EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: rf-loop on August 28, 2013, 01:43:33 pm
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There is very soon coming new oscilloscope serie from Lilliput - Owon.
This is not entry level economy scope.
Here some preliminary information.
Owon SDS series have been ordinary DSO working principle oscilloscope.
TDS serie is DPO. Waveform capturing rate (wfms/s up to 50000)
TDS serie have always 4 channels.
As well known Owon SDS series FFT have been good in its class of oscilloscopes, perhaps best if look sample points and dynamic range and also nice working persistence and of course on the TFT screen what is best in class. Now this FFT have developed for variable sampling points and resolution!
SDS series analog front end have been state of art in its price class if look step response, bandwidth and flatness and internal noise level in channels.
Now there is 4 channels, fully new UI including Touch Screen and windowed display.
Also of course Owon have learned many things due to developing and upgrading SDS series firmware and hardware, there have been good things but also some mistakes. I hope some amount of these experience have used in this totally new design.
Result is here.
It is big jump up from still good SDS series what continue normally in production.
(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x2/aghp55/NewTDS.png)
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What's the "user friendly voice warning" all about? What does it warn you of?
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Warning: this is not the TDS7104 you thought you were getting.
Seriously, it's one thing to copy the Tektronix UI, but a model number too...? :palm:
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Does it have intensity graded display?
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Seriously, it's one thing to copy the Tektronix UI, but a model number too...? :palm:
Yeah.... I'd have to be on a lot of drugs to be convinced that nobody at Owon considered this.
Edit: But apparently, I'm not on enough drugs caffeine not to confuse Owon with Siglent. Sorry, Siglent!
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What's the "user friendly voice warning" all about? What does it warn you of?
Probably Bitching Betty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitching_Betty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitching_Betty)
Warning... Don't stick that probe up your nose! Warning...
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Hopefully those TDS7014 price not far away from Rigol DS1104Z series
Same bandwith and sample rate , fast enough waveform capture rate
PLUS Touchscreen :-*
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To me the voice warning looks like some manager's idea to make a different product which wasn't well thought out. It reminds me a little bit of the "executive functions" on the SDS line. I mean, sure autoset and autoscale look good on paper, but they are too dumb to work with complex waveforms and for simple waveforms, people can figure out easily how to set the scope.
I hope to be proven wrong, but I really can't see any reason where a voice warning would be more appropriate than on screen one. If you're locally controlling the scope, you're looking at the image on screen and on-screen warning would be fine. If you're remotely controlling the scope or doing some automated measurement, then it would be best to send the warning to the remote control panel. For direct safety features, such over-voltage on an input or so, I'd find audio warning interesting, but a series of beeps with an on screen display would be better perhaps.
The tiny bit of info on the Chinese site (local version seems to be called EDS-T) is same as the pamphlet shown here and isn't very useful at all, except to notify us of the existence of the upcoming line.
Also I hope that they won't give up on firmware development for the SDS line since there are still bugs left, but fear that they will.
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I'm wondering whether they use a proper capacitive touchscreen or just a crappy resistive one.
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TDS7104? Really? They don't just copy a competitors model number in an attempt to piggyback on their name recognition and mess up Google results. It's especially lame since this scope is clearly not in the same league, so very few customers will be making the choice between a Tek TDS7104 and an Owon TDS7104.
Given the amount attention Chinese companies usually pay to usability, I fully expect a lab full of Owon scopes screaming 'waiting for trigger' because someone set them to normal triggering mode. My first actions after buying would probably to turn it on, get annoyed by stupid voice warnings, and hunt for a way to turn it off.
I'm not convinced by the touch screen interface. Maybe they can pull this off, but I expect worse usability than traditional menus. Touch screens are great fun when discussing signals with a colleague or customer, for example. Someone points at the screen and the scope suddenly zooms in or does something else annoying. And of course turning off the touch screen is hidden three level deep in a menu.
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copy the tek ui ? seriously ? why do you wanna copy that horror of an ui .... if they copied the sluggishness it will be a real disaster ..
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I think that this Owon scope will be similar to GW Instek GDS-2000A with all it's disadvantages...
EEVblog #474 - GW Instek GDS-2000A Series Oscilloscope Unboxing & First Impression (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRe9b7iV6Kc#ws)
Well, does the Owon TDS7104 have any serial (I2C, RS-232, SPI...) decoding?
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And in my opinion the Owon is the most crap oscilloscope of all the Asian brands... I would be happy with Siglent, Rigol, or GW Instek...
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If they can't even be bothered to get a press release written in good English, what hope is there for the firmware?
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Well on SDS series, the manual, included help on the scope and menus are in readable English. I really can't remember that I've ever wondered what they mean when I read something.
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Having a good resolution large screen, 4CH and 50k wfs/s is very nice, but touch screen and friendly voice warnings (what?) doesn't add any value IMO.
I hope they didn't let the intern design parts of the power supply on these models. :)
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Actually, there are some cases where touchscreen would be extremely helpful. For example on SDS, when I want to save an image to a flash drive, I can either use the auto-generated name or I can use the multipurpose encoder to select each letter, press the encoder to add the letter to the name and then rotate it again to get to the next letter. It's extremely time consuming, so my standard mode of operation is to use the auto-generated names for files and then later rename them. Touchscreen here would allow me to make meaningful names and skip the renaming stage altogether. Since I'm ranting about the pictures, one more thing I'd really like would be to have capability to directly export image as a portable network graphics file, so that bitmaps don't have to be converted later on.
Same thing stands when setting up IP address, netmask, gateway and MAC address. I tend to set those things up once and not change them, but if I had to change them often, touchscreen would be much easier to use instead of the multipurpose rotary encoder.
So basically, touchscreen is extremely helpful when any long piece of text needs to be entered.
One more thing could be user expectations. My SDS scope was the first fresh DSO several people saw and they immediately assumed that it already has touchscreen and tried to press the menu options on screen. I understand that more experienced scope users would prefer traditional knobs (and I like them as well), but smart-phone and tablet using generation of new people would be more comfortable with a touchscreen. I just hope that its use would be optional and that everything would be accessible via knobs.
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I reserve my judgement till I see one in a video or in person but I'm not holding my breath...
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"Do not chew on the probe... Do not chew on the probe..."
Owon usability is crap, so I can imagine someone not feeding a signal into Ch. 1, and the scope won't shut up with
"No signal. No signal. No signal. No signal..."
:blah:
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Actually, there are some cases where touchscreen would be extremely helpful. For example on SDS, when I want to save an image to a flash drive, I can either use the auto-generated name or I can use the multipurpose encoder to select each letter, press the encoder to add the letter to the name and then rotate it again to get to the next letter. (...)
At my Agilent DSOX2002A, I can connect a common USB PC keyboard to the scope. :-+
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Actually, there are some cases where touchscreen would be extremely helpful.
I have absolutely no doubt that if done really well, a touch screen could be great on a modern DSO. The number of options that now hide behind various menus and require combinations of button press and encoders could be done better with a touch screen. However... It would need to be done well. The screen would have to be a proper capacative touch screen and they would need to have people really think through how people would interact with it. For example, have you seen how much time and energy goes into every piece of UI on the Android system.
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Actually, there are some cases where touchscreen would be extremely helpful.
I have absolutely no doubt that if done really well, a touch screen could be great on a modern DSO.
Definately, however the likelihood of any Chinese company like Owon actually achieving this are negligible. They can't even get knob & button firmware right and don't understand why these things matter
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First voice reminders like "Oh baby I've reached my limits" could be interesting but if I wind a knob too far a simple ding is enough. :-DD
Seriously though there are basically 5 or so low end scope manufacturers, correct. You would think there would be some feature wars. Serial decoding on an entry level scope is probably down the road a bit but to be able to use a keyboard (bluetooth / usb whatever) would be a selling point. There are some things that could add value at minimal cost. To automatically load a setup from a stick, to be able to have a name show up on the display. If the company sells an arb let a scope capture on a stick be used in the arb and vice versa. Allow software on a PC to display a message on the scope and perhaps allow the scope to have a menu that could talk to software.
Not that it would ever happen but anyone else have other simple UI changes.
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Definately, however the likelihood of any Chinese company like Owon actually achieving this are negligible. They can't even get knob & button firmware right and don't understand why these things matter
I'm even more worried about voice control. Off hand I can't think of a similar piece of equipment implementing voice warnings, so they can't even copy it from someone else. There's no way that's going to be anything but annoying and ridiculous. Bonus points if they manage Chinglish voice warnings. But at least it will be easy to turn off: either via the menus or through some percussive maintenance on the speaker.
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Slightly ot: in the past, Agilent sold a 'voice control' option for their windows-based oscillsoscopes. http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5968-6659EN.pdf (http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5968-6659EN.pdf)
No idea how well this worked.
Anyway there are some UI thing's I'd like to see implemented:
- Triggering options in the channel menu like "Edge trigger on this channel"
- being able to connect one or more foot pedals to the oscilloscope for start/stop, singleshot etc.
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- being able to connect one or more foot pedals to the oscilloscope for start/stop, singleshot etc.
This is a surprisingly good idea. I have yet to master the art of pressing the button with my nose while awkwardly using both hands to position the probe at some inconvenient point...
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Or they could re-introduce the button on the probe that used to be common in the eighties on Philips and Tektronix probes.
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Or they could re-introduce the button on the probe that used to be common in the eighties on Philips and Tektronix probes.
http://www.scope-of-the-art.com/en/oscilloscopes/Probes- (http://www.scope-of-the-art.com/en/oscilloscopes/Probes-)|-Benefits-|-52-|-5710.html
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Wait... really?
My P6137 probes have a button - I've never really known what its purpose is. On my 2445A, obviously they can't trigger a single shot or anything like that - it just moves the trace up and down, presumably to show which trace belongs to that probe. Kind of handy, but a silly use of a button. So I just tried it on my TDS380, which also has the ring around the BNC to mate with the little pin on the probe connector. Nope, the scope ignores it. Is it supposed to work with this scope, or did they forget about it by the time they made the TDS series?
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Wait... really?
My P6137 probes have a button - I've never really known what its purpose is. On my 2445A, obviously they can't trigger a single shot or anything like that - it just moves the trace up and down, presumably to show which trace belongs to that probe. Kind of handy, but a silly use of a button. So I just tried it on my TDS380, which also has the ring around the BNC to mate with the little pin on the probe connector. Nope, the scope ignores it. Is it supposed to work with this scope, or did they forget about it by the time they made the TDS series?
Pressing the button shorts the probe id pin to gnd. For x10 probes, it is connected to gnd via a 10k R, so that the scope can display the correct vertical scale. Tek 7000 scopes with readout display 'IDENTIFY' in the position corresponding to the channel when pressing the button.
If the TDS380 supports probe id, but not the probe button, it's just laziness of the developers. The possibilities would have been endless: short press, long press, double press etc for various functions such as start, stop, single, autoscale channel etc
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That's a real shame. It seems incredibly useful.
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The standard probe for the TDS380 was probably the P6138 or P6139, neither of which have a button. I guess they removed the button to make the probe smaller (the P6137 is substantially longer). Not sure if any of their digital scopes supported the probe id button. I agree it's a missed opportunity. Maybe the earlier 24xx or 22xx DSOs?
I think some Philips scopes could be set up to perform a measurement or some other actions (not sure about single shot) with that button.
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My P6137 probes have a button - I've never really known what its purpose is. On my 2445A, obviously they can't trigger a single shot or anything like that - it just moves the trace up and down, presumably to show which trace belongs to that probe.
That button is designed for Tek 24xxB models which have Auto feature, the red button on the upper right at below pic, and that probe button is equivalent to it.
Tek 24xxA models don't have this feature.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/asking-about-tektronix-2465b-any-experienced-tek-tech-or-lovers-jump-in-please/?action=dlattach;attach=16408;image)
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The 2445A does have Auto, though perhaps it's not as sophisticated. I see a Measure button there (if it works like I think it does, I want it! ;D) that my scope does not have, but it certainly has an Auto button. It doesn't respond to the probe button, though.
As an aside, I've had the 2445A for almost a year now, and I just noticed the save/recall feature last week.... That is brilliant! I'll take it over Auto any day. Eight memories to store all of the scope settings in nonvolatile RAM. Absolutely wonderful with a complex setup involving lots of trigger/counter stuff.
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Anyway there are some UI thing's I'd like to see implemented:
- Triggering options in the channel menu like "Edge trigger on this channel"
- being able to connect one or more foot pedals to the oscilloscope for start/stop, singleshot etc.
Wow, that footswitch idea is a real winner, I guess if a scope has an rs232 it would be fairly easy to rig without cutting into the guts of the unit. You could also use a IR remote that clips on a standard probe.
Channel triggering options menu sounds very logical as well.
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Anyway there are some UI thing's I'd like to see implemented:
- Triggering options in the channel menu like "Edge trigger on this channel"
- being able to connect one or more foot pedals to the oscilloscope for start/stop, singleshot etc.
Wow, that footswitch idea is a real winner, I guess if a scope has an rs232 it would be fairly easy to rig without cutting into the guts of the unit. You could also use a IR remote that clips on a standard probe.
Channel triggering options menu sounds very logical as well.
Since every modern scope has USB and there's always some computer next to it, all you have to do is to buy one of these http://dx.com/p/usb-foot-switch-keyboard-mouse-control-foot-pedal-58167 (http://dx.com/p/usb-foot-switch-keyboard-mouse-control-foot-pedal-58167) and write a tiny script that sends some SCPI commands to the 'scope when you step on the pedal.
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Owon is using currently Samsung S3C2416 SoC in their SDS DSOs. No idea what these TDS series will use, but let's assume at least the same Soc. Well, they do have cam interface, so why in the hell they not add small cam, and tongue-angle recognization software? When your tongue have proper angle, the TDS will then trigger (or do what so ever you pre-selected).
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Owon is using currently Samsung S3C2416 SoC in their SDS DSOs. No idea what these TDS series will use, but let's assume at least the same Soc. Well, they do have cam interface, so why in the hell they not add small cam, and tongue-angle recognization software? When your tongue have proper angle, the TDS will then trigger (or do what so ever you pre-selected).
Hm. That's not a bad idea. So it can now really say "Do not put the probe in your nose. Do not put the probe in your nose..." That's what I call a "Smart Digital Scope"
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standard probe for the TDS380 was probably the P6138 or P6139, neither of which have a button.
The standard probe for the TDS380 is the P6114B (http://www.testpath.com/Items/Passive-Oscilloscope-Probe-400MHz-X10-with-Readout-for-TDS380-Only-117-573.htm), which has no button.
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Just I saw the manual of Owon TDS Series (https://static.eleshop.nl/osc/downloads/Owon/Owon_TDS_USER_MANUAL_V1.0.pdf).
I don't see any speaking capability or anything other similar but only the touch screen and how this operation via fw.
Basically, Owon development its basic fw (SDS Series), adds some more functions that are missing from previous fw and at the last adds the capability of touch screen.
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yeah, and did you saw how the zoom will work? I don't like that. Better would be without menu but with two point touch to selecte area to zoom, and then drag to zoom that. To type menu and scroll left or right to zoom in/out takes more steps than with timebase knob. Other things, like scroll through menu, are good. e will see how good that works in the reality.
The voice thing, hmm, there is nothing in the manual.
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Have they really intensity grading?
I missed it in the manual. The screenshots from it doesn't have it too.
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I couldn't find any mention of intensity grading, big fail for othewise decent budget 4 channel scope...
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Anyway there are some UI thing's I'd like to see implemented:
- Triggering options in the channel menu like "Edge trigger on this channel"
- being able to connect one or more foot pedals to the oscilloscope for start/stop, singleshot etc.
Wow, that footswitch idea is a real winner, I guess if a scope has an rs232 it would be fairly easy to rig without cutting into the guts of the unit.
That is f*ing BRILLIANT!
I'm stealing that idea as soon as I finish this week's exams. :scared:
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I couldn't find any mention of intensity grading, big fail for othewise decent budget 4 channel scope...
Well, I found something, but I am not sure if we can call it intensity grading.
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Well, after reading the manual this Owon TDS series seems to be a total crap for me. It's so much similar to the old SDS series. No the Owon TDS is definitely not an advanced oscilloscope. Do not buy this Owon, the Rigol DS2000 looks much better.
For me :-- :-- :-- :--
Disadvanatages:
USB port at the back, why the hell?
Probably no cursors in XY mode.
Probably no intensity grading.
No fine Vertical resoluton setting.
No SPI/I2C/UART decoding.
No automatic phase measurement.
(No signal generator, digital channels or serial decoding.)
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Anyway, what's the strange black square at front?
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Speaker for the voice warnings? IR receiver for the remote control to enhance the TV viewing experience (http://youtu.be/5FYF5uhCzAM)?
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This looks like a speaker.
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Anyway, what's the strange black square at front?
The strange black square on the front is simply that: A strange black square at the front. It's purpose it both mysterious and sinister! It's there so that people would ask why it is there! :)
Seriously though, you have your answer in the photos on the first page. It's nothing. It looks like a filter for say IR remote or something similar, but on the PCB which is behind it, there is nothing to capture the beam. It seems to be directly above pins connecting the board with H buttons to board with F buttons.
Whoops, that was for SDS series.... Since it's not mentioned anywhere in the manual, I'd assume that its purpose is similar to the SDS series black square, except that this one seems to be bigger.
I concur that USB ports at the back are idiotic! Still, I don't understand why all the hate for the touchscreen. I mean, current technological level is such that it's basically a free improvement. Why not bash some other feature of little use such as unstable network or current mode for probes or something else...
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a free improvement.
oh well, if touch works no big deal, if not because of what so ever reason - and free - still no big deal. But if you paid extra money to get touch functionality and you now using it because of what so ever, then that was waste of money. We should really wait user reports on that, if there is not lag in response then already win situation.
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-----------Power consumption-------------
Rigol DS2000 up to 50W
Agilent DSOX2002A up to 100W
Owon TDS7104 less than 25W
They must use a low power CPU with low computing ability, probably.
That's not good. :(
Well, Owon TDS7104 is no competitor for Rigol DS2000, GW Instek GDS-2000A or even Agilent DSOX4000 - with touch screen.
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The presence of a touch screen will probably also mean that some features won't be (quickly) accessible without using the touch screen. And the touch screen may or may not be easy to disable, something that is useful because people discussing over and pointing at a scope screen is much more common than people arguing about something on their smartphone. It's very annoying if someone points at a particular feature of the signal, and the scope decides that the user meant to pan the display and you end up in a completely different part of your signal.
So no, I don't consider it a free improvement if not implemented well. And the chances of it being implemented well are, as Mike stated, extremely slim. Companies like Owon haven't even figured out how to do acceleration on a rotary encoder.
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Owon is a Won Hung Loe brand. I wouldn't expect ANYTHING to work nicely on this scope. The voice alerts would piss the hell out of me, touch screen would be a PITA to use, and the general interface will probably be shit. I think they are learning from Tektronix on the interface, hence the copying of the series names.
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Well, Owon TDS7104 is no competitor for Rigol DS2000, GW Instek GDS-2000A or even Agilent DSOX4000 - with touch screen.
Yeah, 700$ scope vs. 7000$ Agilent DSOX4024
I don't think Owon intention is to take away customers from the Agilent 4000 series pool...
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The presence of a touch screen will probably also mean that some features won't be (quickly) accessible without using the touch screen. And the touch screen may or may not be easy to disable, something that is useful because people discussing over and pointing at a scope screen is much more common than people arguing about something on their smartphone. It's very annoying if someone points at a particular feature of the signal, and the scope decides that the user meant to pan the display and you end up in a completely different part of your signal.
So no, I don't consider it a free improvement if not implemented well. And the chances of it being implemented well are, as Mike stated, extremely slim. Companies like Owon haven't even figured out how to do acceleration on a rotary encoder.
Actually, the touch screen assumptions, from what can be read in the manual, are completely incorrect. Everything available on the touchscreen is available from the usual controls and is no harder to access than it is on SDS series. It's also simple to disable the touchscreen for those who are allergic to it. Simply go to utility->display and set the gesture to disabled.
I do agree that encoder acceleration would have been nice, but I don't see what that has to do with touchscreen at all.
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I'd consider getting it for my little brother when he gets a bit older just because it seems to be targeted at that market - a very cheap 4-channel scope for those that want/need one now. This is practically a direct competitor to the Rigol 1000-Z's, barring that the firmware is probably wonkier. It's more of a toy for those that want their first 4-channel scope or need a cheap way to view multiple channels than something for work.
If you do consider this for true work, you should probably quit pinching pennies this much because a more expensive model would save on time so much more.
People need to remember the price point of this guy - of course there's no way in hell it's going to win in any comparison with something more expensive, especially an Agilent (which firsthand, I can say my DSOX 3024 easily beats the Owon 7102 I've played with, albeit costing several thousand more)
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Rigol 1000-Z have max 250MSa/s when 4 channel in use.
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Rigol 1000-Z have max 250MSa/s when 4 channel in use.
If you can live with this limitation then the 1000Z should be the far better scope. As it looks like the new Owon has no intensity grading. Something which is a must have for my next DSO.
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Rigol 1000-Z have max 250MSa/s when 4 channel in use.
and TDS8204 up to 1GSa/s:
at four CH max. 1GS/s
at dual CH max. 2GS/s
at single CH max. 2GS/s
which is of course nice thing.
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But I'd rather have intensity graded display, function gen, and serial decode/trigger. Plus the Owon's feel cheap and have a shit ui.
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It would be nice if the Owon had fine vertical setting and some tools for long record management, like Hameg, Agilent and Tektronix has. At Tektronix, it is called Waveform inspector.
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Is there any user experience or video review / presentation? Any new info?
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I think that this Owon scope did not meet a commercial success.
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I think that this Owon scope did not meet a commercial success.
$900 for a wun hung low doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Probably even better off with a Siglent.
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I ended up buying one because it was cheap and I liked the idea of getting 4 channels, touch screen, network, etc for less than $1000.
It works the same as the SDS series with the same annoying menus and aliasing issues (youtube review). Also the fan is very noisy and unlike others it is quite fat. It is meant to have a 50kHz update rate but the aliasing problems are annoying and obvious. However I do like the touch option - it is nicer than pressing buttons. Also the display is crisp and clear.
Previously I had a Rigol and have used an Atten and I do miss their menus and the displayed waveforms were far better in terms of content quality (e.g. no aliasing).
Most seriously obviously is that the observed waveform cannot always be believed and one has to using different time-base and trigger settings in order to confirm it is accurate.
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Please do some photos or review, thank you in advance. What is the user friendly voice warning like? Is it useful?
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Please do some photos or review, thank you in advance. What is the user friendly voice warning like? Is it useful?
"Pull up! Pull up!" :-DD
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Please do some photos or review, thank you in advance. What is the user friendly voice warning like? Is it useful?
"Pull up! Pull up!" :-DD
"Terrain" "Terrain" "Terrain"
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Why We we have to spend time on a product that have copied a name of high end tek's scope?
Warning voice message do are we kidding?
I think these scopes are just a jokking.
Tektronix should warned owon to change the scope name and remove the Tds.
?Tektronix made Tds scope for the last 20 years (starting from the tds220 to the 8000 series).
These tektronix scopes are sirious.
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???????????? OWON ????? TDS (? ????????? ????????) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdthxbL9TG4#)
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I think that Siglent and Rigol are much better than Owon.
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Any news? Anybody bought this scope? Well, i am afraid that this is a commercial fail.
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Someone mentioned the voice - I've never heard it and can't find any reference in the manual as to how it works. Also someone mentioned the touch. It may be resistive but it seems fine even with the protective plastic coating that is still attached. I think the touch is a very good idea indeed but some menus could be improved.
It is still a noisy. The aliasing issue is a pain. I need to mentally check if what I'm seeing is what I expect to see and if not change the time-base and other settings appropriately. The trigger is also problematic: one would think a dc level trigger would work all the time but it doesn't really work much of the time and requires constant adjusting or other triggering methods. I never had these problems with my Rigol.
Other than that other features work fine: measurement, cursors, channels, etc. I really got it because it had a lot of "nice" features.
Brian
However I think the problems with the aliasing and the trigger issues are serious setbacks. The issues are similar to the youtube review on the SDS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmJ2pZloW18 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmJ2pZloW18)