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MSO5000 Bode Plot Capability: Is it Good Enough? [Many tips about a 1st scope]
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Fungus:

--- Quote from: balnazzar on October 08, 2022, 09:33:48 pm ---I asked why didn't he buy such an option. He replied he didn't even think about such trifles.

--- End quote ---

Probably why oscilloscopes are noisy - 99% of customers never even question it or just accept it as "necessary".

I swapped the fan in my old Rigol. A $7 fan made a huge difference.

The airflow was probably a tiny bit less but the 'scope's rated to 50 degrees ambient temperature so I wasn't worried. My only regret was not doing it much sooner.

If your Siglent survives the first few weeks without dying then go for it.

2N3055:

--- Quote from: balnazzar on October 08, 2022, 09:33:48 pm ---
--- Quote from: 2N3055 on October 08, 2022, 08:19:06 pm ---And you seem to not really understand "how much it cost" to do anything when designing and manufacturing a product..
To people with no practical experience doing that job it all seems easy. It's not, and it is most complicated at low end.
I've seen people buying inexpensive scopes for 350 € (because it was as much as they can afford)  and then putting in a 65€ fans, complaining that such fan should have been inside in a first place..... Because how much would it cost in a first place... Well, 65€, that much...  But they wouldn't buy that scope at 415€ because it would be too expensive...

This topic of acoustic noise comes up every now and then. Some people have very quiet environments and have acoustic sensitivities. That happens. Most of the people don't care, or have background noise that makes it non issue.
But be sure that no scope with a fan will be completely quiet (except mentioned SDS2000X HD and some R&S scopes from lower end). Worst are more expensive, more powerful models that have lots of heat to dissipate...

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As I said above, I try and build my computers with silence in mind, and that's not only because I don't like noise, but also because I do audio stuff with them.
Before that, I tried numerous desktop PCs and even some professional workstations. They were all considerably loud.
With *less* money than it's required to buy a 2nd rate brand desktop PC, I managed to build a totally silent (idle) or quiet (under stress) workstation. It was sufficient to buy the right fans (which cost not much more than crappy ones, and certainly not 65 eur apiece), being careful about the airflow, selecting the correct power supply, etc... I neither made strange, exotic things, nor I had to resort to liquid cooling.
In the hindsight, all these pre-built workstations would have required very modest investments in order to be quiet. It's not that they leave them loud because otherwise they wouldn't be competitively priced. It's just that either they don't care, or they hire incompetent engineers. Probably both.

The SDS2000X Plus is much more noisier than the comparably-sized RTB2000 (that can be barely heard according to the reviewer) and even noisier than the little keysight (which has less room for airflow and fan size, as tautech noted..), indicates just bad engineering. If they managed to spare some 50 bucks by leaving it so loud, that was a bad call, period. That scope starts at 1400 eur vat included, and people who buy it wouldn't have been discouraged by a 50 bucks difference if they released a quieter revision. The same stands for the Rigol MSO5000.


--- Quote from: 2N3055 on October 08, 2022, 08:19:06 pm ---New SDS2000X HD is probably acoustically quietest device I ever used. It has best quality materials it makes R&S scopes look like plastic toys. It feels solid, and premium quality when used.
When released, first comment on EEVBLOG was that it was expensive... But it is not, it priced according to it quality and performance class...

--- End quote ---

You seem intentioned to defend the brand with your life, more than tautech who sells it..
As I said (and you folks duly observed) I know nothing about test equipment, so I'll leave to others that thing about the R&S stuff being plastic toys.
Let me just say that I didn't ask for a device that belittles top-brand scopes into plastic toys. I would have been content with exactly the same scope as the actual 1104x-e, but with a reasonable acoustical performance.
That they can make silent stuff when they want, well, that just makes things worse for the brand.


--- Quote from: 2N3055 on October 08, 2022, 08:19:06 pm ---This topic of acoustic noise comes up every now and then. Some people have very quiet environments and have acoustic sensitivities. That happens. Most of the people don't care, or have background noise that makes it non issue.
But be sure that no scope with a fan will be completely quiet (except mentioned SDS2000X HD and some R&S scopes from lower end). Worst are more expensive, more powerful models that have lots of heat to dissipate...

--- End quote ---

It's not that I have such incredible sensitivity to noise. It's that this scopes outputs a sound pressure that's comparable to a portable vacuum cleaner. If you want, tomorrow I'll take the car VC at home and make a video with the same iPad at the same distances.
It's just not acceptable.
Now that you made me think about cars, let me tell you something.
One crucial aspect about cars, especially for those who do considerable mileages is how comfortable the driver's seat is.
Now, among utility cars (say up to 30K eur) very few do have seat inclination adjustments, or lumbar support adjustments (seat inclination refers to the part of the seat upon which you place your arse).
How much, in percentage terms, are these adjustments going to impact over 30K? Nothing, or almost.
Still, they don't put them into utility cars.

Manufacturer stupidity.

A friend of mine works as traveling salesman. It has back pain and suffers from his high yearly mileage. My car has an AGR certified driver's seat and you can adjust whatever you want with it (I paid just 450 more bucks for it when I bought the car), and he observed that it's much more comfortable to drive. I asked why didn't he buy such an option. He replied he didn't even think about such trifles.

Customer stupidity.

People "don't care", and manufacturers (particularly the bad ones), consequently care even less.
Then the same people try a quality product, maybe just slightly more expensive, and then say "oohh, it's another world!".

--- End quote ---

At moments you sound like a spoiled child...
And drama queen.. "defending brand with my life..." LOL..
Pardon my being direct.

Listen. It is simple. You obviously didn't ever try RTB2000, SDS2000X HD or any of other scopes you mention. I did. In fact, have some of them.
SDS2000X HD is really quietest scope with fan I ever heard. Even little quieter than RTB2000 that is really quiet and excellent in that regard.
And SDS2000X HD makes RTB2000 look cheap.. It is so high quality in look and feel. That is just a fact, but you wouldn't know but your prejudices allow you to say I'm lying and am a fanboy...

My post about inexpensive scope applies equally to Rigol DS1104Z and MSO5000 or Siglent SDS1104X-E, or even SDS2000X+. These are very cost optimized products in scope world. 

And you do have sound sensitivity... You work with audio, you say, that explains it. You might have very quiet environment and hypersensitivity to sound pollution. Which is fine by me.
But.. Did you just call me or any other customer of these scopes stupid because we are not bothered by little noise? I also tell you from experience that most people have more than one device with fan in it and not so quiet environment and they don't even notice these sounds anymore..

And your point about manufacturer stupidity and customer stupidity is just your hubris that you know better than anybody and that everything is simple. And you are wrong.
RTB2000 is not "just a slightly more expensive" than SDS1104X-E.
Most customers are price conscious and manufacturers mass produce products for majority. . Simple as that.
So no fancy seats are being installed because most of the people don't need them.
And no scope manufacturers are optimizing all they products for work in acoustically quiet environments because it is minority of users for price hike for everybody.. I personally like they didn't made me pay for you to have quiet fan, to put it bluntly...

balnazzar:

--- Quote from: Fungus on October 08, 2022, 11:21:36 pm ---
I swapped the fan in my old Rigol. A $7 fan made a huge difference.


--- End quote ---

As I suspected.. This confirms my conjecture about the manufacturer not bothering about quality just to scrape a few dollars more.
jasonRF:

--- Quote from: balnazzar on October 08, 2022, 06:21:55 pm ---
Bottom line: chinese scopes tend to be noisy (and in the case of the MSO5K, not only acoustically...). That's what I don't like about chinese products in general. They tend to deliver stuff that works, but they are always kind of half-finished. How much more would cost to be a bit more attentive to the acoustical noise? Almost nothing. A better fan, PWM control, maybe make the scope 1 cm thicker and put a 120mm fan on the back, exhausting from the side vents..


--- End quote ---

At work my office door opens into an electronics lab packed with high-end gear made by non-Chinese companies (Tek, Agilent, R&S, Anritsu, Keysight, etc.) and it is loud enough that I need to keep my door shut in order to hear myself think.  While I know I am extra sensitive to the noise, it leads me to suspect that the nationality of the company may not have a lot to do with this.

It is not easy to find silent (or nearly-silent) test equipment.  When I was shopping for a scope this year I found that there were few options that were 'guaranteed' to be quiet-enough for me - at least without hearing them in-person.  Compared to the great bang-per-buck units like the sds1104x-e, I found the options were either much more expensive (the R&S already discussed), or had fewer features (eg the fanless Owon sds1000-series which also have inferior performance), or both (eg the fanless Tek 1000C series).   

The main fanless options I found that had deep memory and lots of features were the nicer Picoscopes, but they are not cheap and most people strongly prefer benchtop equipment.   The most 'affordable' deep-memory 4-channel option is the 2406B at $700 US (50 MHz, 1 GS/s, 32 MSample memory, 1 MHz AWG w/ Bode plots) but has been out of stock and backordered everywhere for months as far as I can tell; the least-expensive 4-channel deep-memory models actually in-stock in stores cost about $1000 US (2407B, 3403D).   
Edit: forgot to add that these 2000B/3000D series only have 4mV/div sensitivity, which is not so good. 

jason
baldurn:
When I turn on all my instruments it is significant louder than any computer I ever owned but not like a vacuum cleaner or a server. One instrument seems to be more loud than the rest combined, but it is not my scope :-). It is my Siglent SDM3055 multimeter. My Siglent SDG6022X AWG has the exact same form factor but is completely silent. One would think the AWG had a larger need for cooling than a multimeter, given that most multimeters do not even have a fan. There simply is no rythm to this.

But unlike my computer, I very rarely run all my instruments for hours on end. I can tolerate significant more noise from instruments than a computer. I got myself an Macbook Air because it has no fans and therefore is completely silent. I just don't think you should try to set the same standard for your instruments as the computer for multiple reasons.

First is that there simply are no options in our price range. Anyone can order a silent computer or build one. Not so with instruments. You can perhaps improve something by modifying fans but you will still not get into "completely or almost silent" range. There are no silent chain saws either ;-)

The second is that the way one uses instruments usually is different from the way you use your computer. I realize that there are probably professionals that use this stuff all day long like I do when at work with my computer. But for most at the hobby level you will not be taking measurements 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Third, you may have to choose between loudness and features if you are on a budget. Maybe you get lucky and get both, but if not, do you really have the luxury of missing out on needed features and get a worse instrument but with a better fan?
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