[SOLVED] Buying a low cost DSO in Erope

[beatle]

Hello!

I am looking for a DSO for some time (this forum has been a great help, thanks!) and would very much appreciate any advice before committing to buy.

Electronics are a hobby for me. I am learning and building various projects for fun that would very much benefit from a DSO and so I need a general purpose scope that will serve me for the foreseeable future (the cost is quite a lot of money for me as a student and I have to justify it) and costs around 400 EUR or so.

I live in Latvia, Easter Europe and want to buy 'locally' from EU for warranty purposes.

I have mainly looked at:
Rigol DS1052E
Hantek DSO5062B
Owon SDS7102
Instek - GDS-1102A-U

But have since dropped Owon and Instek as they seem to be considerably more expensive.

The best offers in EU shops that I have found are respectively (prices including VAT and shipping):
Rigol DS1052E - 340 EUR - http://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/Rigol-DS1052E.html
Hantek DSO5062B - 420 EUR - http://www.circuitspecialists.eu/hantek-60mhz-digital-storage-oscilloscope-1gsas-real-time-smplg-p-258.html

My main questions would be:
Are my choices optimal, are there better models for the price? (Or is it simply a bad time to buy a DOS - Rigol model seams to be quite old and there are very suspicious lowered price sales for it from many distributors suggesting me that a replacement model is soon to come?)
Is Hantek worth the 80 EUR price difference?
Can anyone recommend a shop with better offers than the ones I have found?

Thank you very much for any comments on this!

[bjoernx]

Hi beatle,
I'm also looking around...
Meilhaus has the Rigol DS1052E for € 269,00 (+shipping)
http://shop.meilhaus.de/lshop,showrub,130682046711747,de,1306834458-22791,oszilloskope.benchtop.ds1000,,,,.htm
They seem to have the whole range of Rigol in stock.

And quite a respectable company too, also doing own developpments.
Their "Logian" USB LA devices look decent and usable to me judgin from specs. http://shop.meilhaus.de/cgi-bin/shop/lshop.cgi?action=showdetail&rubnum=logikanalysatoren.logian&artnum=logian-16l&id=1&gesamt_zeilen=1&wkid=133560632826441&ls=de&nocache=1335614481-28246
The cheapest 16ch of those matches just so the price-gap between the Rigol E and D. Has trigger out (not seen that on any of the low-end LA before) and if that trigger does not lag too much, maybe that could make a nice combo (for a later upgrade when needed).

[rf-loop]

Hello!

I am looking for a DSO for some time (this forum has been a great help, thanks!) and would very much appreciate any advice before committing to buy.

Electronics are a hobby for me. I am learning and building various projects for fun that would very much benefit from a DSO and so I need a general purpose scope that will serve me for the foreseeable future (the cost is quite a lot of money for me as a student and I have to justify it) and costs around 400 EUR or so.

I live in Latvia, Easter Europe and want to buy 'locally' from EU for warranty purposes.

I have mainly looked at:
Rigol DS1052E
Hantek DSO5062B
Owon SDS7102
Instek - GDS-1102A-U

But have since dropped Owon and Instek as they seem to be considerably more expensive.

The best offers in EU shops that I have found are respectively (prices including VAT and shipping):
Rigol DS1052E - 340 EUR - http://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/Rigol-DS1052E.html
Hantek DSO5062B - 420 EUR - http://www.circuitspecialists.eu/hantek-60mhz-digital-storage-oscilloscope-1gsas-real-time-smplg-p-258.html

My main questions would be:
Are my choices optimal, are there better models for the price? (Or is it simply a bad time to buy a DOS - Rigol model seams to be quite old and there are very suspicious lowered price sales for it from many distributors suggesting me that a replacement model is soon to come?)
Is Hantek worth the 80 EUR price difference?
Can anyone recommend a shop with better offers than the ones I have found?

Thank you very much for any comments on this!

You need only look Hantek 800x480 resolution 7" display.
And it is fully hackable to 100 MHz or better.
EUR 80 difference and you get really nice tool.

If not need so much features in UI but need extremely good  signal quality and full 1GSs/s deep memory there is Owon.
Owon have some advantages over Hantek, Hantek have some advantages over Owon. This need end user think what he need.  There is not "best" oscilloscope or perfect multiboxtool. If I can take small thing from Rigol and then combine it to oscilloscope made by mixing half part Owon and half part Hantek it may be ok. 

Hantek and Rigol have half speed memory up to 1M shared with channels
Owon have 10M FULL speed memory for both channels separately.
with lower horizontal speeds Owon can around 10 times better sampling speed than Owon or Rigol.

Owon expensive?
8" 800x600 really good TFT display, FULL speed capture memory up to 10M per channel and  true single chip 2x500MSa/s ADC,  Real time VGA out, Battery option ready, LAN, and measured BW over 200MHz and mesured risetime under 1.8ns. 
Around EUR450 including shipping, you may find it even in this forum,  and officially 100MHz but in real 200MHz. Expensive?

Someone may tell that if 2 channel in use samplerate is 500MSa/s per channel. Yes it is.  How is Hantek 200MHz model. And it is 500MSa/s ONLY if use 8, 4 or 2ns/div  This interleeaved ADC system is overclocked from 100MHz to 125MHz only with these speeds.

Owon is samling always with full 2x500MSa/s or if single channel in use it is inside chip combined to working as 1 channel ADC and  it works 1GSa/s. 

Which is better for you, it depends just your needs. 

But if simply ask...  Hantek eur 80 over Rigol...  if absolutely have not this 80 then Rigol. But if you can easy choose use 80 more. There do not need thing 2 second. Exept if you drop Owon out too fast before thinking deeply what these deep fast memory and samplerates and interleved ADC are meaning in reality.

[T4P]

Deep memory and non overclocked ADC's are key to preventing aliasing , if you think that's no small issues i have nothing left to say .
Aliasing was the problem with old digital scopes and you certainly don't want that , the Owon is notches ahead of the DS1102E ( if let's say you can't hack a DS1052)
And the biggest thing is , you can walk away with VGA ( not sure about LAN does it have it ? ) and a battery for under 600US$ ... Expensive ? I say NOT .

[alm]

Deep memory and non overclocked ADC's are key to preventing aliasing , if you think that's no small issues i have nothing left to say .
Aliasing was the problem with old digital scopes and you certainly don't want that , the Owon is notches ahead of the DS1102E ( if let's say you can't hack a DS1052)

Gotta love your balanced and well-researched answer. Aliasing was a major problem... twenty years ago when DSOs were still relatively new. The Rigol DS1052E also has long memory on almost all sample rates. I'm not saying its acquisition hardware is perfect, but it's a decent scope that will be fine for many applications. The Hantek/Owon models are clearly newer designs, however. I would second rf-loops's opinion that the Hantek (or Owon) offer some significant advantages for a relatively small price premium. If money is tight, don't worry about it and get the Rigol.

[mariush]

Batronix has the Rigol DS1052E at 269 euro (320 euro incl. vat), along with reasonable shipping costs (13 euro for my country) : http://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/DSO.html

They also have a cheaper Owon PDS5022S at 220 euro (262 euro), but I doesn't seem to be worth it considering it's only 20 Mhz and only 100 MSam/s and 5000pts memory depth compared to 50 mhz/1GSa/1Mpts on Rigol.

[rf-loop]

Batronix has the Rigol DS1052E at 269 euro (320 euro incl. vat), along with reasonable shipping costs (13 euro for my country) : http://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/DSO.html

They also have a cheaper Owon PDS5022S at 220 euro (262 euro), but I doesn't seem to be worth it considering it's only 20 Mhz and only 100 MSam/s and 5000pts memory depth compared to 50 mhz/1GSa/1Mpts on Rigol.

First before read more:
Do not go to PDS5022S !
(exept if you get it really cheap from example second hand markets)

This model is strange. It is very OLD and still alive.
But it is  simple and robust.
2x100MSa  5k, no USB (only PC USB)
It is "school" scope. There really do not need more when young students first time see blinking led and try visualize signal.

HP54600B have 20MSa/s max. 1k memory.  Still it is enough for many hobbyists and many peoples like it. (yes it can do good repetitive > 100MHz)

PDS5022x is 25MHz / risetime 14ns  oscillocope, and nothing more. This it can do realtime / single shot.
(it is good to think that what ever we look, signal is not pure sinewave. (example if look square wave, it is good that least 7th or 9th harmonic is still not so much attenuated)

I have surprised how peoples want buy second hand this model and what price. Amazing. There must be some reason?

It have one day tested quickly frequency response so that it is nearly flat from 0-25MHz (not gaussian type where 25MHz is -3dB.) 25MHz was around -1dB or less.
Measuring accuracy good, signal sampling quality good / very good.

No fan. Battery option.

But then this display, it is big 640x480 but.... It is  poor (yes it can still use).  Poor contrast. Slow. It is STN display. Not TFT! And it is big disadvantage.

Owon have made model PDS5022T  and it is TFT model. (have you see this on the markets...  maybe not. But you can find LOT OF this S model. (becouse sellers need sell out this old model from stock).

There are other markets what you really do not see in internet. (many kind of schools/student and many kind of professional users. )

It is like 5022S/T have maybe same front end and analog part what is in 60MHz model... becouse what I measure it looks like if rise samplerate (different ADC) it can easy do this 60MHz or maybe more... maybe they use same base.

Price. If look low end scopes   features and price curve is far away linear and zero crossing.

Only in some use, example if one school buy 50 low end oscilloscope it maybe ok deal if it is DSO5022T (TFT model)
In large quantities is is good deal for example some schools if look all things including reliability and example possible warranty fails handling etc.

But for hobby... if really want value for money.. if money limit is so that there can not go over around 300.  Rigol have 320x240 tiny display but still It is good choice! (picture size is nearly same as typical old analog scope screen)

If can go to 400 - 500  depending needs and weighting features with own needs it may be Hantek DSO5062B, 5102B  or Owon SDS7102.  (if want Hantek nearly same BW it need hack/modify to 200MHz model.. still it is behind but, for most cases difference is marginal - exept if need high samplerate with lower horizontal speeds or with more than 4k memory.
Hantek waveforms/s is fast if compare to Owon due to Owon is traditional DSO and Hantek is littlebit DPO. But agen, this is not so simply... turn Owon to 1M and Hantek to 1M capture memory. (or turn Hantek to 40k and Owon to 100k memory)
What happen to Hantek speed (HW bottleneck? FW "bug"?). There Owon beat it totally. 
Hantek FW have more features (but also some pity limits) and Hantek UI ergonomy is better.

[Galenbo]

I can advise Batronix, I bought my Rigol Scope and Fctgen there recently.

[beatle]

Thank you for your in depth answers! I read them with great interest and now am reassured that it is worthwhile to buy a little bit more expensive DSO than Rigol, if I can find a good offer.

Unfortunately the place I had found that had quite a bit cheaper Hantek offer have them all sold out now. I guess that is what happens when you post a link to it on a forum

But rf-loop showed me that I really dismissed Owon option to easily, I will give it a second chance.

Thank you for being so helpful!

[T4P]

Batronix has the Rigol DS1052E at 269 euro (320 euro incl. vat), along with reasonable shipping costs (13 euro for my country) : http://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/DSO.html

They also have a cheaper Owon PDS5022S at 220 euro (262 euro), but I doesn't seem to be worth it considering it's only 20 Mhz and only 100 MSam/s and 5000pts memory depth compared to 50 mhz/1GSa/1Mpts on Rigol.

HP54600B have 20MSa/s max. 1k memory.  Still it is enough for many hobbyists and many peoples like it. (yes it can do good repetitive > 100MHz)

If can go to 400 - 500  depending needs and weighting features with own needs it may be Hantek DSO5062B, 5102B  or Owon SDS7102.  (if want Hantek nearly same BW it need hack/modify to 200MHz model.. still it is behind but, for most cases difference is marginal - exept if need high samplerate with lower horizontal speeds or with more than 4k memory.
Hantek waveforms/s is fast if compare to Owon due to Owon is traditional DSO and Hantek is littlebit DPO. But agen, this is not so simply... turn Owon to 1M and Hantek to 1M capture memory. (or turn Hantek to 40k and Owon to 100k memory)

Yikes . 4K is very little sample memory . And BTW the Owon is 10Mpts the entire sampling bandwidth .
Same goes for old digital scopes , you MUST NOT buy them . Aliasing fools people .

[beatle]

...
Yikes . 4K is very little sample memory . And BTW the Owon is 10Mpts the entire sampling bandwidth .
Same goes for old digital scopes , you MUST NOT buy them . Aliasing fools people .

Deep memory and non overclocked ADC's are key to preventing aliasing , if you think that's no small issues i have nothing left to say .
Aliasing was the problem with old digital scopes and you certainly don't want that , the Owon is notches ahead of the DS1102E ( if let's say you can't hack a DS1052)
And the biggest thing is , you can walk away with VGA ( not sure about LAN does it have it ? ) and a battery for under 600US$ ... Expensive ? I say NOT .

...
Gotta love your balanced and well-researched answer. Aliasing was a major problem... twenty years ago when DSOs were still relatively new. The Rigol DS1052E also has long memory on almost all sample rates. I'm not saying its acquisition hardware is perfect, but it's a decent scope that will be fine for many applications. The Hantek/Owon models are clearly newer designs, however. I would second rf-loops's opinion that the Hantek (or Owon) offer some significant advantages for a relatively small price premium. If money is tight, don't worry about it and get the Rigol.

I am glad now that I didn't use the rare opportunity that presented it self for me to buy an old Tektronix DSO locally in my country.

I can advise Batronix, I bought my Rigol Scope and Fctgen there recently.

Thanks! I had Batronix in my eye as a cheap European source  for a Rigol DSO, but before I was unsure how reputable they were.
Incidentally, if I will buy the Rogol there, would it make sense to get this DMM as well:
http://www.batronix.com/shop/multimeter/multimeter-bxm80.html ?

So far I had no luck in finding a source for ether Owon or Hantek scopes that has a pricing near the one that got sold out (except ,the offer from aghp, that I am inquiring now) so it might push my hand in buying the Rigol. I figure that I will not be sorry for that, as I could then buy the mentioned DMM or a better one (now I only have a cheep gas station model) for the money I save.

[T4P]

That's a UT61A underneath , go get a UT61E from Dealextreme ... Mine's on the way .

[beatle]

UPDATE:
I have now two offers for Owon SDS7102V and Hantek DSO 5102B that both have almost the same price and am torn between them. Now, as I understand Owon gives me a more capable hardware capabilities but Hantek has the most feature full firmware and besides that they both have their own strengths and weaknesses and many of them have been discussed on this very forum, but it all seams very even fight to me and makes me very confused as I haven't owned or used a DSO before and theoretical information can give one only so much, meaning that it is hard to evaluate which features to give the most weight to.

Can someone give a general picture as for what kind of work which scope is more suited to?

That's a UT61A underneath , go get a UT61E from Dealextreme ... Mine's on the way .

Oh, thanks! I was suspicions why I can't find that DMM on google anywhere for some user feedback, now I know what it is rebranded from.

[T4P]

Long sample memory is always a one-upper , always.
Nothing beats the ability to scroll through quite that amount of memory when you need it.
I only think it was a UT61A because the specs match up and functions too . Oh wait it's a 61B .
61A gives you transistor measurement ability and NCV but you give up the temp measurement for it .

[beatle]

Long sample memory is always a one-upper , always.
Nothing beats the ability to scroll through quite that amount of memory when you need it.
I only think it was a UT61A because the specs match up and functions too . Oh wait it's a 61B .
61A gives you transistor measurement ability and NCV but you give up the temp measurement for it .

What about the refresh rate? I have red here that the Owon's large memory has the penalty that it has much slower refresh rate than the Hantek.  What does it mean in practice,  will I miss features in a waveform because they just wont get drawn to the screen?

My questions must sound silly to anyone with any experience, sorry about that.

[Spikee]

Official dealer in the netherlands for Rigol stuff : http://www.arbenelux.com/
For the Rigol DS1052E i paid 299 euro ex. VAT ex. shipping.
so for me it was 365 euro including guarantee certificate.

The shipping will be 17 euro for you so the total is : 299 + 17.1 = 316.1 euro ex VAT.
VAT here is 19%
I hope this helps you.

[T4P]

Long sample memory is always a one-upper , always.
Nothing beats the ability to scroll through quite that amount of memory when you need it.
I only think it was a UT61A because the specs match up and functions too . Oh wait it's a 61B .
61A gives you transistor measurement ability and NCV but you give up the temp measurement for it .

What about the refresh rate? I have red here that the Owon's large memory has the penalty that it has much slower refresh rate than the Hantek.  What does it mean in practice,  will I miss features in a waveform because they just wont get drawn to the screen?

My questions must sound silly to anyone with any experience, sorry about that.

If anyone would want good refresh rates and long memory the DSOX3000 is more suitable .
But really , more importantly owon has sample speed many times better then the hantek but i wouldn't know about the refresh rate differences .
I saw this post and i am quite shocked at the appalling refresh rate of the hantek ( i think so , because owon is the one with the blue BG )
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/fs-owon-sds7102v-(lan)-(eu-excluding-finland)/msg108223/#msg108223

[beatle]

Official dealer in the netherlands for Rigol stuff : http://www.arbenelux.com/
For the Rigol DS1052E i paid 299 euro ex. VAT ex. shipping.
so for me it was 365 euro including guarantee certificate.

The shipping will be 17 euro for you so the total is : 299 + 17.1 = 316.1 euro ex VAT.
VAT here is 19%
I hope this helps you.

Hi Spikee,
Thanks for the info! I am currently trying to decide between Owon and Hantek scopes, but this still might come handy.
For anyone looking for Rigol there is a similar deal at http://www.batronix.com/shop/oscilloscopes/Rigol-DS1052E.html and they have a special offer at the moment of 269 ex. VAT. for the 50MHz model.

Long sample memory is always a one-upper , always.
Nothing beats the ability to scroll through quite that amount of memory when you need it.
I only think it was a UT61A because the specs match up and functions too . Oh wait it's a 61B .
61A gives you transistor measurement ability and NCV but you give up the temp measurement for it .

What about the refresh rate? I have red here that the Owon's large memory has the penalty that it has much slower refresh rate than the Hantek.  What does it mean in practice,  will I miss features in a waveform because they just wont get drawn to the screen?

My questions must sound silly to anyone with any experience, sorry about that.

If anyone would want good refresh rates and long memory the DSOX3000 is more suitable .
But really , more importantly owon has sample speed many times better then the hantek but i wouldn't know about the refresh rate differences .
I saw this post and i am quite shocked at the appalling refresh rate of the hantek ( i think so , because owon is the one with the blue BG )
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/fs-owon-sds7102v-(lan)-(eu-excluding-finland)/msg108223/#msg108223

Auch, DSOX300 is waaay over my budget. Sorry, I can understand that it is annoying when someone seems to be demanding features that are just not going to be available for the money he is willing to spend.  I am just trying to get best option I can afford.

UPDATE:

Thank you all for your help. I think I have decided to go and get a Owon SDS7102V. I will report back my impressions for anyone who might find it useful.

[beatle]

THE RESULT:

Hello!

I am now a happy owner of a shiny OWON SDS7102V oscilloscope and consider this question of mine solved. Again, thank you all for your input and help on deciding what DSO to buy and where to get it in Europe!

In the end I got a SDS7102V from a member of this board - Aghp, and I can recommend him for anyone - a professional, honest and helpful seller.

For anyone on a similar path, the best device options for me, the best sellers that I found for each and their each main advantage over others are as follows:

• Owon SDS7102 from Aghp - best hardware
• Rigol DS1052E from Batronix - cheapest
• Hantek DSO 5102B from CircuitSpecialist - best firmware functionality

Mind you, these considerations are targeted far a quality entry level DSO's , not very low end 20MHz single channel stuff, or semi professional level $1k+ ones.