Electronics > Beginners
Is the Rigol DS1054Z still the best buy for a cheap entry level oscilloscope?
Doctorandus_P:
I bought a Rigol DS1052E ... years ago, long before the the1054z was introduced.
It's an OK scope, and I do not really need a better scope, but I'm thinking of buying a Siglent as an upgrade "just for fun".
- Much bigger screen, more info, less zooming. (Always a bit of a struggle on the old DS1052E.)
- On the Rigol you always want to turn the menu's of, because of the small screen. (extra distraction).
- Higher vertical resolution on the monitor (Rigol has barely enough vertical pixels for the 8-bit resolution).
- Annoying rotary encoders on the Rigol. This is a very common point of failure. (Is that also true for the newer Rigol's?)
- Siglent has Ethernet, (but unfortunately very slow screen update over Ethernet).
- 4 channels, with protocol decoding can be used as mixed Scope / Logic Analyser.
As a Logic Analyser, I'm quite content with the cheap ( < EUR10) "24MHz 8ch" boxes from Ali / Ebay / China, with Sigrok / Pulseview.
But these lack the combination of Digital & Analog, which may be handy sometimes.
IDEngineer:
One more thought....
Some kids like to claim that they don't need to "learn" math because their advanced calculator does everything for them. I'm reminded of that when I think about relying on a DSO's "Auto" function. You'll may get a stable display, just like the calculator may give you the correct numeric answer, but neither one means you understand what happened to get there.
YMMV, just my $0.02, etc.
bd139:
Auto is no different to an auto ranging DMM IMHO. Use it all the time. Easier than pissing around in the layered controls.
Interestingly Philips did analogue scopes with auto.
BravoV:
--- Quote from: bd139 on May 31, 2018, 12:00:18 am ---Auto is no different to an auto ranging DMM IMHO. Use it all the time. Easier than pissing around in the layered controls.
Interestingly Philips did analogue scopes with auto.
--- End quote ---
Same as the venerable Tek CROs.
Dubbie:
I agree with Tautech,
I don't know that there is much educational value in starting out with a CRO.
I started with a digital scope and to be honest, I didn't take long to learn how to use it. By far the hard bit of electronics is knowing what you are looking at represents, not how to look at it.
I think the whole analog vs digital scope question is almost irrelevant for a beginner. Just get a digital scope, unless you really really have no choice but to use a CRO.
Using a CRO is NOT going to make you better at electronics despite what some posters would have you believe. You will only get better by making lots of projects and reading and applying theory.
A scope is not rocket science. You can become basically competent with one in an afternoon of playing around. learning to design good robust circuits can take a lot longer than that :D
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