Choosing USB Scope or standalone

[Gadjet]

Hi,
I'm looking at buying my own general purpose cheap scope, I will mainly be using it for working with Arduinos etc. nothing really demanding.

I only want to spend less than £200 and was initially looking at an Hantek DSO5072P but then I noticed the Hantek 6022BE or the OWON VDS1022.

I realise the first thing people may say is spend more money as these budget scopes are crap but I just want something cheap, if I need something more I can borrow the lecroy from work.

My main question is about the PC interface on the USB scopes, I plan to attach it to an un-used windows10 10 inch tablet I have with some sort of 3D printed bracket so I will effectively have a standalone scope for less than buying the standalone one (forgetting the price I paid for the tablet  )

Has anyone used the PC SW on a touch screen, does it lend itself to working with a touch screen?

Any feedback would be welcomed.

Regards,
Phil
www.gadjet.co.uk

[coromonadalix]

Hantek usb scope doesnt have big reputations, the software seems to be the culpit,  you have to be usb isolated too  just in case.

Same isolation principle for an bench oscilloscope too (isolation transformer) and you're ready to go.

You have many good new / used  bench scopes, and now they are very slim unless you go for the old physical size of 5 -10 years ago, but you can snatch very good deals ??


Personally i dont want to depend of an usb scope, you need computer ... softwares, and physically you may take around the same place on a desk ??

I use an "old" Tektronix TDS1012C  with an voltage autorange and i loooooooooove it. Doesn't take much place ...


For the Hantek or some other brand, you have some models known to be  "cough cough"  hackable / be unlocked to give more bandwith ...

[tggzzz]

I'm looking at buying my own general purpose cheap scope, I will mainly be using it for working with Arduinos etc. nothing really demanding.

There are many threads on this subject.

You might as well start by understanding the points in https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/best-oscilloscope-for-beginer/

Given that you appear to want to use the scope with something that is controlling mains supplies, you should factor failure modes into your decision. You can find some safety references at https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/library-2/scope-probe-reference-material/ and in other threads on this forum. Be aware of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome !

[wraper]

Cheap USB oscilloscopes suck but decent ones usually cost even more than affordable standalone scopes with similar spec. Also if you do something wrong, there is a good chance destroying your computer together with a scope.

[wraper]

Also DSO5072P is old model and was pretty poor even when was new. Adding $100 will buy a way better scope which will satisfy your needs for much longer time. https://www.amazon.com/Siglent-Technologies-SDS1202X-Oscilloscope-Channels/dp/B06XZML6RD/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1546176490&sr=8-3&keywords=SDS1202X-E

[Gyro]

For the two USB scopes you mention, there are long threads covering them in detail. I agree with coromonadalix, the Hantek one is far too limited, too little H/W, too much dependence on PC performance. The Owon ('i' version) is a well behaved USB isolated choice in the sub £100 bracket.

I'm not aware of any of the softwares supporting Windows 10 touch screen operation (unless Win10 does some UI cleverness).

In the sub £200 range, there are probably other options but I'm not familiar enough with them to comment.

[Gadjet]

Unfortunately here in the UK the £ price is the same as the $ price effectively making the SDS1202X-E double the cost of the Hantek so not an option.

[Gadjet]

There are many threads on this subject.

You might as well start by understanding the points in https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/best-oscilloscope-for-beginer/

Given that you appear to want to use the scope with something that is controlling mains supplies, you should factor failure modes into your decision. You can find some safety references at https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/library-2/scope-probe-reference-material/ and in other threads on this forum. Be aware of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome !

I googled the syndrome, put a smile on my face, I dabble in many many different hobbies and am guilty of the syndrome in more than a few.  I never stop learning.

Thanks for the other info.

[tggzzz]

There are many threads on this subject.

You might as well start by understanding the points in https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/best-oscilloscope-for-beginer/

Given that you appear to want to use the scope with something that is controlling mains supplies, you should factor failure modes into your decision. You can find some safety references at https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/library-2/scope-probe-reference-material/ and in other threads on this forum. Be aware of the Dunning-Kruger syndrome !

I googled the syndrome, put a smile on my face, I dabble in many many different hobbies and am guilty of the syndrome in more than a few.  I never stop learning.

Thanks for the other info.

You're welcome, join the clubs both EEVBlog and being inexpert

I didn't have you in mind w.r.t. that syndrome; I was thinking of some of the posters on this forum. Sifting the information from the morass of data is, as you know, a key modern skill.

[nigelwright7557]

You can pick up USB scopes on ebay for a few pounds.
Nothing like a big pc screen for showing waveforms.

[DDunfield]

On the subject of USB .vs. bench, If:
 - It's your primary scope
 - You are going to use it frequently
 - You have space for it on the bench without it being in your way (a shelf not too high above the bench works great)
then I'd say "Bench scope" hands down. Nothing beats having real knobs and switches!

Most low-cost USB scopes suck. I've tried a few of the low-cost streaming scopes like the Hantek and the Sainsmart, and they were terrible. Unreliable triggering, nearly impossible to do good single-shot captures, whole chunks of the waveform "just missing". The VDS1022 seems a completely different animal, as it appears to be an actual scope, with triggering and buffering handled in hardware. So far it looks quite promising (disclaimer I've only had mine for a week).  The VDS seems to be a good combination of "actually works", and less expensive than bench scopes. There are other good/better USB scopes available, but they'll be as expensive as a decent bench scope which for most will be a better choice.


Other things to consider:

Working on Arduino, you probably don't need super-fast ... all the tricky fast stuff will be inside the Arduino. Possible exception is if you are planning to run super-fast serial interfaces and will be designing the communications hardware .. but for most general Arduino users, you don't need fast. Fast is nice, but also the most expensive "feature" of a scope and may not be the best place to put your budget. The 25Mhz of the VDS1022 is probably ok, and 50/100 of a Rigol or similar is likely more than enough.

Two channels is 100x better than 1 channel (maybe 1000x) - with only one channel it's really hard to compare two signals in relation to each other. Four channels is 10 times better than two channels, in other words, really nice to have, but not as essential as minimum of two channels. Keep in mind that a 2-channel scope with external trigger can effectively "look at" three signals.

Deep memory is nice, but you normally don't need "megs", especially if the scope does not have built in protocol decoders. Built in protocol decoders are nice, especially coupled with deep memory where you can capture a long stream and scroll through it. But these will add to your cost and are only useful if that is the kind of thing you are likely to be doing.

Consider adding one of the 8-bit logic analyzers available on Ebay for the cost of a sandwich. With suitable software (Sigrok) these will provide you with deep memory and protocol decoders for digital signals very inexpensively.

If you plan to do processing of the signal on a PC, consider how tough it will be to get the data over. I don't know about the Siglent, but the Rigol is amazingly slow at writing waveform data to USB. Using their "ultrascope" software to move it over the LAN is considerably faster, but still longer than I'd like (but it can be a lot of data - up to 24M samples).  With the VDS1022, it is very fast to save the waveform data as it's already on the PC... It's also only max 10k samples.

Dave

PS: I'll dig out my Win8 tablet and install the VDS software on it later today and let you know how well it works with touch. There's also "HSCOPE" for android which supports a number of these scopes (the author participates in these forums - I've just started to look at it.

[Gadjet]

On the subject of USB .vs. bench, If:
 - It's your primary scope
 - You are going to use it frequently
 - You have space for it on the bench without it being in your way (a shelf not too high above the bench works great)
then I'd say "Bench scope" hands down. Nothing beats having real knobs and switches!
.......

Dave

PS: I'll dig out my Win8 tablet and install the VDS software on it later today and let you know how well it works with touch. There's also "HSCOPE" for android which supports a number of these scopes (the author participates in these forums - I've just started to look at it.

Thanks Dave that's probably one of the best most helpful answers I've had on any forum so far.

I am leaning towards the bench scope as it does seem to be a better spec option but I'm really tempted to create my own 10" scope with the VDS1022 attached to the back of a now un-used windows10 tablet and if the VDS1022 does most of the heavy lifting in hardware then it should work OK and I can even plug it into my desktop PC when a bigger screen is required and now you say there is Android SW as well ..... it must be Christmas!!

P.S. I do already have a £10 logic analyser and it's really good for decoding stuff

[DDunfield]

I am leaning towards the bench scope as it does seem to be a better spec option but I'm really tempted to create my own 10" scope with the VDS1022 attached to the back of a now un-used windows10 tablet and if the VDS1022 does most of the heavy lifting in hardware then it should work OK and I can even plug it into my desktop PC when a bigger screen is required and now you say there is Android SW as well ..... it must be Christmas!!

I just installed and tested the VDS1022I on a 10" Windows8 tablet. It worked surprisingly well, easier to manipulate with just the touch screen than I thought it would be.

Really, the only issue is certain UI elements are smallish, not too hard to manipulate with the mouse, but a bit trickier with just touch.

Most if not all of these are also available through the menu, which is quite easy to operate touch - I'm talking about the on-screen shortcuts, for example, you can "click" the vertical voltage/div display to directly bring up the adjustment menu.

Probably the only ones that might "annoy" you is adjusting vertical position, triggering and horizontal position by dragging little "triangle" markers at the edge of the grid display. Since my finger is bigger than the markers, it's hard to see when I am on it - but I'm sure you would get used to it with a bit of practice ... as noted above, I found it easier than I thought it would be.

BUT!!! - still nowhere near as nice to operate as a bench scope!

You can get a feel for it before you buy the scope if you like, because the OWON software can be downloaded from their site, and will install and run without the scope. You obviously can't capture any waveforms, but you can move the above mentioned points and access the menus, on-screen shortcuts and other settings, which might be a worthwhile exercise.

Note that I had issues with the scope disconnecting after installing the latest (1.0.30) software from OWONs site, but no problems after clearing out and installing 1.0.29 which came with the scope. You can see my adventure towards the end of the "OWON VDS1022I Quick Teardown" thread here in this forum. I suspect it was related to using the "new" driver posted separately on OWONs site, the working install just used the driver which gets installed with the software (you still have to manually "update driver" to install it since the auto-install option via the software doesn't work).


A couple other considerations using a tablet.

The scope is powered via USB and is supplied with a "dual head" cable able to suck power from two USB ports. I measure between 350ma and 450ma of current draw, depending on what it is doing which is just within the 500ma spec for a single port. I tested it and it works fine with a standard single-head cable (That's what I used with my tablet as it does not have two USBs close enough together), but some tablet & laptop ports are not up to the full 500ma and you may need the special cable.

Processor wise it doesn't need much - my tablet is an AMD C-50 CPU (fairly low performance dual-core), and last night I tested it on an single-core Intel Atom (N270) netbook and it also ran fine.

Regards,
Dave

[Gadjet]

Dave,
Thanks for taking the time to try out the SW on a tablet, it's good to know it should be fairly usable.

The power issue is a good spot, I can test the current capacity of the USB port on the tablet before I take the plunge .... if I decide to go the USB route.

I will continue to have a read of the many posts on the forum relating to the Hantek and OWON scopes and have a bit of a think on which direction I want to go and I will download the software to have a play with as well.

Again thanks for your help.

[jack-daniels]

I know what you said in your OP about price, but seriously look at this,

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/fs-(uk)-siglent-sds1104x-e/

That's a lot of scope for the money with 2 years guarantee left, and you won't go wrong dealing with Toploser. 

I would have had it but I've just bought one from Welectron. I'm a total newbie to electronics but some research tells me this is the best bang for buck quid scope by a long way.

I don't think I'll ever outgrow it.

[Gadjet]

Thanks for letting me know but it's just after Christmas and I've just spent £150 on a pair of new headphones  so there's no way in hell I can go above £200 unless I sell something and although an oscilloscope is something I always wanted to buy, I usually borrow one from work so I can't really justify spending much more, just something cheap and cheerful, I'm now tempted to buy a USB scope as it will more than cover 99% of my needs and I have a Win10 tablet I can use with it.

[Gyro]

Just a quick reminder - If you go for the Owon, do make sure it's the VDS1022(I) USB isolated version. The galvanic isolation will save your PC someday, or even your tablet if it happens to be on charge.

The cost difference is pretty minimal.

[Fungus]

Just want to add:

If it's mostly for "Arduino" then get four channels. Two channels isn't enough.

[bd139]

Look out for Tektronix TDS 210 (60MHz) / 220 (100MHz). They come up cheap on ebay occasionally (£60-150 - paid £60 for mine!). Old but perfectly good. Memory depth is a bit poo but that doesn't matter much really for general purpose use. They're small, light, silent, functional enough for the average user and are dead simple to use and repair if they go wonky. Add some £7 cheap probes and you're in business. If you are doing Arduino stuff, it's worth snagging a cheap aliexpress logic analyser as well.

Teardown / repair of mine: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tektronix-tds210-teardown-and-bnc-replacement/

[Gadjet]

FYI
Just came across this on youtube, OWON VDS1022I on a touch screen tablet.
https://youtu.be/di-UndlTnac

[DDunfield]

Just a quick reminder - If you go for the Owon, do make sure it's the VDS1022(I) USB isolated version. The galvanic isolation will save your PC someday, or even your tablet if it happens to be on charge.

The cost difference is pretty minimal.

+1 - definitely worth getting the 'I' version. It is possible to upgrade the non-I to Isolated, but in addition to voiding any warranty, I don't think it actually saves you much over just getting the 'I' in the first place.

Just want to add:

If it's mostly for "Arduino" then get four channels. Two channels isn't enough.

While I agree that 4 channels is really nice, not sure I agree 100% in this case, as I don't think he can stay within his stated budget and get a decent 4-channel scope.

Most of the cases where you want 4 channels with Arduino are "digital" in nature (SPI etc.) and he did say he has one of the Ebay logic analyzers which should cover that off reasonably well.

Scope (with Arduino) will be useful for looking at analog in/outs, debugging drive conflicts, checking signal integrity etc. and you can do that on a line by line basis, and leave decoding etc. to the LA. As stated in previous post, I think two channels is a MUST so that you can see one signal in relation to another, but in this case 4 may be a luxury.

Look out for Tektronix TDS 210 (60MHz) / 220 (100MHz). They come up cheap on ebay occasionally (£60-150 - paid £60 for mine!). Old but perfectly good. Memory depth is a bit poo but that doesn't matter much really for general purpose use. They're small, light, silent, functional enough for the average user and are dead simple to use and repair if they go wonky. Add some £7 cheap probes and you're in business. If you are doing Arduino stuff, it's worth snagging a cheap aliexpress logic analyser as well.

Teardown / repair of mine: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tektronix-tds210-teardown-and-bnc-replacement/

+1 - I still have/use/like my TDS210. There are things I like about it better than the Rigol (UI is faster, Separate channel controls, encoders are faster, cursor measurements don't cover part of waveform).

But there are a couple things to consider:

The record sample depth is 2.5K which in all honesty, I find to be quite adequate for most purposes (and much better than the 512 samples of my Fluke) ... but I do "run up against the stop" sometimes and captures get pretty grainy when you have to zoom excessively. The 5K of the VDS is still small, but will be a big improvement vs the TDS. OTOH, he has an LA which will cover off most cases where you have to capture big and see small which are usually with digital signals.

Unless you are lucky enough to snag one with the TDS2CM communications module installed, it will be basically impossible to print or move capture data to a PC. Used comm boards often go for more than the scope and will quickly make total cost not worth it. If you happen to get one, it will give you RS-232 (serial), Centronics parallel and GPIB .. not always the best way to talk to modern PCs.

If you want to do things like FFT and other advanced measurements, that is another unobtainium option module (TDS2MM).

Still a great basic "turn the dials and see" scope!  If you can find working one at a good price, you can't go wrong.


Dave

[bd139]

Yep. I actually sold my DS1054Z and kept the TDS210 and kept the left over cash. It was a good tradeoff. WRT screenshots I am not blessed with the TDS2MM/CM so I just take a photo with my phone. Low tech but it works and was exactly what I was doing with an analogue scope.

[Fungus]

Just want to add:

If it's mostly for "Arduino" then get four channels. Two channels isn't enough.

While I agree that 4 channels is really nice, not sure I agree 100% in this case, as I don't think he can stay within his stated budget and get a decent 4-channel scope.

Most of the cases where you want 4 channels with Arduino are "digital" in nature (SPI etc.) and he did say he has one of the Ebay logic analyzers which should cover that off reasonably well.

I disagree. I don't use 4 channels for SPI decoding, I use 4 channels for debugging, eg. toggle a pin in an interrupt handler so you can see it's happening after a signal is received, etc.

Those logic analyzers are good for decoding data but they don't update in real time for watching signals.

[Gyro]

Actually, I believe Saleae have recently added some form of real-time display to their S/W. I've no idea what products support it, particularly any of the clones. To stay honest,  it would be really nice if the same feature could be added to Sigrok.

[Fungus]

Actually, I believe Saleae have recently added some form of real-time display to their S/W. It would be really nice if the same feature could be added to Sigrok.

It would be absolutely awesome to have an eight channel digital display with triggering. I really don't know why they don't/can't do it, the hardware is obviously capable.

(obviously there'd be a lot of jitter on the trigger from the low sample rate, but still... it's $6 and 8 channels)