EEVblog #522 - Rigol DS1000Z Oscilloscope Quick Look

[EEVblog]

Dave had a very quick play with the new 4 channel Rigol DS1000Z series oscilloscope with dual channel ARB function generator at the Electronex 2013 exhibition.
And meet some EEVblog viewers.

[stormbr]

Thanks for sharing the new brands of Rigol on Electronex 2013. 

[grego]

I wish they had the MSO4000 on display!  Dang nab it!

[hikariuk]

Hmm.  Colour me interested...depending on what the UK pricing ends up being.

[crt]

1mV / div = Really ?

please see my post about 1074z [no one mention it]
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/rigol-ds1074z-inside-picture/15/

[EEVblog]

1mV / div = Really ?
please see my post about 1074z [no one mention it]

What post?
What are you saying about the 1mv/div range?

[dr.diesel]

I wish they had the MSO4000 on display!  Dang nab it!

Agreed, I'm tired of waiting.  Seriously thinking about a Hameg HMO3000.

[grego]

I wish they had the MSO4000 on display!  Dang nab it!

Agreed, I'm tired of waiting.  Seriously thinking about a Hameg HMO3000.

diesel hopefully ou can be patient a little longer.  In talking with tequipment they expect it to drop her in the US "middle of 4th quarter" - so we've got (if that's accurate) 2 more months to go.  Since I just harassed them last month about it I'll probably wait until next month before I harass them again.

[peter.mitchell]

please see my post about 1074z [no one mention it]

What post?

I think either, both are related:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/rigol-ds1104z/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/rigol-ds1074z-inside-picture

[crt]

What post?
What are you saying about the 1mv/div range?

Rigol hide 500uV/div feature, but unfortunately already find by EEVBLOG member 

[Hydrawerk]

64 levels of intensity is OK. It is the same as on my DSOX2002A

[vk6zgo]

Nice to see them using a analog TV  field rate video signal as a test.

As an unreconstructed analog OF, I'd like to think it's because of my consistent whinging over the past few years over the total mess lesser DSOs make of such a test.

In any case,it does a really good job of a single field,& even when Dave wound it out to show 3 or more,it was still usable!

Well done,Rigol!

[evanh]

Got mine today, a DS1074Z-S.  It looks the part.  Four channels and deep capture memory is a base model for me, I've skipped looking at anything less.

It feels sturdy.  Nice display.  Lots of settings ... not always staying as set though.  Menus are responsive.  The separate group of keys on the left for selecting measurements seemed extraneous at first but I think I might like them now.  Noise levels look good.  All in all an excellent purchase.


Here's some niggles that could be sorted with firmware updates:

 - The transition from full sweep redraws to the progressive drawing, or trending, that occurs at slow timebases.  It kicks in at too slow a setting, imho.  The refresh times feel unresponsive when waiting for a full sweep redraw.

 - There is a second concern, and more annoying, with the trending method - It only trends post trigger!  If the trigger is in centre of display then you end up waiting a half display of sweep time before any activity occurs.  This can be minutes!  This, combined with the time based (rather than display based) trigger position, kind of makes for a lot of fiddling to get immediate visualisation of acquisitions.


Updates:

27 Oct 2013
Trivial gripe:  CLEAR, AUTO and SINGLE keys really do seem to be useless.  Why would one want to clear all traces?  I've used auto setting before, it never gets what I want and it totally loses the settings I had set.  A separate button to set single trigger mode, say what?, there is a simple to use trigger mode button straight below that!

And on the small gripes list is the HELP pages.  There is some broken descriptions in there, eg:  Memory depth in the acquisition menu, it repeats a single channel description three times over and doesn't describe any multi-channel info.

Not so trivial:  In the acquisition menu, what does Sin(x)/x setting do?  I don't see any effect on traces.  The help makes a vague reference to interleaving.  This setting is one of those settings, I mentioned previously, that doesn't stay set.  Maybe it doesn't really need a user setting at all?

Actually, the Help system has been helpful.  I've definitely seen much worse.  Some kudos are deserved there.

When Zoom'd it would be nice to know the number of sample points covered by the zoom box.

... Just noticed another one to be wary of:  Peak acquisition mode places it's two min-max values in successive sample points in the trace.  This allows the memory depth to be shown as unchanging between Normal and Peak modes.  I had wondered why that parameter didn't change.  The problem with this configuration is when zooming in to look at the fine detail, instead of seeing a continuous min-max block fill, you see a triangle wave at half the sample rate toggling between the upper and lower values.  A sudo alias of sorts.  This is a behaviour that Peak mode is meant to avoid.

Once you are aware of this though, it could be used.  The question becomes:  Does the min and max alternately stored samples represent a progression in time?  If so, then there is extra info in them than just being a collective min-max of the whole interval.

... Just delivered the scope to a new temporary home (I might not be very detailed from now.) ... has a use for the waveform generator ... bugs galore!  :-O  First bug is either the outputs are not meant to be active on power up or the lamp in the Source button does not light to indicate an output is active on power up.  It syncs up when toggling either of the output on/off settings.

Second waveform generator bug is when changing pretty much any setting with modulation enabled causes it to set the depth to 100% and uses the depth setting to set the RMS level.  All without indication.  Turning modulation off then on corrects it.

Third waveform generator bug is when selecting waveform type Pulse the modulation is not immediately disabled as it seems to require.


Evan

[evanh]

I just got my old scope back (Made in 2001, and cost ten times the price) and had a look at the way it handles the slow timebase issue - It rolls the display (I couldn't actually remember that detail) rather than trending it.  That way it can both give a 100% live progress of the sweep and still cleanly line up any trigger that might occur.

Also, it kicks in at 50ms/div rather than the somewhat slower DS1000Z's 500ms/div (I think).

I feel the DS1000Z can do better.  It's display speed seems comparable, if not quicker, otherwise.


28 Oct 2013
We tested USB file storage today.  There's some oddball bugs with that too.  FAT16 and FAT32 are supported.  exFAT not supported.  Some controller chips causes the scope's USB to stop functioning, driver crash likely.  Happens immediately upon device insertion, not even the USB connected symbol appearing.  Had to power cycle to recover normal USB function.  Haven't got any controller names sorry.  Also tried an MP3 player, with the same result.

Card readers work but limited in what slot is accessed.  Again, depends on the controller chip.  One small SD-only reader we tried only supports one card inserted at a time, in this case both slots (SD and uSD) work.

Tried a SATA HDD slotted in an external USB cradle.  Worked a treat.  Although only the first partition showed up, and, obviously, had to be FAT32.  T'was using Windoze to perform the formatting - it wouldn't allow FAT32 volumes larger than 32 GB.  32 GB works fine with the scope.

There is various formatting arrangements, including with FAT32, that the scope refuses to deal with.  When this happens you see a quick one line message on the display that says something about filesytem init failed.  No volume appears.

30 Oct 2013
Broke the 32 GB Windoze limit by formatting with GParted.  USB file storage now tested to work with a 230 GB volume.  Which was measured to have 16 KB clusters.  And since 32 KB/cluster was doable under FAT16 one can pretty much assume that up to 512 GB is viable in FAT32.


Evan

Continued on page three at - https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-522-rigol-ds1000z-oscilloscope-quick-look/msg325751/#msg325751

[rf-loop]

exFAT not supported. Is it bug? Really?

As long as this is true: "Microsoft has not released the official exFAT file system specification, and ..so on",   imho, there is not any reason use this in serious lab equipments.

[marmad]

- There is a second concern, and more annoying, with the trending method - It only trends post trigger!  If the trigger is in centre of display then you end up waiting a half display of sweep time before any activity occurs.  This can be minutes!  This, combined with the time based (rather than display based) trigger position, kind of makes for a lot of fiddling to get immediate visualisation of acquisitions.

Not sure where you're appropriating the word 'trending' from (2D charts?) but:
1) The DSO can't display pre-trigger data until it's acquired a trigger (it's a given of the way triggering systems work on a DSO). If you want to have less pre-trigger display (and less of a wait with slow horizontal scale settings), then just adjust the trigger position - it's the same on every DSO.
2) If the DS1000Z series is like my DS2000 series, then you can just switch from normal Y-T acquisition to Roll mode via the Horizontal -> Timebase menu setting, if that's what you prefer.

Trivial gripe:  CLEAR, AUTO and SINGLE keys really do seem to be useless.  Why would one want to clear all traces?  I've used auto setting before, it never gets what I want and it totally loses the settings I had set.  A separate button to set single trigger mode, say what?, there is a simple to use trigger mode button straight below that!

You might not realize it now, but CLEAR is very often handy - especially when having multiple REFerence traces, buses, etc. Also, the SINGLE key is NOT the same thing as the button to set single-trigger mode: once it's in single-trigger mode and a trigger occurs - the DSO goes to STOP. The SINGLE button takes it back to WAITing for the next single trigger - the mode button does NOT.

Not so trivial:  In the acquisition menu, what does Sin(x)/x setting do?  I don't see any effect on traces.  The help makes a vague reference to interleaving.  This setting is one of those settings, I mentioned previously, that doesn't stay set.  Maybe it doesn't really need a user setting at all?

I'm not trying to be unnecessarily mean here, but if you don't know what Sin(x)/x interpolation is on a DSO, you probably need to do a bit of reading on the subject. Such as this.

... Just noticed another one to be wary of:  Peak acquisition mode places it's two min-max values in successive sample points in the trace.  This allows the memory depth to be shown as unchanging between Normal and Peak modes.  I had wondered why that parameter didn't change.  The problem with this configuration is when zooming in to look at the fine detail, instead of seeing a continuous min-max block fill, you see a triangle wave at half the sample rate toggling between the upper and lower values.  A sudo alias of sorts.  This is a behaviour that Peak mode is meant to avoid.

This is how ALL DSOs handle Peak Acquisition - look at the chart from Tektronix:



No offense, but I think you need to do some basic reading on DSOs and their operation.

[evanh]

As long as this is true: "Microsoft has not released the official exFAT file system specification, and ..so on",   imho, there is not any reason use this in serious lab equipments.

That was more an observation really.  I presume this is not special to the DS1000Z but is common to all Rigol scopes and prolly most others too.  I'd be interested know.

[evanh]

- There is a second concern, and more annoying, with the trending method - It only trends post trigger!  If the trigger is in centre of display then you end up waiting a half display of sweep time before any activity occurs.  This can be minutes!  This, combined with the time based (rather than display based) trigger position, kind of makes for a lot of fiddling to get immediate visualisation of acquisitions.

Not sure where you're appropriating the word 'trending' from (2D graphics?) but:
1) The DSO can't display pre-trigger data until it's acquired a trigger (it's a given of the way triggering systems work on a DSO). If you want to have less pre-trigger display (and less of a wait with slow horizontal scale settings), then just adjust the trigger position - it's the same on every DSO.

My old scope achieves what I'm talking about.  I described it in my second post.

I've used the word "trending" here to label the progressive process of adding new samples to the displayed traces as the new data becomes available in a left to right filling of the display.  This is distinct from the normal full screen refresh that occurs after a capture period is complete.

2) If the DS1000Z series is like my DS2000 series, then you can just switch from normal Y-T acquisition to Roll mode via the Horizontal -> Timebase menu setting, if that's what you prefer.

Yah, fiddly and loses other settings.  Not the greatest solution.

Trivial gripe:  CLEAR, AUTO and SINGLE keys really do seem to be useless.  Why would one want to clear all traces?  I've used auto setting before, it never gets what I want and it totally loses the settings I had set.  A separate button to set single trigger mode, say what?, there is a simple to use trigger mode button straight below that!

You might not realize it now, but CLEAR is very often handy - especially when having multiple REFerence traces, buses, etc.

Like I said, a trivial gripe.  Not everyone will agree, obviously.

Also, the SINGLE key is NOT the same thing as the button to set single-trigger mode: once it's in single-trigger mode and a trigger occurs - the DSO goes to STOP. The SINGLE button takes it back to WAITing for the next single trigger - the mode button does NOT.

The STOP/START key performs that function.  The SINGLE key is completely pointless.

Not so trivial:  In the acquisition menu, what does Sin(x)/x setting do?  I don't see any effect on traces.  The help makes a vague reference to interleaving.  This setting is one of those settings, I mentioned previously, that doesn't stay set.  Maybe it doesn't really need a user setting at all?

I'm not trying to be unnecessarily mean here, but if you don't know what Sin(x)/x interpolation is on a DSO, you probably need to do a bit of reading on the subject. Such as this.

So, we are talking about filling in sample points in the stored trace that weren't actually sampled because the hardware interleaving means the sampler was on another channel?

Or maybe it's talking about trace rendering to display?  Shouldn't that be in the display setting menu rather than the acquisition setting menu?

... Just noticed another one to be wary of:  Peak acquisition mode places it's two min-max values in successive sample points in the trace.  This allows the memory depth to be shown as unchanging between Normal and Peak modes.  I had wondered why that parameter didn't change.  The problem with this configuration is when zooming in to look at the fine detail, instead of seeing a continuous min-max block fill, you see a triangle wave at half the sample rate toggling between the upper and lower values.  A sudo alias of sorts.  This is a behaviour that Peak mode is meant to avoid.

This is how ALL DSOs handle Peak Acquisition - look at the chart from Tektronix:
...
No offense, but I think you need to do some basic reading on DSOs and their operation.

Have a careful re-read of what I've said.  Maybe I need to be clearer.  Ask me what I meant if something is confusing.

[marmad]

My old scope achieves what I'm talking about.  I described it in my second post.

Yes, you described a Roll mode combined with triggering - how does that work exactly? The DSO is displaying pre-trigger data while rolling? And what happens when a trigger happens?

The STOP/START key performs that function.  The SINGLE key is completely pointless.

Strange, then Rigol has redefined those buttons on your DS1000Z because they act differently on the DS2000. The RUN/STOP button puts the DSO into AUTO mode - it does NOT reset SINGLE mode - so the SINGLE button on my DSO is far from pointless.

So, we are talking about filling in sample points in the stored trace that weren't actually sampled because the hardware interleaving means the sampler was on another channel?

Or maybe it's talking about trace rendering to display?  Shouldn't that be in the display setting menu rather than the acquisition setting menu?

It's about converting the sampled data to the most accurate rendering of the waveform possible. On my DS2000 it's under the Display Menu - but as is the case with many parameters - there could be an argument made for placing it in another menu category (maybe a space issue?).

Have a careful re-read of what I've said.  Maybe I need to be clearer.  Ask me what I meant if something is confusing.

No, you were perfectly clear. You wrote 'Just noticed another one to be wary of...' as if you thought Rigol was doing something unusual in it's Peak Detect implementation - or else you assumed that other posters didn't know how Peak Detect functioned. You also wrote: 'This is a behaviour that Peak mode is meant to avoid.'- which is incorrect.

[evanh]

My old scope achieves what I'm talking about.  I described it in my second post.

Yes, you described Roll mode - which the Rigol does perfectly well (as mentioned).

It's not a separate non-triggering mode.  It's integral and doesn't require any adjustments and doesn't impose extra limits or exceptions.

The STOP/START key performs that function.  The SINGLE key is completely pointless.

Strange, then Rigol has redefined those buttons on your DS1000Z because they act differently on the DS2000. The RUN/STOP button puts the DSO into AUTO mode - it does NOT reset SINGLE mode - so the SINGLE button on my DSO is far from pointless.

Ah, my inexperience with the Rigols is showing here.  Strange behaviour for the START to force auto triggering but that would be a good explanation.  I don't have it with me so can't confirm right now.

Hmm, I regularly stop a Normal trigger mode when inspecting a deep capture.  Then restart it again after completing my examination.  I presume pressing the START key will flip it to Auto triggering instead of just resuming the Normal triggering ...

No, you were perfectly clear. You wrote 'Just noticed another one to be wary of...' as if you thought Rigol was doing something unusual in it's Peak Detect implementation

Yes!

You also wrote: 'This is a behaviour that Peak mode is meant to avoid.'- which is incorrect.

We differ on opinion there.

[marmad]

It's not a separate non-triggering mode.  It's integral and doesn't require any adjustments and doesn't impose extra limits or exceptions.

Yes, I re-edited my comment above when I realized you were talking about something different than Roll mode. Now I assume you mean a Scan mode (from left to right - Roll mode always displays from right to left) and I'm curious what that DSO is actually displaying if there's been no trigger - and what happens to the display when a trigger occurs.

Ah, my inexperience with the Rigols is showing here.  Strange behaviour for the START to force auto triggering but that would be a good explanation.  I don't have it with me so can't confirm right now.

Hmm, I regularly stop a Normal trigger mode when inspecting a deep capture.  Then restart it again after completing my examination.  I presume pressing the START key will flip it to Auto triggering instead of just resuming the Normal triggering ...

On the DS2000, pressing RUN/STOP while stopped in Normal mode will just re-start Normal mode.

No, you were perfectly clear. You wrote 'Just noticed another one to be wary of...' as if you thought Rigol was doing something unusual in it's Peak Detect implementation

Yes!

...which, as I pointed out with the Tektronix diagram (which shows a triangle wave at high magnification of a Peak Detect acquisition) is not the case at all.

You also wrote: 'This is a behaviour that Peak mode is meant to avoid.'- which is incorrect.

We differ on opinion there.

Any acquisition mode that does post-processing on the samples for a specific effect is likely to show artifacts when magnifying the waveform - this is not behavior which Peak Detect could ever avoid.

[pinkysbrein]

It is bloody trivial to handle the corner case correctly in the display code ... it's just piss poor programming, as usual on oscilloscopes.

[evanh]

Yes, I re-edited my comment above when I realized you were talking about something different than Roll mode. Now I assume you mean a Scan mode (from left to right - Roll mode always displays from right to left) and I'm curious what that DSO is actually displaying if there's been no trigger - and what happens to the display when a trigger occurs.

My old scope has no Scan mode, only Refresh (whole screen update) and Roll (right to left).  But the Roll is integral to normal triggering and all other related settings.  It's purely just an automatic rendering method for slower timebases - 50ms/div and slower.

On the DS2000, pressing RUN/STOP while stopped in Normal mode will just re-start Normal mode.

So, it re-arms AUTO and NORMAL but not SINGLE mode?  That's better but still odd.

...which, as I pointed out with the Tektronix diagram (which shows a triangle wave at high magnification of a Peak Detect acquisition) is not the case at all.
...
Any acquisition mode that does post-processing on the samples for a specific effect is likely to show artifacts when magnifying the waveform - this is not behavior which Peak Detect could ever avoid.

Um, um, nooo...!  The Tek example is terrible.  I didn't look carefully at it first time around but I now see that method is done incorrectly.  The two stored samples, of one interval, are treated as separate intervals of time from a rendering point of view.  But they don't correspond to the equivalent shape through time of the original signal.

They are really nothing more that a min-max of one interval.  They should be treated as such when displayed.

[marmad]

Um, um, nooo...!  The Tek example is terrible.  I didn't look carefully at it first time around but I now see that method is done incorrectly.  The two stored samples, of one interval, are treated as separate intervals of time from a rendering point of view.  But they don't correspond to the equivalent shape through time of the original signal.

They are really nothing more that a min-max of one interval.  They should be treated as such when displayed.

So, according to you, Tektronix and Rigol are both doing Peak Detect the same way - yet 'incorrectly'? Sorry, but you're clearly the one who is incorrect - about how Peak Detect acquisitions are processed and displayed. The samples ARE separated by intervals of time - as all samples are.

If you truly think there is a "correct" method that corresponds to your belief of how it should work, please provide supporting documentation of ANY DSO manufacturer doing it that way.

[evanh]

I don't need any example to know a zig-zag rendering of min-max values is a wrong method.  But, given my strong reaction in the first place, I think it would be obvious I've come from an environment where it was done differently.

[marmad]

I don't need any example to know a zig-zag rendering of min-max values is a wrong method.  But, given my strong reaction in the first place, I think it would be obvious I've come from an environment where it was done differently.

As evident from the published documentation describing the technique, the minimum and maximum values are separated in time. Displaying anything else when magnifying the discrete samples would be wrong - period. And as far as I know, every DSO maker (that implements it) does it the same way.

[sync]

As evident from the published documentation describing the technique, the minimum and maximum values are separated in time. Displaying anything else when magnifying the discrete samples would be wrong - period.

I think it`s just the cheapest way to implement it. An alternative way could be to save minimum and maximum for a sample interval and display a bar.

[evanh]

Here's a screenshot directly from my old scope.  I've intentionally made it super noisy with only 250 sample points to show off what the simplest correct Peak (labelled Envelope there) mode rendering should look like.

EDIT:  Those 250 points are, of course min-max pairs.  In Rigol parlance that would be 500 zig-zag'd sample points, but only from a rendering pov.  Rigol's acquisition hardware is still converting the same interval spacing per pair as my old scope.  Assuming, that is, Rigol uses what the Tek document says.  There is a chance it could be incorporating a time shift with each stored sample, which changes the meaning from straight min-max to something a little more complicated.  Not unlike the idea of interlacing for TV.

[marmad]

I think it`s just the cheapest way to implement it. An alternative way could be to save minimum and maximum for a sample interval and display a bar.

It has nothing to do with being cheap (it's just software) - it has to do with correct implementation of the described acquisition technique.

Here's a screenshot directly from my old scope.  I've intentionally made it super noisy with only 250 sample points to show off what the simplest correct Peak (labelled Envelope there) mode rendering should look like.

That's NOT correct Peak Detect mode - it's Envelope mode, which COMBINES many individual Peak Detect waveform acquisitions into a single displayed waveform.

As mentioned a few times already, Peak Detect mode uses the highest and lowest of all the samples contained in TWO CONSECUTIVE SAMPLE PERIODS. When magnified to the sample level, a triangular shaped waveform is PRECISELY what you should see (if it's implemented correctly).

[evanh]

It has nothing to do with being cheap (it's just software) - it has to do with correct implementation of the described acquisition technique.

Cheap in this context means quick and dirty, not much thought put into it.

That's NOT correct Peak Detect mode - it's Envelope mode, which COMBINES many individual Peak Detect waveform acquisitions into a single displayed waveform.

Com'on, how can you say that?  They're the same thing.

As mentioned a few times already, Peak Detect mode uses the highest and lowest of all the samples contained in TWO CONSECUTIVE SAMPLE PERIODS. When magnified to the sample level, a triangular shaped waveform is PRECISELY what you should see (if it's implemented correctly).

The actual number of sampled acquisitions is an entirely different figure.  In my example image there is 25 samples stored per division, that's 200 usec per interval.  The actual acquisition hardware runs at 200 Ms/s so there is 40,000 acquisitions per min-max pair.  The Rigol, in single channel, is 1 Gs/s so that would be 200,000 acquisitions per min-max pair.  Both scopes store the same meaning in the same amount of space.

The example that Tek gives is not about what happens at the feeble point of one acquisition sample to one stored sample but is just a simplified drawing with minimal detail to carry the idea.

Btw:  My old scope deals with that feeble area gracefully also.  As you wind the timebase in to faster speeds it automatically drops out of peak acquisition mode and goes back to normal mode.  And when winding the timebase back out to slower speeds it will go back to my setting of Envelope.  Which is why it displays the current mode up the top of the display.

[sync]

I just had a wrong measurement with my Rigol 1102E because of that zig-zag rendering
Thanks to this thread I instantly realized what's going on. I inspected a oscillation in a part of a wave form. I stopped acquisition and zoomed into the oscillation. This is what I got. The damned thing measured the frequency of that peak detect zig-zag! FAIL!



Here the real oscillation. Measured without zooming.



That zig-zag rendering sucks. It's wrong! Sorry, it should be bars.

[marmad]

That's NOT correct Peak Detect mode - it's Envelope mode, which COMBINES many individual Peak Detect waveform acquisitions into a single displayed waveform.

Com'on, how can you say that?  They're the same thing.

Peak Detect is a single waveform; Envelope is a combination of numerous waveforms, like Averaging - so no, they're not the same thing. That's why some DSOs allow you to select Peak Detect mode OR Envelope mode..

[Electro Fan]

It would be great to hear from more DS1000Z users, but what's the thinking so far among Rigol (and other) scope users?  Is the DS1000Z a worthy competitor/alternative to the DS2000? 

Give up some performance, screen space, and nav/review functionality and take the 2 extra channels?

Or stick with the legendary DS2000?

Anyone out there happen to have the opportunity to own or play with both the 1000Z and the 2000 series?

Dave - how about an in-depth "not a review" video of the DS1000Z? 

[evanh]

Give up some performance, screen space, and nav/review functionality and take the 2 extra channels?

Or stick with the legendary DS2000?

There's no doubt the DS2000's have the sweet spot for price/performance/quality on two channels, and if there was a four channel version I'm sure everyone would be praising it.  But I presume the extra channels would have a notable dollar figure attached.  It would seem Rigol chose to lower some specs, putting it in the DS1000 bracket, rather than raise the price.

I can't blame them, apart from some firmware bugs to be ironed out, I'm happy with the compromise and truly impressed, even if I've poked some fun and raised questions, with the capabilities of the DS1000Z.  Four channels and deep memory is a prerequisite in my books.  That combo is more important to me than 100+ MHz analogue bandwidth.

You never know, there still might be a DS2000Z out there in the future ...

[creyc]

If Rigol offered a cheaper 2-channel version on the DS1000Z platform (with the large high-res screen) I think that would see a lot of hobbyist interest.  In fact, add signal generation and a "DS1072Z-S" for around $700 would be the scope I'd get!

Although I suppose this might step on the toes of the already affordable 1000E lineup, but I don't see why the larger screen has to be associated with 4-channels??  I think their product lineup needs a bit of a restructuring to be honest.  With 12 models under $1000 and some strange gaps and feature overlap, choosing an affordable Rigol scope isn't an simple task!

[marmad]

If Rigol offered a cheaper 2-channel version on the DS1000Z platform (with the large high-res screen) I think that would see a lot of hobbyist interest.  In fact, add signal generation and a "DS1072Z-S" for around $700 would be the scope I'd get!

You would pay $700 for a two-channel 'DS1072Z-S', but you wouldn't pay $118 more for the same thing with two extra analog channels? That's some strange logic - those two extra channels are a massive bargain at that added price.

[Electro Fan]

If Rigol offered a cheaper 2-channel version on the DS1000Z platform (with the large high-res screen) I think that would see a lot of hobbyist interest.  In fact, add signal generation and a "DS1072Z-S" for around $700 would be the scope I'd get!

You would pay $700 for a two-channel 'DS1072Z-S', but you wouldn't pay $118 more for the same thing with two extra analog channels? That's some strange logic - those two extra channels are a massive bargain at that added price.

Marmad, thanks for all you do to keep us informed and thinking, and Happy Friday too.

Just checking, setting aside the function generator, would you trade a 2072 even up for a 1104Z?  Or trade a 2072 for a 1104Z plus $100? 

EF

[marmad]

Just checking, setting aside the function generator, would you trade a 2072 even up for a 1104Z?  Or trade a 2072 for a 1104Z plus $100? 

I don't know - I think I'd want to try it first before I made a decision. I'm quite happy with the DS2000 - and even though it would be nice to have an extra 2 analog channels (for me, it's not that often that I would need them - maybe 2% of the time - even less if they made the EXTERNAL trigger function as input to all trigger types), I'd hate giving up the benefits of the DS2000, especially the screen size: I want bigger screens on everything 

[Electro Fan]

Just checking, setting aside the function generator, would you trade a 2072 even up for a 1104Z?  Or trade a 2072 for a 1104Z plus $100? 

I don't know - I think I'd want to try it first before I made a decision. I'm quite happy with the DS2000 - and even though it would be nice to have an extra 2 analog channels (for me, it's not that often that I would need them - maybe 2% of the time - even less if they made the EXTERNAL trigger function as input to all trigger types), I'd hate giving up the benefits of the DS2000, especially the screen size: I want bigger screens on everything 

What's the reason they don't make the External trigger function as an input to all/other trigger types?  Just cost/price? Or something else?

To get a bigger screen do you ever use an external monitor?  Or does that not really address the issue (how the scope displays overlapping menus, etc.)?

[evanh]

I just got my private key a product key today and went to Rigol's webpage for license key generating and found it ain't all that friendly towards Firefox.  What should have been a simple non-scripted HTML form, turned into a scripting mess that involved me having to click in the appropriate entry box before each and every character entered.  In the end, I felt lucky it actually generated the license key.

So, their website is even more buggy that their scopes!

[evanh]

I have used the date-stamping on my old scope.  Particularly when leaving it to auto-store rare trigger events.  I haven't had enough time with the Rigol to say yet, but the lack of such a feature in the DS1000Z might be a bit of a downer ...

Okay, after a phone call, the DS1000Z does save it's files with a date-stamp ticking up from power on.  The files are stored from the FAT32 epoc of 1 Jan 1980.  So, this is usable.  For the most part just knowing the diffs between recordings is enough for problem solving but, knowing roughly when the scope was turned on each time, the absolute data-stamp could also be administered.

[evanh]

Got the scope back for a bit ... Discovered a couple of humdingers with serial decodes:

 - 1)  The serial decoders only display results with a limited set of samples in the trace - from reading the settings it's meant to be 2x the display resolution (Which should allow up to 600 bits, ~60 characters, to be decoded on display.) but in reality, from the visual point of transition, it looks more like 1/4 of display resolution - allowing a max of something like seven 10-bit characters.  I'm not impressed at all!  Poor effort there Rigol.

 - 2)  The serial decoders auto-disabled when the timebase is set low enough to cause scanning display mode.  That's really bad.  I thought it was bad that the rolling display mode has no triggering but this also means all slow timebases exclude many of the scopes features!

And to top it off, along with many other similar behaving settings, the setting also doesn't re-enable when moving back to faster timebase.

The workaround, for this particular one, is to do the needed capture at slower timebase then stop acquisition.  Then you can zoom in to the trace using the timebase dial.  Once past the equivalent of 200ms/div timebase, even though timebase is not relevant when stopped like this, the decoders can be turned on again.


Okay, more rendering problems that can fool the unprepared.  And I'm certainly not sure I've got a complete handle on this yet ...

High Res acquisition mode had me a little perplexed right from the start.  It doesn't look as clean as I expected.  I could also see High Res mode aliasing an awful lot earlier than Normal acquisition mode.  This is a tell-tail indicator of what is wrong.  High Res mode should combine multiple consecutive samples instead of Averaging mode's combining of multiple consecutive sweeps.  The trick is to do this as a rolling window or with decimating feedback on a sample by sample basis, aka digital filters.  The trade-off is High Res inherently lowers the low-pass cutoff.

First up, the rendering at screen resolution seems to be done at something like four sample points per pixel, ie:  Not using all in-range sample points.  This is very cheap, it creates it's own aliasing and throws away a lot of the look of the higher precision.  Even Peak mode has this behaviour, albeit to a lesser extent.   Rendering of Normal mode is same as Peak.  Bad Rigol!

The acquisition of the trace may actually be done correctly but, just like the zig-zag peak-to-peak rendering method, Rigol messed it at the final stage of displaying the results.  See attachment - showing a full length trace as a meandering thin line while the zoomed in view shows it's actually a full height 50 Hz trace.


As a bonus, there's something wrong with Channel 4 selection.  There is no relay clicking sound when toggling Ch4 on/off.  As if it's always on.  Solved, I had channel 4 set for triggering.  Oops.

There is also no effect on the Sin(x)/x setting either, this setting is forced on when a single channel is on but defaults to off with multiples channels sampling.  That is, except for Ch4.  I can have Ch4 on with any other single channel and the Sin(x)/x setting stays forced on.  As if it doesn't exist.  I still don't understand Sin(x)/x but this one is now consistent at least.  It actually seems to need three channels on before allowing a setting.

[evanh]

The mystery deepens.  Attached (Unnecessary_Aliasing2.png) is another example of the same signal source and same timebase but a deeper capture memory.  In this case the apparent aliasing has massively changed.  It's not an ideal image but it's clearly a dense trace being represented.

So, it's not as simple as I first surmised because if the scope rendered by using a fixed number of samples per pixel then this image wouldn't have changed from the last one.

There's a possibility the scope is trying to perform the hi-res function at display time rather than during acquisition.  This would be bad too as that further reduces the low-pass cutoff, which could be what I'm seeing.  Due to the lowish sample rate of the previous trace, any further filtering of it would quickly cut into the 50 Hz oscillation.

Unnecessary_Aliasing3.png is for comparison of same setup to the first image except for acquisition mode changed to Normal.  You can see there the full trace looks sensible, and similar to the second image.

So, it's probably not aliasing at all.  But rather filtering the trace into oblivion.


Evan

[evanh]

With no parameters and no info, High Res mode is near worthless.  However, with a more honest treatment, this mode could be put to good use via a firmware update.  One feature of my old scope is a quickly adjustable digital input filter on each channel ... and, funnily, this has the side-effect of increasing vertical resolution.

How about it Rigol?  Move this broken "High Res" feature out from the acquisition menu and put it in each channel individually with individually adjustably parameters for it's cut-off frequencies ... turning it from a confusion into a real useful feature!


I've had another shot at the UART decoder and discovered the problem is only with 300 baud.  Which just happened to be what I tried first.  Doh!  Attached is example of problem and proof of valid data plus examples of good behaviour at 600 and 1200 baud.

Going by the results of 1200 baud the decoder looks to be able to top out at 30 characters on display at once.


Evan

[marmad]

Move this broken "High Res" feature...

It's not "broken". As mentioned in the other thread, the implementation appears to work exactly the same as Agilent's, Tektronix's, etc - but perhaps not the way YOU would prefer it worked.

[jwm]

I recieved my 1072Z and love it. The main reason I got it was the intensity graded display, I have been keeping an old tek analog scope around just because of the weird aliasing effects of my other DSO (atten 1062CAL). The 1074Z easily replaces both in less space.

Anyone want me to attempt something and post it? Unfortunately, I didn't realize the trial option countdown happens while the scope is turned on, not just when using them, so by leaving it on overnight by accident I killed my ability to test decoding/advanced trigger/etc functionality which is too bad, it was something I was considering getting but now can't test. Sort of lame that the countdown starts right away, I spent at least a day testing out the standard features against my other scopes and signal sources and playing around with 4ch possibilities before attempting the new territory of the trial options at which point they are gone.

[Electro Fan]

I recieved my 1072Z and love it.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize the trial option countdown happens while the scope is turned on, not just when using them, so by leaving it on overnight by accident I killed my ability to test decoding/advanced trigger/etc functionality which is too bad, it was something I was considering getting but now can't test. Sort of lame that the countdown starts right away, I spent at least a day testing out the standard features against my other scopes and signal sources and playing around with 4ch possibilities before attempting the new territory of the trial options at which point they are gone.

Yes indeed, Rigol is just frustrating users instead of helping to sell upgrades; they should let the user decide when to turn the trial options on rather than insisting on the options being installed continuously from the get-go.

[vk6zgo]

I recieved my 1072Z and love it. The main reason I got it was the intensity graded display, I have been keeping an old tek analog scope around just because of the weird aliasing effects of my other DSO (atten 1062CAL). The 1074Z easily replaces both in less space.

Anyone want me to attempt something and post it? Unfortunately, I didn't realize the trial option countdown happens while the scope is turned on, not just when using them, so by leaving it on overnight by accident I killed my ability to test decoding/advanced trigger/etc functionality which is too bad, it was something I was considering getting but now can't test. Sort of lame that the countdown starts right away, I spent at least a day testing out the standard features against my other scopes and signal sources and playing around with 4ch possibilities before attempting the new territory of the trial options at which point they are gone.

Try looking at an analog video waveform at field rate-----this was the killer for many earlier DSOs.
You probably have a DVD player lying around which still has analog outputs.

[evanh]

... I spent at least a day testing out the standard features against my other scopes and signal sources and playing around with 4ch possibilities before attempting the new territory of the trial options at which point they are gone.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/sniffing-the-rigol%27s-internal-i2c-bus/msg326217/#msg326217

[sync]

My DS1074Z arrived today. Ordered yesterday! 

I did some wfrm/s measurements. Input was a 20MHz sine wave. One channel active. Measured the trigger out with a frequency counter. For some time base settings the wfrm/s wasn't stable. I used a rough average then.

I also observed that the wfrm/s are depended on the displayed waveform. If the scope has more to draw it slows down. My initial signal was 4div high (peak to peak). I done another run with 1div. It was faster. This behavior makes measuring/ comparing the wfrm/s difficult.

[creyc]

My DS1074Z arrived today. Ordered yesterday! 

I did some wfrm/s measurements. Input was a 20MHz sine wave. One channel active. Measured the trigger out with a frequency counter. For some time base settings the wfrm/s wasn't stable. I used a rough average then.

I also observed that the wfrm/s are depended on the displayed waveform. If the scope has more to draw it slows down. My initial signal was 4div high (peak to peak). I done another run with 1div. It was faster. This behavior makes measuring/ comparing the wfrm/s difficult.

Where did you order from?  That's QUICK

[sync]

Where did you order from?  That's QUICK

http://www.batronix.com
Yes, that was really quick. I saw yesterday afternoon that it is available again. Ordered it and they shipped it within a few hours.

[cybermaus]

http://www.batronix.com
Yes, that was really quick. I saw yesterday afternoon that it is available again. Ordered it and they shipped it within a few hours.

I was watching their site for most days of the week: Friday-morning it was available again. By midday, all 4 variants were sold out again.  Like hot cakes!

But I clicked the order button in the morning on a DS1074Z-S, and I just received the box. Playtime!

[cybermaus]

Comparing some variable grade screens to my old 20MHz Analog CRO

Not bad. I think it was already clear on the video from Dave at the tradeshow the grading of DZ1000Z was not quite as good as the DS2000. But it works for what it needs to do, unlike the old 1 waveform-per-second low budget stuff I looked at when I considered buying a DSO 5 years ago. (also I admit, my budget has climbed a bit)

I used the -S internal generator, which is nice but does not do modulation or sweeping, but just adding a 1MHz and 1KHz signal also has some nice grades in it. (It actually does do AM/FM modulation, do page-down on the source setup. No sweeping though)

On the 1MHz square wave, the Rigol picture is actually nicer then the Analog.
Probably because the rise time of the square wave means the beam spends almost no time between the top and bottom edges, so as always, square wave verticals are barely visible on an analog. But the digital scope shows the fast rising vertical the same as a horizontal line. So the grade does not accurately depect how much the ratio of how much time the signal is at that voltage, but a nice pic nontheless.


BTW:If you notice the filename: "QucikPrint": another typo to fix for Rigol.

[Mark_O]

BTW:If you notice the filename: "QucikPrint": another typo to fix for Rigol.

   That's just plain sloppy.   

[cybermaus]

It's a foreign language to them. Everybody is a little dyslexic in a foreign language.
As long as the print-screen function actually works, I am happy enough.

I only mentioned it so maybe it seeps through into the next firmware (I am sure Rigol is keeping a close eye on Dave and this forum), but it is not critical.