time (like >95%) you only need some basic confirmation, not something that requires 0.001% accuracy. For this type of thing, a cheaper scope that helps you visualise signals (or a cheap multimeter that lets you check whether a voltage is “reasonable”) is fine, and costs you a tenth of what the other thing costs. For all that everyday work, a nice big colour screen and the ability to freeze and scroll back through the waveform is worth way more than an extra % of accuracy for some old big-name scope that’s 25 years old (and 25 years old is only the 90s…I still think of "90’s” as modern, but it’s not).

Tom


> On 1 Dec 2020, at 23:04, Ben Stuyts <ben at stuyts.nl> wrote:
> 
> +1 for the DS1054Z. A friend of mine bought one a while ago, so I’ve some experience with it. It’s great value for money: around €315 ex VAT for a 4-ch 50 MHz scope including all options and a 3 year warranty. This includes a serial decoder too, if you want to have a look at UART/I2C/SPI signals. Build quality is decent, as are the included probes.
> 
> I think they gave up on selling all the separate options once the key-generators were out in the open. The serial decoding is done in software and is a bit less sophisticated than I have on my own Agilent MSOX3024. The MSOX3024 actually decodes everything it sampled, while I think (!) the Rigol only decodes what’s on screen. The decoding feels a bit slower too. But for the price it is an amazing tool. It also has brightness grading of the waveform, just like an old-fashioned analog scope. (But I think most entry-level scopes have that now.)
> 
> Ben
> 
> 
>> On 1 Dec 2020, at 23:28, Richie Burnett <rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk> wrote:
>> 
>> I've heard lots of good things said about this oscilloscope (given the cheap price point):
>> 
>> Rigol DS1054Z 50MHz Digital Oscilloscope (rigol-uk.co.uk)
>> 
>> Dave from EEVblog reviews it in some depth below:
>> 
>> EEVblog #703 - Rigol DS1054Z Oscilloscope Review Summary - YouTube
>> EEVBlog #704 - Rigol DS1054Z Oscilloscope Features Review (youtube.com)
>> EEVblog #674 - Rigol DS1054Z Teardown - YouTube
>> 
>> It's more than 6 years old now though, so you might get even more for your money with a more recent model.
>> 
>> -Richie,
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message----- From: Amos
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 1, 2020 7:47 PM
>> To: Synth Diy
>> Subject: [sdiy] Best scopes for the money, 2020?
>> 
>> 
>> Hi folks,
>> 
>> I suspect this is a group that includes folks who keep up with things like, what low-end scopes have custom firmware in circulation that unlocks advanced features, or what chinese off-brand DSO gives you the performance of X at a cost of <<X, etc...
>> 
>> I'm more looking for cheap and cheerful than highest-end, but Very Nice scopes for merely Nice prices are relevant too.
>> 
>> Do you have a favorite budget scope, or one you'd recommend for equipping a low end lab / repair bench?  Thanks!
>> 
>> -Amos
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
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