Rigol's New DHO800 Oscilloscope unbox & teardown

[tv84]

You're teasing me... 

[mawyatt]

David! Possibly on the first channel there is poor soldering of the printed circuit board with the BNC  connector

I've seen very flaky stuff like that before. I'd bet the BNC connectors or the cable crimping. You can't see the quality of work inside the adapters or the crimps. I've had to throw out junk and replace with new. I've found many cheap adapters that aren't made to exacting specs (I know shocking) and have very weird connection problems.

Same here, even just a few weeks ago!! Had what we thought were flaky BNC cables after all sorts of troubleshooting issues with an ongoing project. So we cut one cable in half to see which BNC end was the problem. After investigating turns out all the cables were fine, it was the Banana to BNC adapters and it was only flakey with certain cables. Anyway, all 8 of those BNC adapters and another 6 "T" adapters went in the trash, and will be replaced with new Pomona 1269 adapters.

Have no idea where these adapters came from, but the center socket on the defective adapters are different than the Pomona types, same for the "T" adapters, so we tossed them all (no patience for these shenanigans)!!

Best,

[Warhawk]

David! Possibly on the first channel there is poor soldering of the printed circuit board with the BNC  connector

I've seen very flaky stuff like that before. I'd bet the BNC connectors or the cable crimping. You can't see the quality of work inside the adapters or the crimps. I've had to throw out junk and replace with new. I've found many cheap adapters that aren't made to exacting specs (I know shocking) and have very weird connection problems.

Same here, even just a few weeks ago!! Had ......
Best,

Just please make sure that you use proper "widlarizer" before throwing them to the trash. I always do it. If I don't, there is always somebody thrifty who thinks the cable went there by accident and puts it back where the other cables are. 

[Mechatrommer]

Aliexpress is out of stock of dho814. Where i can get now? Cant wait to experience 12bit..

We're all waiting in line. Go to the back of the queue. 

ali restocked dho8*4 ($389 and $459) still cheaper from the latest official pricing. please make the order quick so we can move to the front line...

[EEVblog]

Full review!
Still not sure if I'll bother to release a cut down summary version? But I didn't want to delay another few days so I had that ready at the same time.
Full time stamps available

[Martin72]

Thanks for the review, your conclusions are not really surprising.
Real 12 bit, touchscreen with higher resolution and hdmi output at this price point is indeed a killer, no question.
I had the DHO4204 for 3 weeks to test here, see your review - And it could also be from the 4204, it really only differs marginally.
In view of the almost 8x higher price, one wonders whether this can be taken as a compliment to be able to offer the same technology for a fraction of the price.
Or whether the owner of a DHO4000 feels somehow stupid for having spent so much money.

[EEVblog]

Or whether the owner of a DHO4000 feels somehow stupid for having spent so much money.

Totally different market segments. And you get way better sample rate and memory, and maybe update rate etc.

[EEVblog]

With regards to the lack of time and date, plugging it into the ethernet set the time and date, but the time here in Sydney is displayed as two hours behind on the screen shot.
So this seems liek a very deliberate cost cutting measure.

[Martin72]

Totally different market segments. And you get way better sample rate and memory, and maybe update rate etc.

For "only" 2500 bucks more you get a second ADC, a bigger screen and a different FPGA, thats all.
And more memory, but hardware-wise, it's not worth the money, much less the 2500 bucks surcharge.
Even more drastic in the sense of hardly different is the comparison DHO1000 to 4000.
The 1000 basically only lacks the second ADC and the extended inputs, otherwise everything is the same.
What struck me negatively in February with the DHO4204 was the very simple equipment of the FFT mode - is that now different, better ?
Also that "your" DHO 814 had a crash, stands out negatively, because I had with the DHO4204 also, a total of three times in three weeks.
At that time I had explained to me that the scope is still young.
But with the DHO814 and over half a year later...
And what about the display mode ?
Still only vector and no dot mode ?
It is the same UI/software as in the DHO4204, if there was progress in this regard in the last 7 months, this should be found again in the DHO814.

[Dacian]

I agree with the conclusion of the review. Is hard to justify anything else if what you need is a $400 entry level oscilloscope.
For me the two negatives are the smell (guess some plasticizes but it did not went away in the past few days) and the higher power consumption that hopefully will not create any problems over time.

[gslick]

With regards to the lack of time and date, plugging it into the ethernet set the time and date, but the time here in Sydney is displayed as two hours behind on the screen shot.
So this seems liek a very deliberate cost cutting measure.

Maybe it is hard coded to the time zone of Rigol in Suzhou, China, which is 2 hours behind Sydney? Would be nice if they added an interface to set the local time zone.

[sys64738]

Does anyone know how fast streaming the sample buffer on the DHO8xx/9xx works? The Rigol MSO50xx has a bug that makes this happen rather slowly (it takes tens of seconds), even over gigabit ethernet. I'd like to do some power side-channel measurements with this scope, and such a bug would be a deal-breaker for me. The glscopeclient manual mentions a ~2.5 waveforms/s transfer speed on Siglent 2000-series scopes, for comparison. (Of course, that's still slower than a ChipWhisperer, but those aren't useful for general stuff of course.)

[maxwelllls]

I have an idea. If I can dismantle the ADC and front-end chip from a DHO802 and transplant them to a DHO1072, then upgrade the firmware to DHO4804, would I be able to get an 800MHz/4Gsample oscilloscope for $1000?

[EEVblog]

With regards to the lack of time and date, plugging it into the ethernet set the time and date, but the time here in Sydney is displayed as two hours behind on the screen shot.
So this seems liek a very deliberate cost cutting measure.

Maybe it is hard coded to the time zone of Rigol in Suzhou, China, which is 2 hours behind Sydney? Would be nice if they added an interface to set the local time zone.

That's most likely it.

[EEVblog]

Totally different market segments. And you get way better sample rate and memory, and maybe update rate etc.

For "only" 2500 bucks more you get a second ADC, a bigger screen and a different FPGA, thats all.
And more memory, but hardware-wise, it's not worth the money, much less the 2500 bucks surcharge.

Companies that would buy these don't think in the same way that individuals do.

It is the same UI/software as in the DHO4204, if there was progress in this regard in the last 7 months, this should be found again in the DHO814.

I would expect/hope that all UI and bug fixes get passed down to the smaller DHO800/900. But it does use a different FPGA.

[EEVblog]

Should we start another thread specifically for DHO800/900 hacking, like exists for the 1000/4000?
The SD card thing is suffienctly different to the 1000/4000 that I think it needs it's own thread.
That way this thread could remain on general discussion

[sebyon]

Full review!
Still not sure if I'll bother to release a cut down summary version? But I didn't want to delay another few days so I had that ready at the same time.
Full time stamps available

I think this really settles it now, the DHO804 is the new de-facto "beginner" or budget scope, unless you have a specific requirement for more bandwidth or other functions like Bode plots. You get a lot of bang for buck. There really isn't anything else in this price point to even challenge it.

Also the probe results were really surprising. Wow.   

[sebyon]

Should we start another thread specifically for DHO800/900 hacking, like exists for the 1000/4000?
The SD card thing is suffienctly different to the 1000/4000 that I think it needs it's own thread.
That way this thread could remain on general discussion

I think this would be best, all the other (dedicated fanboy) scopes have their own (dedicated fanboy) hacking threads! 

[faveri97]

About the hole next to the USB-C connector: I found a picture of a unique power adapter shipped with the scope in an August review of DHO924S on a Chinese shopping site. The USB-C connector of the adapter output is wrapped around with a plastic piece featuring a bump that plugs into the hole.
Besides better mechanical strength, I think the main purpose for this is that the Rigol adapter directly outputs 12 volts on the connector without USB PD negotiation. This prevents you from frying your USB PD devices that expect proper negotiation.
Rigol seems to have stopped shipping these custom adapters after early September. The scopes, including mine, are now shipped with Lenovo or Liteon power adapters again.

[EEVblog]

Should we start another thread specifically for DHO800/900 hacking, like exists for the 1000/4000?
The SD card thing is suffienctly different to the 1000/4000 that I think it needs it's own thread.
That way this thread could remain on general discussion

I think this would be best, all the other (dedicated fanboy) scopes have their own (dedicated fanboy) hacking threads! 

I see you've done it. Cool, let's take the hacking there, because liek all previous scopes the hacking threads get referenced for YEARS TO COME, and this saves people continually asking in this discussion thread.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hacking-the-rigol-dho800900-scope/

[H.O]

I wonder, where exactly can you get these for $299?
To get one from Batronix I would need to pay €436 ($480) for the DHO802 or €499 ($550) for the DHO804.

[Fungus]

I think this really settles it now, the DHO804 is the new de-facto "beginner" or budget scope

Yep. It destroys that Siglent 1104X-E and it's $100 less.

[iMo]

I wonder, where exactly can you get these for $299?
To get one from Batronix I would need to pay €436 ($480) for the DHO802 or €499 ($550) for the DHO804.

$299 is a marketing BS..
Batronix ships free of charge within EU, afaik, therefore add say 40E, add 5% custom, add XX% sales margin, and add VAT 20% on top of all that..

[rob77]

I wonder, where exactly can you get these for $299?
To get one from Batronix I would need to pay €436 ($480) for the DHO802 or €499 ($550) for the DHO804.

$299 is a marketing BS..
Batronix ships free of charge within EU, afaik, therefore add say 40E, add 5% custom, add XX% sales margin, and add VAT 20% on top of all that..

not BS, 299USD  is the price in north america before taxes ( https://www.rigolna.com/products/rigol-digital-oscilloscopes/dho800/ )

in EU the price is 349Euros without VAT added  ( https://rigolshop.eu/products/oscilloscope/dho800.html ) so it's approx 50 euros more expensive in the EU.

[.RC.]

Yep. It destroys that Siglent 1104X-E and it's $100 less.

LOL it is a six years newer design.  What exactly would you expect?