REVIEW - Owon SDS7102 - A look at the SDS series from Owon

[marmad]

Rather random question time - can you change the colour of the traces?

Not random at all.. sounds rather important in your case.  But I'm afraid not; the Owon user interface does pretty much all of the things it has to do to fulfill it's specs, but it's fairly sparse on the added extras, like display colors, skins, etc.  Keep in mind, they've only been building these scopes for about 3 months or so - it's a brand new line with really great hardware - but the first permutation of software.

I really wish, in these cases, that companies could somehow open source the interface part of their code for user development - and keep the hardware control and output portions separated.  There are so many tweaks I'd like to do or add to their interface.

[marmad]

If you don't want either of the Owon or Rigol... you could try the Atten... I've kind of been curious about it!

But after using an 800x600 display, there is no way I would want to use the 480x234 LCD on that Atten.  It is so fantastic having the large display (especially if your eyesight isn't the greatest) - for me, it makes it feel almost like a different piece of equipment than a normal scope (since my portable Tek analog also has a tiny CRT).

There's no way I would settle for anything that wasn't at least 800 pixels wide at this point - trust me, it's a world of difference - not only in the amount of space for the waveform - but the amount of added info you can get all at once.  On the Rigol, I often couldn't get enough measurements and wave at the same time.

Anyway, I'm keeping the Owon - or getting the Hantek - there is no other choice for me.

[tinhead]

FFS.. just think about when you use the record length... and when you don't

bullshit, you can select on Owon between 1k/10k/100k/1M/10M, all of them sampled with 1GSs
where ATTEN CAL have only 40k sampled with 1GSs - or if you need memory 2M (on CML model)
sampled with 500MSs ... you see now the diff.

There is no single reason to chose ADS1102CAL, not from ADC point of view, not FPGA, not SoC, never ever memory
and never ever display .. did i forgot something? Yeah, VGA out, less waveform distortion, higher wfrm/s.

The only reason might be price ... but buy cheap means buy twice.

EDIT: oh wait, the ugly red color on Owon sucks, so you ahve two reason to chose ATTEN. But there will be smart
people knowing how to use hex editor and the red color will be gone.

[gregariz]

If you don't want either of the Owon or Rigol... you could try the Atten... I've kind of been curious about it!

But after using an 800x600 display, there is no way I would want to use the 480x234 LCD on that Atten.  It is so fantastic having the large display (especially if your eyesight isn't the greatest) - for me, it makes it feel almost like a different piece of equipment than a normal scope (since my portable Tek analog also has a tiny CRT).

There's no way I would settle for anything that wasn't at least 800 pixels wide at this point - trust me, it's a world of difference - not only in the amount of space for the waveform - but the amount of added info you can get all at once.  On the Rigol, I often couldn't get enough measurements and wave at the same time.

Anyway, I'm keeping the Owon - or getting the Hantek - there is no other choice for me.

Thats cool, I just suggested it because its screen is bigger than the Rigol. Its going to be hard to find a larger screen than the Owon at the moment in this price bracket.

[gregariz]

FFS.. just think about when you use the record length... and when you don't

bullshit, you can select on Owon between 1k/10k/100k/1M/10M, all of them sampled with 1GSs
where ATTEN CAL have only 40k sampled with 1GSs - or if you need memory 2M (on CML model)
sampled with 500MSs ... you see now the diff.

There is no single reason to chose ADS1102CAL, not from ADC point of view, not FPGA, not SoC, never ever memory
and never ever display .. did i forgot something? Yeah, VGA out, less waveform distortion, higher wfrm/s.

The only reason might be price ... but buy cheap means buy twice.

EDIT: oh wait, the ugly red color on Owon sucks, so you ahve two reason to chose ATTEN. But there will be smart
people knowing how to use hex editor and the red color will be gone.

OK you need to stay off the meds... or get some.

http://www.tek.com/Measurement/scopes/selection/performance/acquisition.html#record

[tinhead]

OK you need to stay off the meds... or get some.

http://www.tek.com/Measurement/scopes/selection/performance/acquisition.html#record

funny guy, what will be the next ? link of Tektronix TDS2012C with awsome 2.5k sample memory?
I have here TDS2012 and i'm using it as ashtray since i got my Tekway.

[gregariz]

OK you need to stay off the meds... or get some.

http://www.tek.com/Measurement/scopes/selection/performance/acquisition.html#record

funny guy, what will be the next ? link of Tektronix TDS2012C with awsome 2.5k sample memory?
I have here TDS2012 and i'm using it as ashtray since i got my Tekway.

There was an excellent reason that when you asked marmad to change the memory depth that the picture didnt change. Its the same reason that I don't really need memory depth. Its a shame about the TDS2012...

[marmad]

Its going to be hard to find a larger screen than the Owon at the moment in this price bracket.

I mentioned 800 pixels wide which the Hantek's have.  And they have models in this price bracket.  And they have been hacked,  disassembled, and reverse engineered by the guy you're arguing with - a guy who is perhaps the most knowledgeable guy when it comes to low cost DSO's on this blog - so if he says the Atten sucks - I'd believe him that it sucks.

BTW, just as an aside, I think I won't be using the 10Mpts all that often either, but just in case I need to do data logging - or long-term recording looking for a glitch - I sure will appreciate all the memory.

Edit:  BTW, the Owon can record up to a 1000 frames at up to a 1000 seconds apart - thats almost 12 days of logging.

[gregariz]

Its going to be hard to find a larger screen than the Owon at the moment in this price bracket.

I mentioned 800 pixels wide which the Hantek's have.  And they have models in this price bracket.  And they have been hacked,  disassembled, and reverse engineered by the guy you're arguing with - a guy who is perhaps the most knowledgeable guy when it comes to low cost DSO's on this blog - so if he says the Atten sucks - I'd believe him that it sucks.

BTW, just as an aside, I think I won't be using the 10Mpts all that often either, but just in case I need to do data logging - or long-term recording looking for a glitch - I sure will appreciate all the memory.

This is just a blog... I've been in this game for quite a few years, I am highly qualified, highly experience and I have never met 'the most knowledgeable guy' who knew what he was talking about all the time. So no-one should believe everything that anyone says on here... not me, not him, not dave.

[bertchai]

Guys, I understand that you guys are very experience, but everyone is free to express their opinion, what he prefers and needs (which I respect).  Attacking each other will not help in term of sharing experience and opinion (of course you don't have to agree in all opinion).

[gregariz]

Guys, I understand that you guys are very experience, but everyone is free to express their opinion, what he prefers and needs (which I respect).  Attacking each other will not help in term of sharing experience and opinion (of course you don't have to agree in all opinion).

You are right bertchai, but I'll tell you why I come into this thread... its not just about this scope... quite a few reviews on the blog are in the same vane. People get caught up in some kind of academic masturbation on specifications.

Such as the multimeter thread... if you were new to the field you could think that if you didn't spend $250 on a multimeter that had a micro-amps range then what you have isn't worth having. Its nonsense. Most engineers never use that setting - which is why manufacturers don't often include them. Same with true-rms. The truth is that if you didn't abuse it most people could get by just fine for design with a $20 chinese meter for many years.

Same with the scopes. Tektronics sell the TDS1000 and TDS2000 series with small record length's because they know that most engineers don't need single shot postprocessing.

I mentioned the Atten scope. Its easy to rubbish something that has a lower spec, but I know that most engineers never need most of the specifications. Its going to be great for 95% of users design requirements. Maybe its just easier to use - wouldnt that be a good reason to buy it?

I wouldn't have weighed in if what had been said was .... the Atten scope looked great but if you need deep record lengths you should consider something else. Rather... no qualification.. don't know what your talking about... bullshit ... yadaya.

Now if a scope or multimeter is simply not accurate that is something else.

[bertchai]

"No linear interpolation of points: not a biggie - but it can be handy sometimes."

I check the manuals in Rigol DS1000 series, Atten seises, Hantekway DS5120b series.
Only Atten has linear interpolation.  The rest only sin (x)/x

Have I missed something? or Hantekway, Rigol has been hacked to include linear interpolation?
 

[bertchai]

@ gregariz
I partly agree with you that cheaper chinese products should be fine for casual use / careful use.  (Actually I am a Chinese.  hehe ) But on the other hand, the QC, robustness of these chinese product could be more inferior to big brand products like fluke, tek, and they simply die over the time even not used.   If I can afford, of course DSO from tek, LeCroy, etc, will be wonderful.  You can trust your measurements without any doubt anytime (especially for rookies like me).  When budget is a concern,  chinese DSO could be a good choice, but I can see that not all chinese brands are as good and hopefully find something good that I can still trust at low price.

[Bren]

There's a great quote here somewhere..... oh yeah,

"I know that I know not" - Socrates

Perhaps take a page from a true master?

[bertchai]

Hantek 2500 wfrms/s
Rigol 2000 wfrms/s
Owon ?