| Electronics > Beginners |
| Is the Rigol DS1054Z still the best entry level digital scope for the price? |
| << < (9/22) > >> |
| ebastler:
--- Quote from: cowana on May 02, 2017, 11:26:06 am ---I don't see the 100MHz bandwidth as much of a limit - typically I2C runs at 400kHz, and SPI at a few MHz (when used to talk to sensors on an 8-bit arduino or other simple micro). --- End quote --- I would agree -- for the hobby applications I am interested in, there seems to be a bit of a no-man's land above 100 MHz (or even less than that). Microcontroller clocks and the "pedestrian" serial busses are easily accessible with <= 100 MHz bandwidth. And the level requires much more bandwidth -- e.g. HDMI, USB, PC processors. I have personally not come across an application where 200 MHz would have enabled me to do something which was not accessible at 100 MHz. But I'm sure someone will point out valid examples any moment! ;) |
| medical-nerd:
--- Quote from: ebclr on May 02, 2017, 10:34:43 am ---You can still buy the license, if you don't want to hack --- End quote --- I realise that - however one of the selling points for me was the possibility of trying out the options in the relatively near future, 36 hours of which would have lasted me for months. This 'cheap' scope is a major outlay for me, the ability to have these options available, with myself carefully using the time available, decided this was for me rather than a 2-channel scope. Cheers |
| rstofer:
--- Quote from: james_s on May 02, 2017, 03:47:34 am --- --- Quote from: rstofer on May 01, 2017, 09:27:46 pm ---The manufacturers didn't want a 'gray market' in their products. This is actually pretty common and a huge problem in the SCUBA industry where regulators are available in foreign countries (relative to US) for considerably less money. The customers in the US are getting ripped and will often order from foreign sources but the manufacturer claims you won't get a warranty and your local retailer may no perform the usual maintenance. Sometimes retailers order from these sources in bulk and sell the products for less than MSRP. Not the kind of thing the manufacturer wants to see as they try to protect their authorized resellers. --- End quote --- But how is a used item gray market? I've never heard of anyone being challenged about selling used equipment. --- End quote --- Yes, I have a problem with the idea I can't sell my used equipment as well. But this is old news, it isn't a current issue and, yet, it keeps getting dredged up. Over and over... Old news... Just look at eBay for alternative facts. The other issue that was mentioned a few posts above is the lack of firmware updates (I suspect aimed at Rigol) where there have been quite a few updates in the 2+ years the scope has been on the market. I have done two official updates in the several months I have had mine. If you watch the inventory levels at a place like Tequipment, you get the idea that they sell about 1000 DS1054Zs per week. And they're just one supplier! This scope must be the best selling model of all time. Adding features to a DSO like decoding or FFT increases a manufacturer's NRE costs. But it's a one time deal spread over the sale of tens of thousands of scopes. I can see Rigol supporting the DS1054Z for quite a while if some new scope doesn't come along and unseat the absolute ruler of the low end scope market. Until I bought the DS1054Z, I worked around the 2 channel versus 4 channel thing for decades. I bought the scope specifically for the 4 channels and decoding. If I need bandwidth, I'll drag out my Tektronix 485 350 MHz scope. But I also bought the DS1054Z because it is inexpensive. If I had to pay, say, $800, I wouldn't have bought it. But for $400, no problem! Sign me up! |
| alsetalokin4017:
I am constantly growing more and more appreciative of the z-box. It has its frustrating "features" and bugs that haven't been adequately fixed, but I really like its display features especially much. Recently I've been looking at screenshots from other scopes like Siglent and Atten and even Tektronix, and the Rigol manages to display more information in a "prettier" form than some of those others. And I don't find the user interface difficult at all, but then I have a lot of practice using it. Now, the reliability of the information it is telling me is another issue altogether, and certainly more important than the "cosmetics" above. Mostly I think it can be trusted but I have come across several instances when certain measurements seem unreliable. I'm not talking about the RMS issue, which does seem to have been resolved in the last-but-one firmware update. Phase angle between two channel signals is one such problematic area for the automatic measurements. I wish the cursors would report phase angle, but they only report time and voltage positions and differences. I just figured out how to get phase angle from the cursors! Using the "Units > Degrees" and the "Set Range" buttons deep in the Cursors menu! :clap: I particularly like the utility and appearance of this display of all the available single-channel measurements: |
| janoc:
--- Quote from: madires on May 02, 2017, 11:10:16 am ---Yes, if you're looking for a 4-ch DSO. For a 2-ch scope there are alternatives, but it all boils down to WYSIWYG. So don't expect any firmware updates or good support. Don't overvalue fancy features like FFT, unless you already know what you need. As the hobby develops you'll know later on if the DSO's simple FFT is fine for you or if you should get a Spectrum Analyzer, for example. --- End quote --- Another thing is that you can always pull the data from the scope - the Rigol has both USB and Ethernet, USB stick is also an option - and do a full analysis on a PC. It is both faster and more accurate than what the scope alone can manage. There is plenty of free software for doing this and the exported data format is easy to work with. So unless one uses something like FFT every day or needs to do complex serial decoding (where the Rigol arguably does suck), there are ways around those issues. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |
| Previous page |