Rigol MSO7000 Unboxing & First Impressions

[nctnico]

If they do prove to be dependable and reasonably bug free, they WILL rattle the segment.

I've been reading that for several years and it didn't happen. Repeating it doesn't make it true. The problem is that specs on paper appear to be different in reality.

I don't know why you think that, because I've heard a completely different story. When I bought my 1000Z (as soon as it became available), the distributor told me they have a lot of big customers, like Analog Devices, which had a building a couple of blocks down and apparently bought plenty of Rigol scopes back then (I assume from the 4000 or the 6000 series).

But you have not seen these scopes yourself... Maybe Analog just bought a DS1054Z for an intern or a one-off project. I wouldn't call a salesperson from a distributor a credible source. When I visit companies I see A-brands on the desks of electronics developers only. Other then that there is the occasional low end Rigol and (re) brands from Element14/Farnell and RS but these are mostly for occasional use.

[timgiles]

Well said 2N3055. I think you have hit the nail on the head. 

Sure there will be some bugs but seems they have decent bug reporting and regular firmware updates and that is really what people want. There isn't a scope released by any of he A class companies that does not end up with some bugs.

There is definitely a difference between how the same actions by a high end manufacturer and a lower end are received. I hope the new Rigol scope works out well for them and they continue to improve their design processes.

[rf-loop]

People like to extrapolate current quality by historic experiences. Keysight, while still being good company, is nowhere near old legendary HP in anything.

 

It was one day long time ago I tell to some noname chinese manufacturer that please, best and most easy way what you can do for understanding T&M designing (exept modern hardware things naturally, but it is not so important because developing is much much more that just circuit design - first need have some idea) but  thinking before muscle work is important if want rise to B+ or A class. If only want fast win and fill pocket... yes it can do but road is short.

Read carefully all or most HP journals over the decades and think what all things are important in development and final product also without forget documentation. Quality thinking, design team "spirit" and "flow" and how important is that there is also working very experieced and skilled peoples who really understand how to use equipments (for UI design and also mechanical design...  try example stack today these tabletop plastic boxes what mostly looks like childrens toys and designed as womens clothes and shoes thinking some fashion. Of course one reason is that many things are designed just for buy, use bit and throw away and buy again next model... every second year and better if life cycle is more short. More pixels and this and that as some time ago with digital camera boom.  But, still IN have never seen better photographs what was some take around 1930. Same with scopes etc. Skills, knowledge and experience is much more and more overlooked and only peoples think what this instrument can do. Without any worry about what are user itself specifications.
As we can many times seen also here peoples buy nice instruments but after then are like withjout any idea what it is or how to use it... windering what not connected probe show on the screen and if it is manufacturer made bug or some other error in design... and many other things. And this we can many times see when more experienced some users do even when we can assume he know what he is doing. Of course noobs are easy to fool...

Of cvourse we need better equipments but.... who cares better users? Who can develop users?
BTW, old HP did even this!! (also old original Tek some) Lot of courses, lot of teaching materials, lot of shared knowledge and so on.
Who is FIRST chinese company who do it... what year... perhaps 2020, 30, -40 or do it happen never.

[2N3055]

 Of cvourse we need better equipments but.... who cares better users? Who can develop users?
BTW, old HP did even this!! (also old original Tek some) Lot of courses, lot of teaching materials, lot of shared knowledge and so on.
Who is FIRST chinese company who do it... what year... perhaps 2020, 30, -40 or do it happen never.

RF, I agree with you that old HP and TEK did that. I learned how to use scope as child, on a Tek 2205 from user manual.  And also there was additional Tek book (sort of similar to todays ABC of scope primer). I learned all from there.
Also many things I learned from excellent documentation from HP, IBM etc etc..

My point is, THEY don't do it anymore. Whatever resources they have, are old, still from before, from that time. Reprinting old whitepapers with a new logo and design is not new value.
R&S is actually doing some effort here, but not much.

My point is that A brands are not doing it anymore, or doing on much smaller scale that they get credit for, undeserved.
That is why Chinese brands don't do it. Old documents are publicly available. Buy any scope, just download old Tek book. Buy and  DMM, get old HP measurement books.. And even A brands are not creating new materials, new value.
And A brand support is not what it used to be. No individual spare parts, no schematics, they will tell you to send it in for repairs, same way the Rigol or Siglent do. 
What is added value of support? A-brands have better bug reporting procedure? For the money they charge, they should have much less bugs that B brands to begin with. At least that is their explanation of much higher price. 
Remember "Scrap the Toys, Get a Real Oscilloscope" patronizing bullshit ? That is their opinion of customers.

Also there are cultural differences form old days. I know it from my country. In Eastern block, you had to make do with what you had available. Nobody cared if instrument was hard to use. If it was capable of achieving results, it was your responsibility to make effort and learn how to use it. It wasn't seen as a hard to use instrument but as your excuse not to work hard.
And if there was something you didn't understand, you had to figure it out by yourself. There was no Internet, nobody to call, maybe a colleague, maybe he knew... You had service manuals, you repaired it in house ("what do you mean pay somebody else to repair it. Aren't YOU the f**king EE? I pay you already. You have schematic, fix it. Tell me what parts to order... Off you go.."")

In China, they don't expect they need to tell you how to do you job, or hold your hand while measuring rise-time of signal.
If you are not qualified, step aside, there are others that know how to do it..
So manuals are basically exhaustive list of what functions are present.

I do agree with you that if they would realize this, and started doing more in this regard, that that would make them more popular.
But one of the reasons their prices are low is that they spend less money on marketing activities (which this is).

[rsjsouza]

Sinisa, well said. I was also raised in a country without resources (at university in the 1990s we had to get by with HP200CD oscillators, for example) and way before the internet (magazines and books were our primary source, and language barrier was high).

One remark is that, from my experience in the industry, companies nowadays are releasing much more troublesome products ("customers as beta testers") not because of pure evil, but also because the profit margins cannot absorb the longer development and test cycles these products require (the design teams are smaller and the resources are much more scrutinized when compared to an era of plenty such as the cold war). Despite the fact that software is conducive to an attitude of laziness or procrastination (everything can be fixed at a later time), its complexity increases at a geometric rate from version to version (as Nico mentioned a few posts ago).

A similar scenario happens with the production of technical content: the tasks of creating training content, technical literature and user's manuals is frequently assigned to a smaller group of people that also have other tasks such as applications and support (I am immersed in that daily). The consequence is there's a tendency to cater to the more pressing issues (or low hanging fruits) and release short Youtube videos or very focused written application notes, while the deep technical content tends to become an over arching project that takes a lot longer to reach a usable status - if ever. User's manuals still demand a great deal of maintenance (new features and bug fixes added quite frequently) and this is even worse with pure software products, where people do not even take the time anymore to read the manual and go directly to Google, Youtube or other resources.

DS4000 had good memory depth, but bad decoders, no search etc etc. It
DS6000 series also didn't have anything of advanced functions, just more bandwidth and bigger screen.
I didn't buy DS4000 because it didn't have functions I needed. It's quality is very good. It's just too simple.
Like upgrading DS1000Z to 500MHz and faster sampling.
Yes, bandwith is useful, but it couldn't compare to KS DSOX3000, TEK MDO3000, not even Hameg HMO3000, not to mention new R&S RTM3000

I have to disagree with you there; the latest firmware releases of the DS4000 do a decent job in decoding and are different than DS1000Z series in the fact they decode from memory and not the screen (one of Nico's pet peeves).
The absence of a search capability is my biggest annoyance with it, and I can live with its annoyance of having trouble decoding above 50ms/div, but YMMV.
Also, depending on your use, the small memory of the DSOX3000 completely blocks you from even considering a purchase.

[2N3055]

I have to disagree with you there; the latest firmware releases of the DS4000 do a decent job in decoding and are different than DS1000Z series in the fact they decode from memory and not the screen (one of Nico's pet peeves).
The absence of a search capability is my biggest annoyance with it, and I can live with its annoyance of having trouble decoding above 50ms/div, but YMMV.
Also, depending on your use, the small memory of the DSOX3000 completely blocks you from even considering a purchase.

You are completely right, DS4000 does that, but decodes are still software driven etc, etc.  I know it is not exactly like DS1000Z in that regards (in fact it is much better). I apologize for confusion I created I was exaggerating a bit to prove the point. For me, for my use, lack of search made it not much more useful than DS1000Z. That is why I sad that, rather clumsily... Sorry for that, I hope i explained it better now.

Regards,
Sinisa

[nctnico]

What is added value of support? A-brands have better bug reporting procedure? For the money they charge, they should have much less bugs that B brands to begin with. At least that is their explanation of much higher price. 

IMHO this is a bit of a rant. The A-brands demonstratingly have less bugs than the B brands when an instrument is introduced and are more committed to fixing bugs in a reasonable timeframe. Also in my experience the A-brands work better in corner cases. This is one of the reasons I've turned away from buying cheap test equipment. The chance that it won't perform at some point is high and then I need to spend money again to buy 'the good stuff' (besides time/money wasted on messing around).

[Wolfgang]

With any new round of features new bugs come as a standard. Its all like Windows (and a lot of A brand instruments are Windows based). If you want something that works from day one

- buy an A brand if you can, or a very trusty mass model from a B brand
- get a model that has been on the market for years and that does the job you need
- avoid new and fancy stuff if you can
- read the net for reviews and bug reports.
- negotiate hard. Your chances with old equipment is much better than with new models.

much luck !

[2N3055]

What is added value of support? A-brands have better bug reporting procedure? For the money they charge, they should have much less bugs that B brands to begin with. At least that is their explanation of much higher price. 

IMHO this is a bit of a rant. The A-brands demonstratingly have less bugs than the B brands when an instrument is introduced and are more committed to fixing bugs in a reasonable timeframe. Also in my experience the A-brands work better in corner cases. This is one of the reasons I've turned away from buying cheap test equipment. The chance that it won't perform at some point is high and then I need to spend money again to buy 'the good stuff' (besides time/money wasted on messing around).

I'm not the one that will join EVERY SINGLE discussion mentioning Rigol and Siglent and explain people they are idiots because they want to buy something you don't approve..
Like you are on a crusade or something...
And it is you who cannot prove your opinion with data. Your personal experience is based on sample of 1. You bought one Siglent scope model as an early adopter. Which is bad idea anyway, being early adopter.
Quite frankly I think you have every right to be pissed at them then. I would be too if I had a story like you. Because of YOUR story I am a bit wary of Siglent. I've seen some mistreatment of compensation capacitors issue etc. I do have a reservation about them a bit too.

But because of what happened to you once,  you shouldn't extrapolate that:
1. All Chinese equipment from all manufacturers is shit.
2. All Chinese manufacturers are shit.
3. All manufacturers and products never change. They never learn anything and can never get better.
4. Also good ones cannot change to worse. They are just blessed with goodness..... (hint: Tektronix)

When Keysight sells you very expensive (for what is is) power supply that has basic flaws at being power supply (it has switch on transients that damaged 2000 USD development boards, and cannot measure correctly ..) and has fundamental flaws in it's core analog circuitry, then you are not pissed at "crappy Americans". Than, after waiting for months for them to admit it, they finally replace it for you and then you are happy with their excellent support. What about handheld meters fiasco, recalls of 3446x series, flash rot on 2000/3000 series, exploding PSU's on 3000 series.... Etc Etc..
No, they don't exist. You have excellent support. It's a premium manufacturer, these things don't happen...

I'm a realist. Anybody that expect that something as complicated as MSO/DSOX3000 or MSO/DO7000, or R&S2000/3000/4000 series can be developed in a year with zero bugs is, well, delusional.
And I mean by anybody, not even the mighty ones..
Keysight 3000/4000 series is the most stable of all because it has been debugged for 10 years. If you can, assemble list of all erratas and bugfixes over the years. I took a  quick look, for 2000/3000A it is a 23 pages document, including enhancements and bugfixes. For 3000T it is additional 11 pages. But after all that, it is rock solid.
Because of being that old, it is also horribly overpriced for what it is. I would rather go with LeCroy 3000 or R&S 3000 series. I like R&S 3000 best, but that thing is as buggy at the moment as you think Rigols and Siglents are. Which are not anymore. LeCroy has it's funny little annoyances too.

I apologize to everyone for writing so much.

And Nico, I do understand your frustration. I respect you have your opinions. But, please, you have to stop telling us what we should do or think. We heard you first 100 times. There are many people here that have quite positive experience with Chinese equipment, quite opposite from you, provided that you don't have unrealistic expectations and accept those are not high end products.
I wish you all the best, and thank you for all the stuff I learn from you. If you wish to reply, please do, but I would like to stop arguing with you. I respect you and don't want that. I wish we could stop here and agree to disagree if we cannot agree to anything else.

Regards,

Sinisa

[nctnico]

But because of what happened to you once,  you shouldn't extrapolate that:
1. All Chinese equipment from all manufacturers is shit.

See you are ranting. To start with: this statement is demonstratebly wrong. I never wrote that. As I wrote before: there are Chinese manufacturers out there which do test their equipment thouroughly before releasing and hence are on par with the A-brands when it comes to a low amount of bugs but they are more expensive.

[2N3055]

1. All Chinese equipment from all manufacturers is shit.

See you are ranting. To start with: this statement is demonstratebly wrong.

I honestly don't understand what do you mean here. My English is failing me.. But, as I said, on this topic, I'm afraid you will have to have a monolog, without me.

[ebastler]

1. All Chinese equipment from all manufacturers is shit.

See you are ranting. To start with: this statement is demonstratebly wrong. Also there are Chinese manufacturers out there which do test their equipment thouroughly before releasing but they are more expensive.

Nico -- when I first saw your post, I thought you were joking. Now you have edited it to expand on your "argument", and I am beginning to wonder whether your quote from 2N3055's post and your comment are actually meant seriously?! 

If so, please read 2N3055's post again. Or, at the very least, re-read the line above the one you quoted.

[2N3055]

Thank you for that edit. Now it makes more sense, albeit a bit in contradiction with many your previous posts.

Anyhow, would you please name a few of those that you do trust to make good products.

I personally think that GW Instek has feature set and quality that is premium. They are Taiwanese. Good, solid company.
If they made a 500MHz 4GSa/sec version of their 2000E series I would buy that in a heartbeat. But they don't have that.

Are there any more brands that I could look up? I would appreciate info, as well as many forum members here.

Regards,
Sinisa

[nctnico]

Thank you for that edit. Now it makes more sense, albeit a bit in contradiction with many your previous posts.

Anyhow, would you please name a few of those that you do trust to make good products.

I personally think that GW Instek has feature set and quality that is premium. They are Taiwanese. Good, solid company.
If they made a 500MHz 4GSa/sec version of their 2000E series I would buy that in a heartbeat. But they don't have that.

Are there any more brands that I could look up? I would appreciate info, as well as many forum members here.

You already mentioned GW Instek but MicSig is another good example of a company where they test thouroughly before releasing. I have a TO1104 and I have not been able to spot a single bug in it despite my (usual) thourough testing. Maybe there are other brands out there as well. For example I would like to try an oscilloscope from ZLG and check what is what. I know they aren't cheap but they don't seem to be available outside China.

[2N3055]

You already mentioned GW Instek but MicSig is another good example of a company where they test thouroughly before releasing. I have a TO1104 and I have not been able to spot a single bug in it.

Thanks!! I actually keep an open eye on MicSig TO1104, but couldn't find an excuse so far to claim it necessary for any projects I'm working on now... :-)
I'm not nostalgic, I could get used to no buttons, whatever works..
Unfortunately, they are good (better?)  alternative to Rigol DS1000Z series (1000Z are nice little desktop scopes, despite decoding being a joke), but MicSig has nothing a bit higher up the food chain.

Regards,
Sinisa

[Karel]

To hobbyists: The Rigol DS1054Z is a great purchase, go get one!

To professionals: Stay away from brands like Rigol as far as possible.

Here is our experience with Rigol's "flagship":

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-rigol-ds7000/msg1621537/#msg1621537

By the way, since the last firmware update for the DS6000 (yes, they had one!), sometimes, when I switch on the scope,
it shows this screen (switching off and on again resolves the problem):

[ebclr]

Google is banned in China, They can't  use google translator

[dr.diesel]

To professionals: Stay away from brands like Rigol as far as possible.

The 4000 series is a perfect example, took Rigol over a year to produce a non-crashing firmware, and my personal unit I kept at home, 2 different encoders went bad before the stable FW was released.   

However, I do believe they are improving, perhaps not there yet, but in 5-10 years they might well be a competing force.

[Wolfgang]

Sorry to say, but there is a grain of truth in all this rant. The story runs like this:

- A low-end model is simple. Simplicity in software means less errors.
- A low end model sells in millions or at least 100ds of thousands. The chance
  that a user finds an error is quite high, just because of the number of people
  trying everything out.
- Lots of complaints demand a fast problem fixing cylcle. A manufacturer of
  a mass model cannot afford a lot of bad press so the fixing is done with a high priority
- After a a reasonable timespan (1-2 years) the low-end model errors are
  etched out and you have a reasonable product.

Not so for the high end.
- Higher complexity is more prone to errors, on a nonlinear scale
- A small customer base results in low sales volume
- Mostly specialized applications, not generalities like the low-end models
- Bugs are detected, but by few users only
- These bugs have low priority due their small numbers and low public attention
- It may take years to remove them, if ever.

This is the primary dilemma of a rising star company which had a lot of success on the low end. If they move to the pro segment, user expectations are very different from what they are used to. Pros are absolutely intolerant to missing specifications, bugs or lousy or nonexistent product update cycles. Arguing that you are cheaper than A brand XYZ wont help you there. I have seen this a lot with Rigol stuff. Their cheap line is OK, but beware of some pro instruments.

[mikeselectricstuff]

- A low-end model is simple. Simplicity in software means less errors.

And the low cost means people have lower expectations, and are more tolerant of issues because there is either no competition, or the competition is worse and/or has different issues.

 

[ttelectronic]

It can be difficult. At a place I used to work we had a well known Japanese brand of equipment. Now, while their service and support is outstanding. This was a $75k+ machine that we had to struggle with for over a year until they would replace it. It is definitely possible to get a crap product from a great brand.

[tautech]

You already mentioned GW Instek but MicSig is another good example of a company where they test thouroughly before releasing. I have a TO1104 and I have not been able to spot a single bug in it.

Thanks!! I actually keep an open eye on MicSig TO1104, but couldn't find an excuse so far to claim it necessary for any projects I'm working on now... :-)
I'm not nostalgic, I could get used to no buttons, whatever works..
Unfortunately, they are good (better?)  alternative to Rigol DS1000Z series (1000Z are nice little desktop scopes, despite decoding being a joke), but MicSig has nothing a bit higher up the food chain.

Regards,
Sinisa

Don't swallow the continual BS Nico keeps splurting about mature products at release. 
His favored GW for example........see this post:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/possible-gw-instek-gds-1000b-hack/msg1734995/#msg1734995

[David Hess]

The screen glare was horrible.  Even Dave's camera was having trouble and focusing on the foreground reflected by the screen.

The excessively complex control panel markings add nothing and detract from intelligibility.  Were the designers simply courageous or did they get paid for every line, angle, color added?  I like the simple lines and shaded areas used on old Tektronix font panels.

The FFT function discards phase information.  I am still looking or a modern DSO which supports this.

No peak-to-peak triggering.

No trigger after delayed sweep.

Supports windowed measurements.

No high resolution acquisition mode?  Does that mean that again measurements are made on the display record?

1mV/div sure looks like x5 or x10 digital magnification but the specifications unambiguously say 1mV/div sensitivity.

Marketing materials advertise shortened overload recovery time but no specification is given.  Cleverly, this is done as an image so a text search does not find it but it sure caught my eye.

I could see the interface lag when Dave was operating it.  How slow does it need to be?

Did Rigol confuse differential with two channels?  Does each module have two differential channels?  The photographs do not show that.

[bitseeker]

The excessively complex control panel markings add nothing and detract from intelligibility.  Were the designers simply courageous or did they get paid for every line, angle, color added?  I like the simple lines and shaded areas used on old Tektronix font panels.

My interpretation of it is that Rigol is trying to develop a unique trade dress to differentiate themselves from the competition (and be able to point fingers if someone copies it). However, one of the following or something is hampering them: they don't have usability knowledge/experience, they have the knowledge but aren't allowed to apply it, or they don't know/believe/care that usability is important.

A product can certainly have a unique look without making labels from half a dozen font families and positioning them every which way all over the front panel. I have to hope that they just don't think it matters and can fix it whenever they wake up, because it's obviously getting worse.

I could see the interface lag when Dave was operating it.

Yeah, I was surprised to see how sluggish it was, considering the price.

[rf-loop]

1mV/div sure looks like x5 or x10 digital magnification but the specifications unambiguously say 1mV/div sensitivity.

No, specification clearly tell that 1mV and 2mV/div are magnification from 4mV/div
Look specs note [2]