REVIEW - Rigol DS2072 - First Impressions of the DS2000 series from Rigol

[Ruben57]

Thanks for taking the time to check marmad. Yes, that makes sense, I think you are right in that it is related to the persistence function. Persistence at 100ms is not all that useful anyhow. It would have been better if Rigol shifted that point from 200ms (199ms) to 1ms.

I’m going to contact the distributor that I bought this DS4024 from tomorrow and see if they can do something about the options that I prematurely expired. I will also inform them about this display glitch/bug so that can hopefully pass it on to Rigol. Perhaps Rigol will even move the starting point of the persistence function to 1ms as well. I will report back if anything interesting comes of it.

Thanks again.   

[ThomasB]

Hello,
after watching the excellent review and reading all the good comments in this community I bought a Rigol DS2202, it arrived yesterday. At least the basic feature are very easy and intuitive to use ;-) After not using a oscilloscope for more than ten years everything worked out of the box, perfect ;-) Now I've to read the manual and try out all the possible feature, so I think the next nights will be a bit longer than normal ;-)
I think the latest Firmware version is 00.00.01.00.05 correct? My one is 00.00.01.00.02 :-(
I'll try to get the latest one from Batronix where I bought the oscilloscope.

[marmad]

Prompted by another thread,
There is the selection of Anti-Alias on or off, but Does the DS2000 only allow 'AA' under a rnage of specific settings?  (X sec/div - Y sec/div)

Honestly, I wonder if the AA actually works (or works well) on the DS2000. Can anyone post 'before' and 'after' screen shots of the AA making a noticeable difference?

[XaS]

Honestly, I wonder if the AA actually works (or works well) on the DS2000. Can anyone post 'before' and 'after' screen shots of the AA making a noticeable difference?

Actually, I saw the effect of AA yesterday by accident. I had an 1kHz sine wave on both channels, both with some serious noise on them (it was an audio signal from a laptop). Edge trigger had some problems on catching the sine waves steadily and the curves jittered left and right. Due to false manipulation I switched on AA accidentially and I got the sine waves as if they were amplitude modulated with about 0.5Hz. They slowly went from a flat signal to the full sine waves and the back again to zero. Since I wasn't interested in this, I have no evidence on it happening. And right now I can't reach the DSO...

XaS

[Hydrawerk]

Is there any reason to switch off the Anti-Alias function?

[marmad]

Is there any reason to switch off the Anti-Alias function?

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-474-gw-instek-gds-2000a-series-oscilloscope-unboxing-fi/msg242748/#msg242748

[marmad]

Honestly, I wonder if the AA actually works (or works well) on the DS2000. Can anyone post 'before' and 'after' screen shots of the AA making a noticeable difference?

Actually, I saw the effect of AA yesterday by accident. I had an 1kHz sine wave on both channels, both with some serious noise on them (it was an audio signal from a laptop). Edge trigger had some problems on catching the sine waves steadily and the curves jittered left and right. Due to false manipulation I switched on AA accidentially and I got the sine waves as if they were amplitude modulated with about 0.5Hz. They slowly went from a flat signal to the full sine waves and the back again to zero. Since I wasn't interested in this, I have no evidence on it happening. And right now I can't reach the DSO...

XaS

Thanks, Xas. Any idea what time base you were on so I can try to replicate?

[Hydrawerk]

Is there any reason to switch off the Anti-Alias function?

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-474-gw-instek-gds-2000a-series-oscilloscope-unboxing-fi/msg242748/#msg242748

Oh, That's weird. At DSOX2002A there is no such feature, or it's probably still ON.  Dave could not produce any aliasing with this scope. Well, the scope is Apple-like, we know. 

[XaS]

Ok, I ran over to my friends house and have the DS2072 back here now.

First, with 1kHz sine and 500us time base, there is an effect. Without AA, the sine wave jitters arround like hell. With AA on, the display rate is MUCH slower (I'd say about 4fps compared to >20fps before) and the sine wave is more or less shown stable.

So far I fail to reproduce the effets I saw yesterday. I'll keep on trying for a minute or two...

XaS

[marmad]

@EV: I think you were the one that originally posted about the Anti-Alias bug. Can you please confirm that Anti-Aliasing is working in the current FW with a 'before' and 'after' screen shot?

First, with 1kHz sine and 500us time base, there is an effect. Without AA, the sine wave jitters arround like hell. With AA on, the display rate is MUCH slower (I'd say about 4fps compared to >20fps before) and the sine wave is more or less shown stable.

Hmm.. but at the 500us/div time base, the sample rate is 2MSa/s - plenty fast enough to reproduce a 1kHz wave without any aliasing. On my DSO, it is rock solid (no aliasing) with those settings.

[XaS]

Ok, got it now. I don't know if this is a real difference or just a problem of the UI.

The key was to turn on averaging, too. On 1kHz, 100us time base, average = 2, there is a remarkable difference in the amplitude of the signal, depending if the AA is on or off. (The values with AA off seem to be correct.)

By the way, I noticed that since v01.00.00.03, the Quick Print files are called DS2... instead of DSX... and there is a header with the model number, serial, date and time on top. So far, I couldn't figure out a way to switch it off. Is this new with v01.00.00.03?

XaS

[marmad]

Honestly, in the 7 months I've had the DSO, I never tried using the Anti-Aliasing (I was taught too well to look out for aliasing - so I never really worry about being 'fooled'). Now that I'm trying to test it, it doesn't really seem to work (unless I'm missing something obvious). And I've just tried downgrading to v.01.00.05 and it still doesn't appear to work correctly.

I just give the DSO a 100kHz sine wave and switch to 50ms/div. Serious aliasing going on with what appears to be a 10Hz sine wave displayed. But Anti-Aliasing ON/OFF changes nothing.

Edit: Here's a 10MHz sine wave at 10ms/div - looking like a 100Hz sine wave because of aliasing - Anti-Aliasing has no effect ON or OFF.

[ve7xen]

I had a similar experience yesterday with a 10MHz sine on slow(ish) timebases. AA on/off seemed to make no difference.

[XaS]

Ok, same here. Lacking a decent waveform generator, I'm limited to 20kHz. But on the 500ms time base the DSO shows a 0.5Hz sine wave. No change with or without AA. The wron waveform is shown down to the 20ms time base, with 10ms or lower the 20kHz are shown correctly.

XaS

Edit: Of course, selecting more than 7kPoints solves the problem for 20ms and some more above.

[marmad]

Ok, thanks for the verifications. Into the bug list it goes - and I'll pass it along to Drieg.


Edit:

Edit: Of course, selecting more than 7kPoints solves the problem for 20ms and some more above.

Yes, that would be the standard way to solve the problem - increase the sample length in order to increase the sampling rate. But still, we have the special feature - it should work! 

[EV]

@EV: I think you were the one that originally posted about the Anti-Alias bug. Can you please confirm that Anti-Aliasing is working in the current FW with a 'before' and 'after' screen shot?

Sorry, I am not at home for a while.

[EV]

OK, I got these pictures from home. There is clearly some efect, if antialiasing is on or off.

[marmad]

OK, I got these pictures from home. There is clearly some efect, if antialiasing is on or off.

I'm not sure what it has to do with anti-aliasing though.    In previous posts some of us have confirmed that it is not doing anything to stop aliasing.

[ThomasB]

successfully updated my DS2202 from FW version 00.00.01.00.02 to version 01.00.00.03. Many thanks to  marmad

[Galaxyrise]

In previous posts some of us have confirmed that it is not doing anything to stop aliasing.

To be fair, Rigol doesn't claim it will stop aliasing:

At slower sweep speed, the sample rate is reduced and a dedicated display algorithm is used to minimize the possibility of aliasing.
The displayed waveforms will be more susceptible to aliasing when this function is disabled.

[marmad]

To be fair, Rigol doesn't claim it will stop aliasing:

At slower sweep speed, the sample rate is reduced and a dedicated display algorithm is used to minimize the possibility of aliasing.
The displayed waveforms will be more susceptible to aliasing when this function is disabled.

But it's not doing anything visible (except perhaps changing gradation), while mathematical techniques for anti-aliasing have been around for awhile. I think it's a bug (or an unimplemented feature - which they 'forgot' to remove from the manual).

Or if someone could post just ONE 'before/after' example of it actually 'minimizing' aliasing, I would be happy 

[feds27]

Long time reader/watcher, first time posting...

DS2072 Extend Options Trial Period

http://youtu.be/9QhsuKvB9U4

Notice the 100MHz and 200MHz bandwidth options at the bottom of the trial list.

[marmad]

Notice the 100MHz and 200MHz bandwidth options at the bottom of the trial list.

Yes, this has been commented on quite a few times throughout this thread. Haven't you read all [000081] pages?    Seriously though, it's known Rigol has put plans in place to sell BW if they think it's worthwhile to do at some point.

And welcome, BTW! First time's always the hardest 

[feds27]

Notice the 100MHz and 200MHz bandwidth options at the bottom of the trial list.

Yes, this has been commented on quite a few times throughout this thread. Haven't you read all [000081] pages? 

Ah.  I noticed it was just posted to YouTube four days ago.  When I did a search on the thread and forum nothing came up so I posted it.

[marmad]

Ah.  I noticed it was just posted to YouTube four days ago.  When I did a search on the thread and forum nothing came up so I posted it.

That's EEVBlog member studio25's video - and the thread where the video is posted (and which is investigating hacking the Rigol) is here. But thanks for posting here - I know it's sometimes impossible to find stuff on EEVBlog  - hell, I often can't find posts I made myself.