EEVblog #1231- New Uni-T UPO3000 Oscilloscope Teardown

[EEVblog]

Teardown of the new Uni-T UPO3000 series oscilloscope.

[TheSteve]

My wife just said that the front panel seems to have a "Hello Kitty" influence, I have to say that I agree.

[johnlsenchak]

Did I  see  Analog  Devices  OP-Amps  on the  front end? Super  Low noise JFET  inputs?   Looks like  Unit-t is a  Analog  Devices  "Fan  Boy" when it comes to  the manufacture  of oscilloscopes 

[Muttley Snickers]

That faulty USB alone confirms once again that Uni-t is not for me, was there a warranty card in the box ?.   

Plenty of equipment resellers flog a variety of Unitrend products around Australia but I don't know if there is a proper distributor to where you would return a product such as this.   

[thmjpr]

Previous thread here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-uni-t-upo3254e/

Its like Uni-t designed this thing 4 years ago. Seriously, the DS4000 hasn't been recommended for years on this forum, and was never really a great scope, comparing a newly released model to that is intentional marketing ignorance.
The PCBs are dated ~1 year ago, then software March of this year, maybe they have a really small team but seems like they are sitting on the design for a while. For the FPGA (xc7k160t fbg676), the cheapest I saw on octopart was $200. That EMMC daughter board is really cool though.

As for the sub $1k scope comparison, the MSO5072/5074 blows them all away spec wise. The potential competitor I can think of is a yet to be released Siglent model.

[taemun]

Seems like Uni-T thinks that Dave runs a free engineering advice service, instead of a video blog where he reviews products for potential customers.

[mariush]

Sigh ... I'm sorry for Uni-T.

With all those hand placed capacitors and resistors I would have guessed that it's a pre-release model, a "beta" version of the multimeter ... but man, the chips are years old and they're not ready with the logic analyzer...
Also shitty fan and capacitors on power supply and electrolytic capacitors on a $1000 scope... no.

[ales22]

Dave, can you take a closer look at the probes, please? That thick cable looks like regular coax, not lossy transmission line. Coax is very common in the cheapest chinese probes.

[rf-loop]

MXT2004 (2x1500Ms/s) is chinese ADC08D1520 functional clone.
( http://www.mxtronics.com/n107/n808/n809/n815/index.html )
http://www.eechina.com/thread-171332-1-1.html

As we also remember some old Rigol and old Owon SDS7102 series have used chinese MXT2002 (2x500Ms/s)

[Kleinstein]

This seems to be still a rather early unit (digital inputs still to come, maybe the same with the arb gen.). So chances are there will be updates to the software.

The changed parts in the input stages look really odd - more like early prototype stage and not a really production ready design.
With low cost Chinese labor it may still work, but it's odd. Chances are the lower speed versions are not tweaked as much.

The entry one of the Rigol MSO5000 series, likely still has the high power consumption and high temperature of the other modes.
So it is not in every aspect useful (e.g. in a relatively hat lab). Otherwise it is hard to beat in many aspects. However it may also have some early version software bugs.

[Fungus]

So.... what was the big springy knob for? It's huge, nearly blocking out access to the multifunction knob, it has to do something!

Is it just me or does the multifunction knob turn the "wrong" way for the menus? (clockwise=down)

The sunken/embedded trigger mode buttons on the right look like they'll be horrible for left-handed people to use.

I'm not sure that black cable was connected to anything when you opened it. Maybe just flapping around inside waiting to short a couple of pins.

[RoadRunner]

Does anyone by chance know manufacture or part number that weird big rotary encoder on front panel?

 I guess Tek scopes also have same or similar encoder for pan and zoom.


Regards.

[thm_w]

The entry one of the Rigol MSO5000 series, likely still has the high power consumption and high temperature of the other modes.
So it is not in every aspect useful (e.g. in a relatively hat lab). Otherwise it is hard to beat in many aspects. However it may also have some early version software bugs.

It uses 70W with all channels going, which is not unreasonable. Most test equipment is incredibly power hungry and doesn't care much about efficiency.

Does anyone by chance know manufacture or part number that weird big rotary encoder on front panel?

Alps
Here is an example of a similar part:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/VK-Japan-ALPS-import-SRGPHJ3200-security-with-shuttle-coding-micro-hollow-shaft-spindle-switch/32799158024.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/VK-Japanese-ALPS-encoder-reset-SRGPTJ0500-hollow-center-shuttle-coding-switch-with-key-switch/32728844725.html

[Martin72]

It is like it is….Siglent and Rigol are the leading ones what affordable scopes concerns.
Don´t know why they´ve send it to Dave, perhaps in the hope he can give them some advices...

[EEVblog]

Don´t know why they´ve send it to Dave, perhaps in the hope he can give them some advices...

Publicity. Any publicity is good publicity, although of course they think they have a decent product.

[EEVblog]

So.... what was the big springy knob for? It's huge, nearly blocking out access to the multifunction knob, it has to do something!

It's for the record and replay function, common on higher end scopes. I don't like that is relegates the much more used horizontal controls to smaller ones with cramped surroundings.