EEVblog #1260 - $70 100MHz Oscilloscope?

[EEVblog]

Is this FNIRSI-5012H 100MHz bandwidth 500MS/s Handheld pocket oscilloscope any good?
Review + Teardown
http://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/Lirr17DW

[snoopy]

I bought one of these a while ago and started a thread on it here https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/daniu-ads5012h-100mhz-500-mss-portable-scope-for-$80-usd/msg2490162/#msg2490162

It works but has some limitations. The bandwidth is not as good as what it claims and there are lots of timing jitter at the higher sweep rates. But for low frequency stuff it is a very useful instrument for the price and it's really handy for doing floating measurements

Sometimes you need to press the autoset button twice to get it to autoset properly

[cliffyk]

I had one, but sent it back as it did not trigger well at all (see here). I was REALLY hoping it would work...

[johnlsenchak]

Clearly this is  not a professional grade  Oscilloscope , it's  just a  toy   with specifications  hyped  up  by the old men  in  China  with the gray  beards .

This little  Oscilloscope would be  good  for some kid  just starting off in electronics   doing  signal  testing  in the audio range  like working on consumer grade  amplifiers .


I would  have loved something like this  back in the early eighties   using it with my Radio  Shack   five hundred   in  one  electronic kit 

[cliffyk]

None of these sub-$200 Asian hand held mini-scopes are "professional" or even advanced hobbyist grade. I have gone through several of then over the past 2 or 3 months (Amazon Prime's return policies support this sort of research nicely). I had hoped to find a sub-$300 replacement for a not especially old (I bought it in June of 2009) Owon HDS1022M-N on which the plastic case decided to self-destruct, actually crumbling in my hands as I was using it.

All together I sampled the:

JinHan JDS2022A (20MHz, 200 MSps, $168.99)--absolutely horrid documentation, odd user interface, and limited trigger options at faster scans;

Hantek 2D42 (40MHz, 250 MSps, $175.99)--poorly designed deeply recessed BNC connectors, triggering issues with pulse bursts;

Owon HDS1021M-N (20 MHz, 500 MSps, $217.96)--this was against my better judgement, given my prior Owon experience, but it had a 640 x 480 display (curiously it saved screen dumps only at 320 x 240 --same as the older model I had). Also it required a multitude of dongles (supplied) for all USB connections (to PC, and for jump drives). THe display lacked contrast and was as dim as the 10-yo device; I had expected better after 10 years;

Hantek DSO1062B (60 MHZ, 1 GSps, $356.00)--this was a keeper... Bright 5.6" 640 x 480 display, screen captures and .AVI sequentials also at VGA resolution. Rated 60 MHz, actually 3 dB down at 90 MHz. 2500 frames/sec.  I like it!;

But, still hungry/ curious I bought:

FNIRSI Pro ADS2050H (5 Mhz, 20 MSps, $52.99)--I ended up with two of these due to a vendor screw-up (if anyone wants to buy one give me a yell). They are not bad, the 5 MHz bandwidth rating is as claimed; however they have the same triggering issues as the other "el-cheapos", triggering sporadically on aperiodic signals, and no triggered operation at all at sweeps > 500 ns.

Then there was the 5012H (100 MHz, 500 MSps, $84.98) of which enough has been said;

JYETech DSO112A (2 Mhz, 5 MSps, $57.99)--This is not a bad unit, I will keep it. In the first, it triggers properly on aperiodic signals including the 10 cycles of 10kHz repetitive bursts I used to test the 5012H. It offers 2 mV/div sensitivity. The front-end does pass 2 MHz signals, but unfortunately the 5 MSps sample rate is borderline slow to properly replicate a 2 MHz wave.

The touchscreen control is fun, however except that it is tiny I do not find any significant advantage over the push-button UIs of the others.

Little MCX connectors too, and an external trigger input:


It does offer usable cursor measurements, both voltage and time; and the trigger point can be set to 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 7/8 of the 1024 point buffer. The displayed 310 or so data points can be scrolled left and right allowing the entire 1024 point capture to be observed (most of the "minitoys"do not offer this capability, making their 1024 point or whatever capture buffers irrelevant;
 

[tszaboo]

Typical project. You make an good hardware (OK hardware in this case) and then it is let-down by the firmware and the software. Management underestimates the time it takes to write the software, doesnt give proper specification, and by the time someone with half a brain tests it, they invested so much time into the turd that is the firmware, that they have to ship no matter if it works or not.

[plexus]

My use-case for this would be audio signal tracing - would this be enough? I can get it for $85 CAD (about $65 USD) shipped from Banggood. Opinions for this use-case/price?

[ataradov]

My use-case for this would be audio signal tracing - would this be enough? I can get it for $85 CAD (about $65 USD) shipped from Banggood. Opinions for this use-case/price?

Depends on how often you need to do that. The current UI is incredibly frustrating. I would not get it if you need to use it on a regular basis.

[cliffyk]

My use-case for this would be audio signal tracing - would this be enough? I can get it for $85 CAD (about $65 USD) shipped from Banggood. Opinions for this use-case/price?

I would (and in fact did) buy the JYE Tec DSO112A I featured above; rather than the completely misrepresented 5012H thing--which does not sample at 500 MSps, and does not trigger reliably. The DSO112A will do anything you need to do at audio frequencies, including harmonics to 1 MHz (the 50th harmonic of a 20 kHz signal)...

#1, if you can, I recommend buying from Amazon Prime and pay with a credit card--you can easily return anything you don't like ; and they will issue credit to your card just as soon as UPS has accepted the return package (the record for me was 15 minutes after i dropped off the package at a UPS store, but never more than 4 or 5 hours)...

[jonovid]

if you start with the assumption its a 10MHz Oscilloscope, not 100MHz
this has got to be better then those DSO138 1MHz Digital Oscilloscope DIY kits.
it is a bit overpriced for a 10MHz unit.
I also note- the poor quality of the black case with sink marks in the plastic.
the quality of any custom made for purpose plastic case says a lot about its true value.

[cliffyk]

if you start with the assumption its a 10MHz Oscilloscope, not 100MHz
this has got to be better then those DSO138 1MHz Digital Oscilloscope DIY kits.
it is a bit overpriced for a 10MHz unit.
I also note- the poor quality of the black case with sink marks in the plastic.
the quality of any custom made for purpose plastic case says a lot about its true value.

Having had one I must disagree; beyond the B.S. claimed specifications it is incapable of reliably triggering on even the most simplistic of aperiodic signals--making it useless for anything beyond determining if a particular wire has squiggly lines in it.

It should be a Fisher-Price product; "My Little Oscilloscope" or maybe Mattel, "Barbie's First Oscilloscope"...

[ataradov]

I also note- the poor quality of the black case with sink marks in the plastic.
the quality of any custom made for purpose plastic case says a lot about its true value.

All my 3 units are perfectly fine. So it may be more of a QA problem than manufacturing.

[cliffyk]

Ditto, the one I had was mechanically sound and reasonably well fitted..

[all_repair]

JYETech DSO112A.  They are longer in this game. 
Put a handphone ring behind, you have a standing portable scope. 

[cliffyk]

JYETech DSO112A.  They are longer in this game. 
Put a handphone ring behind, you have a standing portable scope.

I like it; used it last weekend with a capacitive probe to identify a bad coil on my neighbor's Honda Ridgeline toy pickup truck. He and his wife and a couple other guys from the neighborhood were suitably impressed...

[plexus]

Does anyone have opinions about the 2-ch SainSmart Mini Digital Oscilloscope DS212 or 4-ch DSO213??

[rjp]

Does anyone have opinions about the 2-ch SainSmart Mini Digital Oscilloscope DS212 or 4-ch DSO213??

yeh, the DSO213  seem the most interesting of the cheapie portable ones, and also quite expensive for the specs,  so perhaps do work better.

"15MHz and max sample rate to 100MSa/s"


$250 AU is still to much for me to take a risk on.

[jonovid]

if you start with the assumption its a 10MHz Oscilloscope, not 100MHz
this has got to be better then those DSO138 1MHz Digital Oscilloscope DIY kits.
it is a bit overpriced for a 10MHz unit.
I also note- the poor quality of the black case with sink marks in the plastic.
the quality of any custom made for purpose plastic case says a lot about its true value.

Having had one I must disagree; beyond the B.S. claimed specifications it is incapable of reliably triggering on even the most simplistic of aperiodic signals--making it useless for anything beyond determining if a particular wire has squiggly lines in it.

It should be a Fisher-Price product; "My Little Oscilloscope" or maybe Mattel, "Barbie's First Oscilloscope"...

can anybody reverse engineer a schematic from this thing?
then possibly a firmware software fix hack will do it?  as say a kids  "my first scope"  christmas stocking stuffer
or re-task the whole unit to run as a single task specialized bit of test kit.

[ataradov]

can anybody reverse engineer a schematic from this thing?
then possibly a firmware software fix hack will do it?  as say a kids  "my first scope"  christmas stocking stuffer
or re-task the whole unit to run as a single task specialized bit of test kit.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/reverse-engineering-fnirsi-5012h/

[jonovid]

I stand corrected 

[VK3DRB]

Dave, you should be a review of the NanoVNA which reputedly works to 1GHz.

I bought a Hoo Flung Dung brand NanoVNA from eBay and I printed a 3D printed a case for it. Quite accurate too as I used it for my antenna HF antenna and compared with with another VNA. With some decent software for a PC interface written by a westerner, it works a treat. About $70 delivered t my door! Twenty years ago, it would have cost $25,000. Does Smith charts, reflectometry (very useful for finding where impedance mismatches occurs), return loss, VSWR etc.

I also bought an IT8511+ electronic load out of China. This is damned good, too, and worthy of a review. You can get much cheaper ones, but this actually is good quality instrument... robust, good firmware, accurate.

[ocset]

Our production staff could use this $70 thing  to see if  our DALI device is sending a signal or not.
Also, to view the basic mains input current to some of our products if used with a current probe.
So i think it would be useful in some ways.....mainly because of the cheap cost, and for these purposes, you definetely dont want to buy a "proper" scope.

I mean, what about just using it as a 10MHz scope?...$70 for that is pretty good.
I must admit the bit about the compensation  having to be re-done at the higher v/div didnt impress.

[David Hess]

... triggering issues with pulse bursts;

... however they have the same triggering issues as the other "el-cheapos", triggering sporadically on aperiodic signals,

... it triggers properly on aperiodic signals including the 10 cycles of 10kHz repetitive bursts I used to test the 5012H.

No oscilloscope lacking variable holdoff can reliably trigger on aperiodic or burst signals.  The trigger rearm time depends on the sample rate and record length or duration to fill the acquisition record plus a fixed duration for processing so it varies with time/div setting.  So trigger stability depends on the time/div setting.

An oscilloscope with variable holdoff allows extending of the trigger rearm time allowing synchronization with irregularly regular signals by preventing triggering within a burst but this is not something I would ever expect to find on a budget oscilloscope.

[ataradov]

No oscilloscope lacking variable holdoff can reliably trigger on aperiodic or burst signals.

Th issue with 5012H is that it never properly triggers on single time events. Not eve once. There is a firmware bug.

[ocset]

i think the major problem with the scope in question here, in the top post, is that due to its problems, it isnt even really useable as a 10MHz scope.
I think there would be all kinds of false aliasing etc due to the problems that Dave Jones highlights in the video.