What my poor man's lab is missing is a low-end/mid-range oscilloscope. Now this being Iran with the awful inflations, it's super expensive for us to buy a $350 DS1054Z.
Why not consider an older, used unit? You can get a good Tektronix 465 for instance, for very little money. I use one regularly and love it. I have others but that's my main one. Even my very old 453 is perfectly useful.
My digital unit does FFT but not in such a way as to be useful for most purposes. I have spectrum analyers for that.
I normally would advice against handheld scopes for a "main" scope (they are fine as a secondary or "field" tool) because they usually have pretty awkward controls, lack features (limited triggering options, limited storage capabilities, poor measurement capabilities, barely meet specs, etc) BUT that Hantek scope you mentioned seems to be fairly decent on paper (I went through the manual and looks fine, BUT I'm yet to see a review showing if it meets its specs, and all the features actually work, though).
There's a recent review from Defpom on a budget scope that looked pretty promising:
That instrument seems to be exactly the same as the OWON SDS1102, which is available even here in my country at a reasonable price (still higher than its standard price, but definitely cheaper than the Rigol I purchased as my first scope) Maybe it's also something you can get where you live?
Aggressively stalking local auction sites is also recommended . Hopefully the second hand market in your country is bigger than here, though. Apparently VERY few people in my country worked on electronics in the past couple of decades, so it takes a miracle to find good used instruments at decent prices.
Why not consider an older, used unit? You can get a good Tektronix 465 for instance, for very little money. I use one regularly and love it. I have others but that's my main one. Even my very old 453 is perfectly useful.
My digital unit does FFT but not in such a way as to be useful for most purposes. I have spectrum analyers for that.
How much is a Rigol DS1052E there?
Why not consider an older, used unit? You can get a good Tektronix 465 for instance, for very little money. I use one regularly and love it. I have others but that's my main one. Even my very old 453 is perfectly useful.
My digital unit does FFT but not in such a way as to be useful for most purposes. I have spectrum analyers for that.
In Iran? I have no idea what the market is like there but I would not expect used instruments to be nearly as plentiful there, especially A-list American brands.
What my poor man's lab is missing is a low-end/mid-range oscilloscope. Now this being Iran with the awful inflations, it's super expensive for us to buy a $350 DS1054Z.
How much is a Rigol DS1052E there?
Is it that hard to implement 1Mpts or something? Rigol did it over a decade ago LOL.
Anyway, I'll probably save up a bit for the DS1052E and 100% put on a hacked firmware. Too bad I can't afford a DS1054Z, the 2 extra channels could be pretty damn useful.
Anyway, I'll probably save up a bit for the DS1052E and 100% put on a hacked firmware. Too bad I can't afford a DS1054Z, the 2 extra channels could be pretty damn useful.If you can get by with just 2 channels maybe a SDS1202X-E can better suit your needs but might be at the top end of your budget.
At least it has some reasonable memory depth (14 Mpts), 7" display, better sensitivity than most others in this class and a suite of decoders.
What about a GW Instek GDS-1000B Series? Since the OP has a GW Instek DMM maybe that brand is easier to find...
What about a GW Instek GDS-1000B Series? Since the OP has a GW Instek DMM maybe that brand is easier to find...
They're not easy to find even here in Europe.
Anyway, I'll probably save up a bit for the DS1052E and 100% put on a hacked firmware. Too bad I can't afford a DS1054Z, the 2 extra channels could be pretty damn useful.
That's what I thought when I upgraded my oscilloscope a few years ago. Turns out I've only used channel 3 once. Channel 4 remains untouched .
Bear in mind that enabling extra channels reduce your sampling rate and memory, so having more than 2 channels is not *that* great. For a bunch of logic signals (which is what I look at the most) a logic analyzer is more practical anyway. Even a cheap Saleae clone (which is what I have) works wonders.
@Fungus: please fix the quotation. I didn't write the text you attribute to me.