Rigol DS4000 series Scope Video Review

[rbola35618]

Hello fellow EEVbloggers,

I managed to a ahold of a Demo of the DS4054 Rigol scope which is a 500MHz, 4Gsa per second scope and a DG4000 series function generator. I want to thank Jim Abbot form Data Marketing in San Antonio Texas. I also want to thank the Rigol people of Chris Armstrong who is the Rigol US manager, Joel Roop who is in Rigol's Technical support , and Jason Chonko who is also in Rigol's Technical support.

I am new at posting such videos to please forgive some of amateurish presentation skills. I have no video edit skill so I am uploading the raw video. Perhaps when my daughter who has experience in editing, I will post a more polished video.

I hope you find the review helpful if you are deciding to buy either a Rigol or an Agilent.



Robert Bolanos

Part 1



Part 2

[rbola35618]

Part 3 



Part 4



Robert Bolanos

[rbola35618]

Part 5

https://www.youtube.com/user/rbola35618?feature=mhee#p/a/u/0/D7l0Xz_poAc

[saturation]

Great review!  Thanks a ton for all the details.  It looks like a fine scope.  I didn't realize how much better the 1064 screen was too compared to the jagged edges of the 1052e.

[nanofrog]

Nice review, Thanks. 

[PeteInTexas]

Thanks for that.

PS
Looks like somebody cleared out your wall safe!   At least they left the scopes behind (the thieves probably thought are old portable TVs).

[constant phase]

Thanks for the review! Now I got a much better impression of this instruments. Seems to be a really nice piece of equipment.

@rbola35618

I have a few questions since I'm considering to buy one:

- is the 1 mV/div sensitivity bandwidth limited/ is it hardware-based or zoom-in?
- can you given an impression of the noise-level of this scope?
- how long does it take to boot up?
- noise of fan (seemes to be quite loud from the video)?
- does anyone know if there will be a real MSO-version available in the near future?

Thanks for answering.

[rbola35618]

Pete in Texas, that was very observant of you of noticing my open safe! LOL!!!  Yea they cleaned me out  ;-)

Constant phase, regarding your questions, the noise that you hear on the video are coming from three sources. It is coming from the DS4054, the DS1164 which is the scope sitting on top of the DS4054, and from my Array power supply. The noisiest is the Array power supply. So the fan noise coming from the DS4054 was not as loud as you may think.

To boot up, the DS4054 took about 20 seconds.

In the 1mV/deiv, the noise was about 0.5mv of noise. It was lower than what I got on the the Agilent 3000 series which was around 2mV of noise.


Here are two more links.

The first is a rehash of the previous videos. The second video is a comparison of the Rigol DS4054 with a Tektronixs 4104  1GHz scope with 10 megs of memory. I took it to work to measure a long time sample time of 633ms. I then expanded or used the time delay to expand and see a sinewave of 10MHz. As I expanded or zoomed in the 10MHz on the Tectonixs, I got some evidence of aliasing on the Tectronixs manifested by some modulation in the amplitude. The 10Megs of memory was not enough. I then made the measurement on the DS4054 and did not get the aliasing effect or the modulation in the 10 MHz signal. The huge 140 meg of memory is a huge advantage and is what makes the DS4000 series a really powerfull scope.

Rehash of previous videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/rbola35618?feature=mhee#p/u/1/mPQIAMD1DJw


Tek4104 versus DS4054
https://www.youtube.com/user/rbola35618?feature=mhee#p/u/0/76s_Zyrqs2E

Hope this helps.

Robert

 

[constant phase]

Thanks for the answers Robert

[harpster58]

Thanks for the videos! I was looking seriously at the Agilent 3000 series and just can't get into their expensive add-on pricing structure. (not to mention that wasted screen area). I'm using the TEK DPO4000 series at work and I really love the BIG screen & WaveInspector feature of those scopes but it's now it's lacking when you look at price vs performance of these newer scopes! Not that it's bad by any means but I would't pay 10K for it! I really expect Tektronix to revamp their whole line (soon) especially the DPO2000 & DPO3000 series because they are getting there rear ends kicked by these other deeper memory, faster sampling & wave updating scopes.

So the question is to hold out and wait for Tek updated models or consider this DS4000 which I know little about other than what I've seen in your videos so I'm just wondering your opinion after using all three of these scopes.... if you could keep just one of these scopes, which one would it be?  Thanks!

[rbola35618]

Hi Harpster58

The perfect scope would have the screen size of the Tek 4104, the update speed of the Agilent DS 3000 of 1 million update per seconds and the Memory size of the Rigol of 140 megs. The Tek is out of my budget. It would have to be between the Rigol and the Agilent.

Further testing that I did on both the Agilent, Tek and the Rigol was viewing of a composite video signal. A video signal is a very good way of seeing how well a scope displays information. The best display for showing composite video was the tie between the Tek and Agilent. They have the intensity grading that works very well. The Rigol's display as not as good as the Agilent or Tek. The only other critic that I have would be that brightness or intensity of the plot where not as bright as the Tek or the Agilent.  It looked like the intensity varied with the waveform update rate. When the update rate was high (92K waveforms/s) the intensity was bright. When it was low (200 waveforms/s) the intensity was low. I do not recall seeing that in the Agilent or Tek. Other than that, it is a very good scope.

Which to keep is a very hard question to answer. I keep switching between the Agilent and the Rigol. I love the huge memory and the bigger screen where I don't have the obstruction that the Agilent has on the right side of the screen as you mentioned. I also love the Agilent. With the Agilent fast update, it feels like an analog scope. Since I am a power supply designer, I really don't need the huge memory. What I require is the fast update. I would slight lean more toward the Agilent because of it 1 million updates per second. Either scope is a winner.
 
I hope this helps

Robert 
 

[chrome]

Could you please review the DG4000 series Function generator?

[harpster58]

Great detailed response, thanks for your candid opinion there! Other than what you mentioned the perfect scope (for me anyway) would need to have most of those features and also be in the $3000 range. The The DSO 4000 is out of my budget too.The Tek DSO3000 is close and I would get one if only they would majorly update the performance!  Would love to see that scope with more Agilent like specs.

The Rigol DS4000 traces on the screen shots on Rigol's website looked a little dark so I'm glad you mentioned that. I'm just not sure I can trust Rigol yet on the more expensive models.... I know I can call Tek and they answer the phone and the lifetime warranty is very nice. I'm not knocking Rigol just not familiar with them and their support channels.

I was VERY excited about the new Agilent scopes but I thought the 2000 series is too stripped down (no search and stuff like that) and the 3000 series is so baseline at $3500 which is my ending point, not my starting point budget wise. I think I'm going to wait and see what Tek does... I can't believe that they will sit back and allow these other guys to kick their butt's much longer... been a Tek fan for years so I'll give them a chance to catch up!  Thanks again - much appreciated!