oscilloscope recommendation for a newbie

[tizi]

Hi All,

as this is my first post please be GENTLE, lol. 

i have never used an oscilloscope but have to start some time, i have seen daves video on youtube stating try analogue get you feet wet .

What ocillscope should i look for as i have a budget of $500 for 2 channel unit

Brand, mhz, memory

Rigol, hantek,

any help would be appreciated tizi

[tautech]

Please be patient for replies and DO NOT double post.
See my reply to your other thread.

[danadak]

DS1054Z, can be hacked to 100 Mhz, 4 channel.

But then its hard to recommend not knowing the areas and applications
you will be working on. The above scope is a great value. There might
also still be a discount at

http://www.tequipment.net/Rigol/DS1054Z/Digital-Oscilloscopes/

by asking for eevblog discount.


Search forums, many discussions on this.

One way of making decisions like this is to do a decision matrix in
Excel, ranking each characteristic on a 1 - 5 basis, summing up
the column (the model of the scope, rows the characteristic of
interest).

http://www.launchexcel.com/resources/decision-matrix/

http://www.weighteddecision.com/



Regards, Dana.

[tizi]

many thanks dana,

my application generally hobby use only, Ive repair a lot of thing over the years.

but there is somethings its a must to use a scope.

ive always told my kids you're never to old to learn new things

will look at techquipe

cheers tizi

[rstofer]

It is impossible to recommend anything without a more specific description of the applications.  And that's the problem!  Many people simply don't know what features they require.  How could they?  It's their first scope and, at best, they might have touched one in a college lab jammed full of other students doing the same thing.

So, what to say?  We can't say much about bandwidth except that since you didn't say you were working on very high frequencies, we can assume you're not.  You didn't say anything about FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) so  it might not be the most important feature.

At best, we can recommend what we have so I will...  I have had a 350 MHz dual channel Tektronix 485 scope for the past 13 years.  It's a great scope with lots of bandwidth but...  It lacks every single feature that is common on the modern digital oscilloscope.  All it has is two channels and decent bandwidth.  OTOH, I only paid about $200 for it way back when.

When I decided to buy a DSO, I read a bunch of similar threads on EEVblog, tossed the dice and bought the Rigol 1054Z.  It's a very nice entry level scope with a BUNCH of very neat features.  As long as I don't want to display very accurate square waves at much over 12 MHz, everything is fine.  I can't say I have fallen in love with the FFT but that may be a user error.  My highest frequency source laying around is 80 MHz and that sine wave displays perfectly.

For a beginning user, I would certainly recommend a 4 channel scope (future proofing) and specifically the DS1054Z.  Any scope that is substantially better is going to cost at least twice as much.

The new Siglent SDS-1202X-E, when it finally hits the stores, may be another candidate but, so far, there are no reviews.  It is a 2 channel 200 MHz scope priced to compete head-to-head with the DS1054Z.  I really wanted 4 channels but the extra bandwidth is pretty nice.  It may be an excellent choice, once it becomes available.  But it's going to be awhile before we get multiple user reviews.

There are dozens of threads just like this one.  There will be a cluster of replies touting the DS1054Z and others recommending something else.  In the end it gets down to features and capabilities versus price and a beginner doesn't have much to say about their need for features and capabilities.