Products > Test Equipment

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

<< < (13/55) > >>

balnazzar:
@2N3055 [I'll avoid quoting multiple chunks]

No need to be sorry for being direct/blunt as long as one elaborates, and you did. Only allow me to say I don't know if I want to promote 'adversarial discussions'. If that means I'd like people reporting something along "I owned these scopes and I found that that one was better at such and such tasks, while the other..", then that's exactly what I wanted: usage experience.

The discussion doesn't seem to go in circles. Only recently the Instek popped up, and it's an alternative I didn't knew about. I'm trying to gather information about it. Preferably, comparative information (see below), and subjective impressions indeed.

UI responsiveness is important for me, since I had a bad experience with a scope that looked OK (for the price) on the datasheet, but had so a sluggish UI that it was basically not usable. Along the same line, the MSO5000 looked like a no-brainer for the price on the datasheet (8 MSa/s, 2 Ch awg, external trigger, 9" touch, independent channel control, and whatnot), but the same datasheet doesn't specify that it is so noisy.
 
What do 'intuitiveness' mean: that for doing a certain operation or access a certain function, you don't have to fiddle across multiple menus for two minutes.

More detail about my usage scenario: I just took a course in general electromagnetism at the university. We studie basic circuits with linear components. Now I have to take a 1-semester course in Electronics, and I'd like not to be dependent upon the laboratory at the university. Plus, I'm starting to enjoy the matter, and will likely keep studying it independently.

Now I understand that from the standpoint of a person having years upon years of experience, a beginner bothering people for a 500$-class scope may sound silly, and that any scope would be ok(-ish?) for learning, but I'm just trying to spend my (hardly earned) money the best way I can, and avoid spending more within just a few weeks or months. If I had no return options, I would have had to fling that Hantek directly into the trash, because, trust me, it was not OK for learning.

That's all.


balnazzar:

--- Quote from: nctnico on October 03, 2022, 12:31:47 am ---That is a bit of a long story. I bought a Siglent SDS2000 (2.5k euro) when it was released. It was so horrible with no outlook on Siglent getting it fixed to an acceptable level that I more or less threw it in the bin (Siglent didn't want to take it back) and I ended up spending more money on a used A-brand scope. Nowadays Siglent scopes are better and people seem to be happy with them. OTOH, I buy test equipment to make money and I need equipment to work as expected instead of throwing me a curve ball at the worst possible moment. Based on the good experiences on this forum I recommended one of my customers to buy some Siglent gear but that turned out to be a horrible mistake. Basically they wasted their money and spend a bunch of hours on an issue that was a fault in the Siglent equipment. In the end buying A-brand equipment was cheaper. Personally I stay clear from Siglent equipment for any serious work (same for Rigol BTW) since then. Their firmware quality control just isn't good enough for me to work with.

--- End quote ---

Our usage cases are very different, of course. Yet, that's still an useful opinion. Thanks.

Particularly, it's significant that a professional using A-brands still finds the Instek being OK (or even enjoyable) to use.

2N3055:

--- Quote from: balnazzar on October 03, 2022, 12:39:17 am ---@2N3055 [I'll avoid quoting multiple chunks]

No need to be sorry for being direct/blunt as long as one elaborates, and you did. Only allow me to say I don't know if I want to promote 'adversarial discussions'. If that means I'd like people reporting something along "I owned these scopes and I found that that one was better at such and such tasks, while the other..", then that's exactly what I wanted: usage experience.

The discussion doesn't seem to go in circles. Only recently the Instek popped up, and it's an alternative I didn't knew about. I'm trying to gather information about it. Preferably, comparative information (see below), and subjective impressions indeed.

UI responsiveness is important for me, since I had a bad experience with a scope that looked OK (for the price) on the datasheet, but had so a sluggish UI that it was basically not usable. Along the same line, the MSO5000 looked like a no-brainer for the price on the datasheet (8 MSa/s, 2 Ch awg, external trigger, 9" touch, independent channel control, and whatnot), but the same datasheet doesn't specify that it is so noisy.
 
What do 'intuitiveness' mean: that for doing a certain operation or access a certain function, you don't have to fiddle across multiple menus for two minutes.

More detail about my usage scenario: I just took a course in general electromagnetism at the university. We studie basic circuits with linear components. Now I have to take a 1-semester course in Electronics, and I'd like not to be dependent upon the laboratory at the university. Plus, I'm starting to enjoy the matter, and will likely keep studying it independently.

Now I understand that from the standpoint of a person having years upon years of experience, a beginner bothering people for a 500$-class scope may sound silly, and that any scope would be ok(-ish?) for learning, but I'm just trying to spend my (hardly earned) money the best way I can, and avoid spending more within just a few weeks or months. If I had no return options, I would have had to fling that Hantek directly into the trash, because, trust me, it was not OK for learning.

That's all.


--- End quote ---

Thank you for not quoting multiple chunks..  ^-^
As I said sorry for being blunt. Sometimes it is faster and easier but lacks finesse.. I didn't mean that you are inciting things deliberately but  that discussion kinda going that way because of not too well defined target..It tends to do that on Internet..

And now back to useful stuff.
As for scopes, there seems to be level of scopes, roughly beneath Rigol DS1000Z, that I guess are better than not having any scope but in reality nothing but toys.
If you had one of these your frustration is understandable.

In my opinion none of the scopes mentioned (even Rigol DS1000Z) are not sluggish to the point of being problem. That being said, there is a small number of people that expect absolutely instantaneous response for every function, even when with FFT settings they set scope needs 10 seconds to do capture...

GDS is nice little scope but feels outdated (a bit old school, which is not a problem per se). It has toyish look (I don't care). One thing that shows age is screen rendering, where it's digital phosphorus emulation (emulation of analog CRT) is very "digital" and is not very realistic. Some don't care, some find it it looks like a 1980es Commodore 64... I think it is usable but it definitely doesn't look anything like analog CRT scope. It also has only one AD converter that makes it sample at only 250MS/s at 4 ch.

SDS1104X-E has better screen rendering, dot mode, color grading etc.. It has 2 ADC so never samples at less than 500MS/s. It uses same processor platform as GDS. It has very good Bode plot software..

MSO5000 is more modern type of platform. Bigger screen. Touchscreen. It visible delays refreshing screen on some operations..Is it a problem to you or not I don't know. Some people like it fine, some find it unusable. I find much more expensive R&S RTB2000 slow screen updates on par with MSO5000 and both of them sometimes slowish. And usable. I don't know, never used them in a hurry, being nervous... Maybe they would be annoying then. Bode plot on MSO5000 looks like a something implemented just so it can be listed on datasheet. It nominaly has a feature but it is simplistic and not very elaborate. It has many other features though..

Having a low budget and trying to be responsible with your money is nothing to frown upon. I respect that and it is a smart thing to do. But it does limits you to a range where compromises had to be made to deliver decent instrument for that kind of money. So it is pretty much for you to decide what compromises are acceptable for you.

Looking at that last answer, you will need a complete small lab, not only scope. Make note of that, I don't know what else you have but there will be budget for that too..

best,
Sinisa

balnazzar:
Thanks for your detailed reply. Based upon the other replies and yours, I think it's better to rule out the MSO5000.

As for the home lab, I bought two multimeters, a little soldering station with spare parts for soldering, desk mats, an arduino board with accessories, kits of linear an nonlinear components, and the Uni-T 2-channel waveform generator (30 MHz), not mentioning the little Owon 40 MHz handheld scope.

All of that already required some amount of money, which subtracts from the grand total I can allocate.

Going back to the scope, it boils down to the Siglent and the Instek. I'll think and brood a few more days about the information you all gave me (and the datasheets  ;D ) and then I'll make a decision, aware of the fact that it will be the wrong decision, by Murphy's law.

 

2N3055:

--- Quote from: balnazzar on October 03, 2022, 10:51:39 am ---Thanks for your detailed reply. Based upon the other replies and yours, I think it's better to rule out the MSO5000.

As for the home lab, I bought two multimeters, a little soldering station with spare parts for soldering, desk mats, an arduino board with accessories, kits of linear an nonlinear components, and the Uni-T 2-channel waveform generator (30 MHz), not mentioning the little Owon 40 MHz handheld scope.

All of that already required some amount of money, which subtracts from the grand total I can allocate.

Going back to the scope, it boils down to the Siglent and the Instek. I'll think and brood a few more days about the information you all gave me (and the datasheets  ;D ) and then I'll make a decision, aware of the fact that it will be the wrong decision, by Murphy's law.

--- End quote ---

It won't be wrong just maybe suboptimal...  :-DD

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod