Electronics > Beginners

first o-scope

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HooRide:
I've been tinkering with electronics since my early teens and recently seriously questioned myself why, now in my mid 20's, I hadn't purchased an oscilloscope yet.

I have a friend with a Rigol and have seen all the positive attention it gets all over the net but....I have the 'buy it once' mentality and those new Agilent scopes look simply amazing.


Even with money to 'kick around,' would it be foolish for me to essentially blindly buy a $4k scope as my first one? (100MHz or 200MHz 4ch w/logic analyzer)

I currently make projects with BASIC stamps and Audrino boards but want to get into more complex FPGAs ect.

neoone:
buy cheaper one like Rigol and by the time it's not enough for your new designs Agilent will be probably cheaper if you really need it. And you can always sell Rigol if it hurts that you have spent 350$ for it but when compared to 4k$... well you know what I mean. I'm into electronics for about 15 years now (about 4 professionally) and my first "real" scope is Rigol which I bought few months ago. It is much easier with scope but I managed to live without it for a long time so I personally don't think that 4k$ scope is a must have for most purposes even for a professional electronic engineer. Of course I don't underestimate it's value and if I had enough money to spend I would gladly buy Agilent as my friend will probably do in the nearest future after he sells his Tectronix scope (as I said selling is always an option). 

Wim_L:
Difficult one. As a rule of thumb: buy the best you can afford. More bandwith, more memory, more features, bigger screen... All are good, and will make it easier to do whatever you want to be doing.

On the other hand, one has to balance priorities. Is it just for a hobby? How much cash do you want to throw at the hobby? If you spend all you can afford on a scope, how will you pay for the soldering station, function generator, programmer, multimeter,... Also take into account that while more bandwifth is always better, using it effectively mean you'll be running into the limits of passive probes. As a general rule, a 100 MHz (approximately) scope is a good general purpose troubleshooting device. Making use of faster scopes without loading the circuit excessively may often require active probes that can be as expensive as the scope itself.

When I was in your situation a while back, I picked up a Hameg 1508-2. The Agilent scopes weren't around yet, and the Hameg had a very compelling feature set: both analog and digital scope in one, high quality screen, lots of memory, two analog and two logic channels (with some logic triggering), no annoying noisy fan. However, it did cost me a lot more (about 2000 EUR) than a somewhat weaker Rigol of similar bandwidth. I made the decision after a brief demo of a Rigol (don't recall exact model, I think it was a 2ch, 100 MHz, 1Mpoint memory), Tek 2000B series, and the Hameg. It was a compromise solution, but overall I have few complaints about it and found it was worth the extra cost compared to a Rigol. Best would be if you could try a scope at a shop or a friend who has one already. Technical specifications don't say it all, ergonomics (the feel of the instrument) matters a lot for a device you'll be using often.

HooRide:

--- Quote from: neoone on April 11, 2011, 08:53:28 pm ---buy cheaper one like Rigol and by the time it's not enough for your new designs Agilent will be probably cheaper if you really need it. And you can always sell Rigol if it hurts that you have spent 350$ for it but when compared to 4k$... well you know what I mean. I'm into electronics for about 15 years now (about 4 professionally) and my first "real" scope is Rigol which I bought few months ago. It is much easier with scope but I managed to live without it for a long time so I personally don't think that 4k$ scope is a must have for most purposes even for a professional electronic engineer. Of course I don't underestimate it's value and if I had enough money to spend I would gladly buy Agilent as my friend will probably do in the nearest future after he sells his Tectronix scope (as I said selling is always an option). 

--- End quote ---

Thanks for your response! I wish it were that clear-cut; a comparable Rigol is $1200. If it were truly only $350, it would be a pretty easy decision.



--- Quote from: Wim_L on April 11, 2011, 10:20:31 pm ---Difficult one. As a rule of thumb: buy the best you can afford. More bandwith, more memory, more features, bigger screen... All are good, and will make it easier to do whatever you want to be doing.

On the other hand, one has to balance priorities. Is it just for a hobby? How much cash do you want to throw at the hobby? If you spend all you can afford on a scope, how will you pay for the soldering station, function generator, programmer, multimeter,... Also take into account that while more bandwifth is always better, using it effectively mean you'll be running into the limits of passive probes. As a general rule, a 100 MHz (approximately) scope is a good general purpose troubleshooting device. Making use of faster scopes without loading the circuit excessively may often require active probes that can be as expensive as the scope itself.

When I was in your situation a while back, I picked up a Hameg 1508-2. The Agilent scopes weren't around yet, and the Hameg had a very compelling feature set: both analog and digital scope in one, high quality screen, lots of memory, two analog and two logic channels (with some logic triggering), no annoying noisy fan. However, it did cost me a lot more (about 2000 EUR) than a somewhat weaker Rigol of similar bandwidth. I made the decision after a brief demo of a Rigol (don't recall exact model, I think it was a 2ch, 100 MHz, 1Mpoint memory), Tek 2000B series, and the Hameg. It was a compromise solution, but overall I have few complaints about it and found it was worth the extra cost compared to a Rigol. Best would be if you could try a scope at a shop or a friend who has one already. Technical specifications don't say it all, ergonomics (the feel of the instrument) matters a lot for a device you'll be using often.

--- End quote ---

That's a great question, it's more than just a hobby, I plan to continue my education in the field and turn it into a career so I see it more as throwing cash into education. Also, you make a great point about ergonomics and feel of a tool. When I jumped from a Radio Shack pencil iron to a Weller station soldering went from being tedious to actually kinda fun. Same idea when I upgraded DMMs; I didn't know what I was missing out on until I upgraded. That might explain why I am considering getting a nicer o-scope to start with. As for a function generator, I was going to use the one built-in to the Agilent o-scope (if I got it), seems pretty decent. Thanks to Dave's blog videos, I feel like I don't really have to go out and find a place to demo either the Rigol or Agilent, he's done a fantastic job for us all.

EEVblog:
Yeah, as Wim_L said.
It's a matter of weighing up. $4K buys you a pretty awesome complete lab setup many would be envious of, so spending it all on one scope when you don't have the other stuff is probably not the best decision.
Nothing wrong with buying say the $1200 Agilent and upgrading later as needed though. No one will ever say that's a bad investment by any stretch compared with the Rigol, if you have the money and like buying quality tools.

On the "feel" side, it's not surprising the Agilent beats the Rigol hands down. The bigger and better screen, the controls, the operation, the response time etc. But you'd expect that for 3 times the price of course. I like the Rigol and still think it's superb value for money, but now that I have both, the Rigol feels much cheaper than it used to...

Dave.

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