This arrived at Labtronix today:
First impressions are this is a much bigger box than the mainstream SDS1000CML comes in. It's 46 x 29 x 27cm and weighs in at 4.63kg
Just having a quick look, the screen is enormous, the feel is very solid, and reassuringly heavy. There is a 'universal knob'
and all the knobs appear to have a push function too.
Round the back there is a slightly recessed mains entry, you would need a right angle power lead to lie this unit on its back. Also note that there's no rubber bumpers for lying it on its back. But there are nice rubber feet for normal upright and angled seating. There's also connectors for USB device, LAN, Pass-Fail/Trigger Out, and AWG Output BNCs. These are well recessed for protection.
Here's a grainy picture (sorry for the naff quality)
The soft touch power button pulsates at you once mains power is connected - this might be irritating when you're not using the oscilloscope but I didn't find it too bright and could probably live with it.
The SDS1000CML screen is a luxurious improvement over the old 320 x 240 Unitrend oscilloscopes I used to sell, the SDS1000X screen is another leap forward in display quality - just because you can fit so much on there and still see everything you want to.
My experience of the SDS1000CML goes back about 18 months and what I really like is the honest 2 mega points you can capture and explore and this is not particularly dependent on timebase settings, if you are on a fast timebase which could only show a portion of the full 2mpts you could stop capturing and then scroll beyond the left and right hand edge of the screen to see the rest of the data. First impressions of the SDS1202X are that it doesn't do this, the way I visualise what's happening is that it trims all data to the left and to the right of the visible capture - so if you scroll either left or right the screen is empty. Really frustrating since there's a potential 14mpts in this souped-up device - example, I set the timebase to 2ns/div (the fastest) it shows a waveform constructed of 28 sample points because there's 14 horizontal divisions and 2 samples per division - you can even change display type from vector to dot and see each discrete sample. But 28 points is all that's been offered to me to analyse. Sorry this paragraph is getting a bit long. I tinkered a bit and found that pressing the timebase scale knob produced a split screen like this:
By squashing everything vertically 2 representations of the waveform are shown. The upper illustration is the complete waveform capture, the lower is a 'zoom' in on the upper illustration allowing you to see more detail. This kind of feature has been around in DSOs for years, and was always a bit gimmicky in low end models like UTD2000 series, but the higher screen resolution of the SDS1000X series makes this feature very usable. I was able to capture up to 14ms waveform at 1gsps then zoom in and pan around as I saw fit. This worked ok and I could get used to it but I would like to be able to squash the upper illustration because it is just a visual reference, then unsquash the lower illustration which is the visual information I reall want to concentrate on. IMO the SDS1000CML does this much better at the moment (I would love to have the error of my ways pointed out here and to be shown that a simple button press will make the SDS1000X perform like the SDS1000CML here!). Perhaps a firmware upgrade could attend to this - I will speak to my Siglent contacts.
On the other hand another longtime gimmick on low end DSOs is FFT - If you want a spectrum analyzer buy a spectrum analyzer! But I was quite pleased with the SDS1202X in this respect, with a bit of fiddling I was able to setup the frequency resolution to show the fundamental and harmonics of the test square wave and to use cursors to measure frequency peaks (manually aligned) and amplitudes. This is actually quite useful for audio frequencies if you have a steady signal like constant DTMF tones or something. Here's a quick peak:
Another observation, this oscilloscope is labelled CAT 1 which means it is not designed or certified for probing mains power, it is only suitable for probing circuits which have no direct connection to mains power. IMO this is not the sort of oscilloscope you would want to carry round industrial environments anyway - it's too precious!
I reckon the AWG and serial decode are probably software options, this model also appears to have a limited number of trials built in but I haven't looked in detail yet - personally I don't think the AWG upgrade is worth the money you're better buying a dedicated model for similar money like something from the SDG1000 range, or perhaps the SDG2000X (which is also sitting unopened at Labtronix waiting for a once over
).
Like for like the X series oscilloscopes are getting on for twice the price of the SDS1000CML series and the maximum sample rate is the same... so is it worth it? Is it too much for the hobbyist and not serious enough for the professional? Not sure yet but you can be certain it's a solid piece of kit with a wonderfully useful display.
That's all I had time for tonight - I might have a bit of time to post a bit more if you want specific answers try me!
In the UK Labtronix stock a range of Siglent oscilloscopes including SDS1000CML and with quick access to SDS1000X. You can find out more here:
https://labtronix.co.uk/drupal/shop/oscilloscope.htm
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