I've been using my SDS7102 for nearly 5 months now. The purchase price was US $429 including the VGA, LAN, bag, and shipping. I've been using oscilloscopes professionally and for my own hobbies since I was a teen, but until recently my experience was limited to CROs. Now that I'm retired, I've been trying to upgrade my electronics lab with modern equipment while being budget conscious. I looked at many videos of different DSOs and read every review I could get my hands on before deciding to purchase the SDS7102. In retrospect, I still think that my decision was right for me, but I feel that all of my research failed to uncover some of the things that annoy me the most when using this DSO. At the same time, some of the things that were most fervently criticized by others, I've only found to be minor annoyances or just fine for my taste. So here is a list of the things that I currently like and dislike. It's just my opinion and based on my personal likes and dislikes. So feel free to jump in and challenge, criticize, or agree with any of it.
What I like:
1. The price.
2. The screen size and resolution.
3. The size, weight, stylish look, and thinness. I have 2 workbenches with pegboards and a top shelf. The top shelves hold most of my test equipment. For the DSO I was able to install a small shelf at eye level on each pegboard. This allows me to easily move it from one workbench to the other depending on what I'm doing. With this setup there is no possibility of sliding when you push any of the buttons.
4. The layout of the user controls and interface connectors. I find it uncluttered and logically grouped. The use of slightly different background shades highlights the different groups of controls thus making them easier to locate. The matching button and screen colors serves as a convenient reminder of the waveforms origin.
5. The fact that the scope is usable to around 200MHz without hacks or modifications.
6. The deep memory.
7. The VGA feature. I was an educator for a large computer company for 25 years. The use of overhead projectors for technical presentations was commonplace then. Now I can use this DSO to show actual live waveforms on a big screen TV. Granted, the only audience I have now is my wife. But it sure makes an impression when I pop up a waveform from my latest project while she's watching TV.
Minor Annoyances:
1. The GND noise. Yes, I can rethink my grounding arrangement whenever this issue gets in the way. But this gets kind of annoying if you are checking something simple, for example, the ripple of an analog PS.
2. The acronyms used to label some user settings on the screen, for example, M for time base.
3. The acronyms used for some of the measurements, for example, Vk for Vrms.
4. The menu system structure. Although after some time, I've become accustomed to it. Now I wonder if relearning to navigate a better organized menu system may also prove to be annoying at first.
5. The math function doesn't remember the last V/div setting used.
6. Can't turn off CH1/CH2 display while using the math function.
7. For regular use, the lack of a fine V/div & Sec/div adjustment. However, for XY mode, see Major Disappointments below, I find this to be more than a minor annoyance.
8. The slow screen refresh rate. For my current needs, mostly hobby related, I seldom find myself chasing glitches. So the refresh rate didn't have a lot of influence on my buying decision. However, the only other scopes I own are older Tek CROs, and although they are often useful for this type of thing, I no longer care for the use of visors or dark rooms just to catch a glimpse of phosphor radiation. So now I want, but don't really need, a DPO. Any ideas on how to convince a budget conscious wife that this is a good idea?
Major Disappointments:
1. The LAN interface. I have my electronics lab as well as the rest of the house wired through the walls for network access. The network includes several computers, televisions, WMC extenders and other entertainment equipment. When I purchased the scope I envisioned being able to monitor and control the scope from the lab while it was hooked up to equipment or gadgets in different locations throughout the house. But the LAN interface was crippled by slow speed from the beginning. With the latest firmware patches it has been further crippled by a non-functional image transfer, and a flaky high depth memory transfer that in certain cases causes the DSO to freeze.
2. The Remote Control Software. Even via the USB interface, which works reasonably well, using this feature is harder than playing the violin while somebody pulls clumps of hair off of your head. It doesn't read the current settings off of your scope, so if you change any setting, be prepared to see many other settings change to the default values used by the application. Sure you can change everything back to what you want, eventually, but it's more of a headache than a convenience.
3. The XY mode. I have a semiconductor curve tracer which has been permanently connected to a dedicated CRO for some time. I often salvage parts from discarded electronic equipment and this setup is useful for classifying as well as discovering the characteristic of unknown devices. When I purchased the Owon I envisioned hooking it up to the curve tracer to capture images of the characteristic curves of unknown devices. However, the curve tracer/scope calibration procedure calls for finely adjusting the scope's V/div on the X & Y channels until the correct pattern is displayed. That was never a problem with my CROs, but the Owon engineers decided to leave out the fine adjustment. So I'm unable to properly calibrate my brand new modern DSO for this task.
Even if I could live with a slightly uncalibrated display, there are more issues with the XY mode that are incredibly disappointing, at least for me. With the Owon's beautiful large screen, why would they limit the XY display to 6.5 x 6.5 graticules, leaving more than half of the screen's real state unused.
Then there is the fact, that you may not even get an xy image, unless you discover that the screen refresh rate and scope dead time has to be synchronized to your signal source. The manual states that the Time Base is not used for this mode, but changing the time base setting is the only method I found that allows you to vary the refresh rate until a trace is visible (See images captured using different time base settings). Notice that the trace consists of dots, making it fuzzy and unappealing, and you can't improve it's looks by turning on the persistence, because in XY mode the Persistence feature is non-functional.
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
