Electronics > Beginners
Is the Rigol DS1054Z still the best buy for a cheap entry level oscilloscope?
wa7son:
Dave did a nice review of the Rigol DS1054Z oscilloscope back in January 2015:
At the time this was THE starter scope to buy, but I imagine a lot of stuff have happened since. Is this still the recommended scope if you're on a budget?
tautech:
Welcome to the forum.
Everyone's on a budget but what you get for that budget can be another matter plus the experience with a scope will further dictate requirements.
Since 2015 there's been quite a few entry level DSO's released including 2 new Siglents that are at least worthy of some study.....presuming you know what you want and know how to properly line one against another.
Models I refer to are SDS1202X-E and the newer 4ch variants SDS1104X-E and 1204X-E.
There's a comparison between them all in the first post here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds1204x-e-released-for-domestic-markets-in-china/
JS:
For not much more you can have the SDS1104X-E from Siglent, which is much modern stuff (lunched 6 month ago or so)
With the Signlent you can add later a function generator (and make bode plots with it), a logic analyzer and/or wifi. Also has all the good stuff as standard, like serial decoding, 100MHz BW. Very fast capture rate (up to 400Wfms/S, etc.
It has some downsides, as it's recently lunched the firmware could be better, and there are still bugs to be found, the Rigol is quite polished by now.
https://www.siglent.eu/sds1104x-e.html
I'm looking to get one of those, most likely the siglent, and if I can with the waveform generator from the start as I don't have one. The problem here (in Argentina) are shipping costs about U$200 and custom taxes (50% over price+shipping) so with the waveform generator is about U$1500 once I got it to my hands. |O
I wouldn't go or the SDS1202X-E since you loose a lot of the good stuff, over the 2 chanels (all the optionals for instance). The SDS1202X-E is more expensive as it has 200MHz BW but keeps the sampling rate the same, so doesn't much a ton of sense unless you really need to measure things over 100MHz
JS
wa7son:
Thanks a lot - seems like Siglent is everybody's new favorite :D
I'm not sure if I need the 200Mhz of the SDS1202X-E/SDS1204X-E versions or if I even need 4 channels. I'm not sure if I really need a function generator either, unless it's required to tune the probes as I've seen people do using a square wave? I've heard people talk about bode plots as well, but I'm not sure what that is.
Since you asked, I can just share a little of what my needs are. I've never used an oscilloscope before, but I've been working with RF digital signal processing on a hobby basis with the HackRF and have done a few talks on the topic.
During my work with DSP, I've often needed to inspect digital signals and recently I've been trying to reverse engineer an RS485 signal which got me thinking that it would be really nice to own an oscilloscope. I was a backer of the OpenScope MZ project on Kickstarter, but haven't gotten it to work on my Mac yet, and I saw Daves review of it as well which let me to start dreaming on owning something a bit better. My budget is probably around where the Rigol is at $350 USD, but if there's something for $500 USD that's "just that much better" then it might be worth for me spending the extra bucks.
- The Rigol DS1054Z is $349 on Amazon.com
- The Siglent SDS1104X-E is $499 on Amazon.com
- The Siglent SDS1202X-E is $379 on Amazon.com
What's a use-case where you'd normally need more than 2 channels on a scope?
cs.dk:
--- Quote from: wa7son on May 11, 2018, 08:37:55 am ---I'm not sure if I really need a function generator either, unless it's required to tune the probes as I've seen people do using a square wave?
--- End quote ---
The cal-signal is build in, in all scopes afaik. Never seen one without it.
I've got the Rigol, and i'm quite happy with it. It is really up to your personal needs, spending 150$ more, or just go with the Rigol.
Btw. I've got mine from Batronix
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