What is the update cycle on the Rigols? I am leaning towards the DS1054Z at the moment, but fear a newer model might pop up months after purchase. Even though my scope will be just as good as before, it would be nice if a new scope could improve upon some of the shortcomings of the current model. Having a more reponsive UI and better FFT would both be improvements that I would appreciate and those would inevitably be part of a new model.If you want better responsiveness, better vertical resolution and better FFT the Siglent SDS1202X-E is what you're looking for. But limited to two channels. Also, the Siglent is not yet supported by software such as Sigrok. If you want the best bang for the buck with four channels, then get the Rigol. Both have shortcomings but both are useful tools as long as you are aware of their limitations.
I'm not sure they will release anything in the low end soon. Maybe they'll jump on the Zynq 7000 bandwagon following Siglent and GW Instek? No idea. They recently made a vague announcement of some new electronics for oscilloscopes but it seems to be targetted to a higher cathegory.
At the end of the day you will have to decide wether one of the alternatives in the market suit you and it does at an acceptable price. In the future of course there will be a new release. That is true especially with cut throat competition between the newcomers to the instrumentation market.
Rigol reduce horizontal mesurement resolution. I do not know exactly what is amount of data what it use. Propably something under 1k or even less.
If you want better responsiveness, better vertical resolution and better FFT the Siglent SDS1202X-E is what you're looking for. But limited to two channels. Also, the Siglent is not yet supported by software such as Sigrok. If you want the best bang for the buck with four channels, then get the Rigol. Both have shortcomings but both are useful tools as long as you are aware of their limitations.
That line of thinking never works.
If it did, nobody would ever buy a car (for example).
Another example would be the sales of Apple products. If we look at iPhone sales, they are highly cyclical in nature, with sales peaking right after release of the new model.
Did Apple ever release a new model at the exact same price point as the previous one? Usually they put the price up.
@MR Scram: if you have not already done this: also take a look at the GW Instek GDS-2000E (4 analog) or MSO2000 (4 analog + 16 digital) series. These are more expensive compared to the scopes in the topic title but they have more features besides displaying a signal and the firmware is mature.
If you want better responsiveness, better vertical resolution and better FFT the Siglent SDS1202X-E is what you're looking for. But limited to two channels.
@MR Scram: if you have not already done this: also take a look at the GW Instek GDS-2000E (4 analog) or MSO2000 (4 analog + 16 digital) series. These are more expensive compared to the scopes in the topic title but they have more features besides displaying a signal and the firmware is mature.Thanks for the advice! The cheapest 4 channel GDS-2000E seems to be three times as expensive as the DS1054Z. That might be a bit too rich for my blood right now, even if it can be unlocked to 200 MHz. The MSO2000 does not seem to be for sale around these parts, which would make warranty a huge hassle.
If it means a significant upgrade, I am willing to consider increasing the budget, or if it turns out some of the things I would want to do with a scope are simply out of reach on the models mentioned in this thread. I don't mind spending money on a good tool, but at the same time I have to be realistic about my budget. Spending more here means less options elsewhere.
Note that with DS1054Z you cannot work live with substantially different frequencies at same time. Memory depth allows for high sample rate capture but auto-measurements do not work on hf part while zoomed out. Might be important with motor work (low freq physical process + high freq signaling). This limitation did come as surprise and annoyed me so much that started sort of "holy war" back in the day
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/testing-dso-auto-measurements-accuracy-across-timebases/
This is common with scopes that use screen buffer for measurements to speed things up, but this comes at cost.
Would that be an accurate summary?
Note that with DS1054Z you cannot work live with substantially different frequencies at same time. Memory depth allows for high sample rate capture but auto-measurements do not work on hf part while zoomed out. Might be important with motor work (low freq physical process + high freq signaling). This limitation did come as surprise and annoyed me so much that started sort of "holy war" back in the day
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/testing-dso-auto-measurements-accuracy-across-timebases/
This is common with scopes that use screen buffer for measurements to speed things up, but this comes at cost.
But most of the time that is not important. That type of measurement is only applicable to repetitive, monotonic, waveform, and is actually statistics of measurements across the capture (single trigger event). That is useful to analyze quality of clock , for instance.. But, in order for that to be useful, scope has to have high end clock stability etc..
Yep. Now finding cheap scope that does all well currently impossible if you need it all:
- good analog part (4ch) with full-memory automation
- good FFT
- digital channels
- serial triggering
- serial decoding
I would be looking into combining devices if proper do-it-all stuff out of range.
But most of the time that is not important. That type of measurement is only applicable to repetitive, monotonic, waveform, and is actually statistics of measurements across the capture (single trigger event). That is useful to analyze quality of clock , for instance.. But, in order for that to be useful, scope has to have high end clock stability etc..
Motors. Slow-changing statistically smoothed measurements on physical part, while keeping eye on control part. But ok, suppose this is niche application, but second implication is cumbersome serial decoding. Some think that manually browsing thru megabytes (because it only decodes zoomed part) is normal practice. Actually normal practice is having navigable event table over full memory decode.
I'm quite sure one can get all the modern features under $1000 if combine devices.
DS1054Z has a hardware frequency counter in addition to the on-screen software frequency counter. I would think that mitigates this issue.
What I have found so far, using both of them, is that the UART decoder in the Siglent is a bit sensitive to the timing settings.
I have been trying with a RS485 bus, capturing Modbus packets at 9600 bps. And packets for which all the bytes decoded successfully at 10 ms/div had some errors when capturing at 50 or 100 ms/div.
Unfortunately I've done the test at work and my main goal wasn't to compare oscilloscopes but to check something else, so I can't do a more comprehensive testing nor begin capturing examples.
I wil try to reproduce it at home if possible. But I found that, for an initial packet beginning with 01h-04h the first byte wasn't decoded despite looking perfectly fine on screen.
What I have found so far, using both of them, is that the UART decoder in the Siglent is a bit sensitive to the timing settings.
I have been trying with a RS485 bus, capturing Modbus packets at 9600 bps. And packets for which all the bytes decoded successfully at 10 ms/div had some errors when capturing at 50 or 100 ms/div.
Unfortunately I've done the test at work and my main goal wasn't to compare oscilloscopes but to check something else, so I can't do a more comprehensive testing nor begin capturing examples.
I wil try to reproduce it at home if possible. But I found that, for an initial packet beginning with 01h-04h the first byte wasn't decoded despite looking perfectly fine on screen.When you get to test this in greater depth please include whether or not you're using the appropriate serial triggering suite or the normal edge trigger.
I demo'ed a X-E unit yesterday using the normal edge triggering and despite having a rising edge trigger it decoded without error.
Anyway the more info you can provide the better it can be replicated if indeed there is an issue.
@borjam
Got your PM.
What concerns me is even while you're DC coupled the idle level is undetermined, it's midway neither Hi or Lo.
How can that be ?
BTW to capture more OSD info including the menu just use the blue Print button rather than the Save menu to capture a screenshot.
@borjam
Got your PM.
What concerns me is even while you're DC coupled the idle level is undetermined, it's midway neither Hi or Lo.
How can that be ?