OWON HDS 200 Handheld Oscilloscope w/ builtin DMM/AWG

[NoMoreMagicSmoke]

"the one that designed the power part of this device is a moron."

From looking at mine I agree. I think that they cut off the tab on mine because someone made a layout mistake on the board and the tab interfered with the SMD components next to the tab.

[oof]

Would be interesting what they changed besides the color of the case and the 30MHz signal generator.
The technical overview on both models are unfortunately not equal (regarding feature listing) so not good to compare:

https://owonna.com/products_owon_hds300_series_digital_oscilloscope
https://owonna.com/products_owon_hds200_series_digital_oscilloscope

I only noticed one other thing, there's now a high impedance mode on the signal generator.

[NoMoreMagicSmoke]

I only noticed one other thing, there's now a high impedance mode on the signal generator.

My 2102s has high impedance as well on the signal generator.

[sulzer]

I received the HDS2102S, Serial Number: 2210043
After contact with Owon, the latest firmware is v1.4.1
Owon answered me within 4 days 

[balnazzar]

Mh, I was wondering....:

1. Is the new 300 series different in something else than 2 hours more declared battery runtime?

2. Is the 272 worth it over the 242? As a matter of fact one cannot expect a decent signal representation with less than ~10 samples per cycle. So they are both ~25 MHz scopes when you use one channel, and 12.5 MHz scopes when you use two.. The only exception seems to be the 100 MHz model, which would get 50-25 Mhz with its 500 Msamples/s...

[hobbeeist]

1. The 300 series waveform generator goes to 30MHz, up from 25MHz. Not a huge difference, but might matter to some.

2. I think the analog front end quality is the main difference between the 272 and 242. My bet is that it's binned based on process quality, but I don't have two to directly compare.

10 samples per cycle is great, but even high end scopes don't always hit that number. For instance, MSOX6000 is 20Gsps, so you'd say it's a actually a 2GHz scope, even though it has an advertised 6GHz bandwidth? Shannon-Nyquist tells us that you need >2x, so theoretically the 500Msps of the 2102 could work for signals up to 250MHz before aliasing, if the front end was up to snuff (it's not - see earlier posts in this thread).

Most 100MHz signals are not captured properly with a 100MHz bandwidth. To see a 100MHz sine, you only need 100MHz bandwidth and >200Msps. The 2102 can do this. A 100MHz square wave is defined not only by the 100MHz component, but by the odd harmonics, which differentiate it from a pure 100MHz sine. To see a 100MHz square, you'd probably want at least 500MHz of bandwidth (5th harmonic), and thus at least 1Gsps (the 10 samples per cycle you quoted). This is outside of the 2102's capability.

[Mechatrommer]

[7thSenpai]

Just thought I report here for the hds242S at least, when plugged in for charging and ofcourse knowing that ground is now at earth potential. DC waveforms are offsetted by approx -1.5V. This really threw me off for a few hours figuring out what was wrong with my circuit, so I thought I'd share the info here. My bench scope has no offset to the circuit, but the owon does. And through investigation it actually pulls ground to -1.5V and its not a display error. So, don't use while USB is plugged in period, a shame really. I still like this scope for its update rate tho, there is always quirks.

[Mechatrommer]

its typical for some devices that output/input gnd is not necessaily the same as battery/power supply/charger's gnd. so its a good info to know that we should not mess around while its being charged with non floating charger.

[7thSenpai]

its typical for some devices that output/input gnd is not necessaily the same as battery/power supply/charger's gnd.

I didn't know. I assumed it will be like my bench scope when I connect the usb.

[boggis the cat]

Page 6 of the manual warns about the lack of isolation.

With the 'scope disconnected from the USB you still don't have isolated BNC connectors – they share a common ground, so beware of trying to probe relative voltages.

[Mechatrommer]

my HDS2102S arrived. everything seems fine... the reason i choosed this compared to other brands, is simply its phenomenal update rate making it apart 1 thousand miles away from the rest in its class. its closing into bench grade DSO like my Rigol DS1054Z. i was looking at UNI-T/Fluke grade DMM+DSO for the longest time, now those black and white display are only in footstep of this owon unit in term of features and price. what was unclear though is if i can make this owon display single wave (instead of 10K of overlapped signals in one display), just like the other brand, because its usually usefull to see single signal for each screen update, now its confirmed it can be done by changing refresh rate to slow in HOR button.

also the firmware in my unit is V1.5.0, the 2ns time scale error reviewed by Kerry Wong in March 2022 is now fixed in my FW. attached pictures is i accidentally made it Mains Live referenced while measuring thyristor based regulator that is also just arrived, since i thought its a neutral line but later realized that neutral pin is connected directly to Live pin on my wall plug luckily nothing is blown. later attachments showing its reading 50MHz signal at smallest time/div setting with no noticable issue. other thing is i used my Rigol probe that i use with my DS1054Z without needing to recompensate, so they seem to have identical input capacitance.

when i checked for firmware update in their website, i noticed the 200MHz 1GSps version HDS2202S is already out on sale in aliexpress for about 70% additional cost of HDS2102S, no review in youtube yet.. so if anyone interested for speed, there it is. fwiw.

Owon HDS2202S in AliExpress $299
from https://www.owon.com.hk/products_owon_hds200_series_digital_oscilloscope

[hobbeeist]

also the firmware in my unit is V1.5.0

I'm still on 1.4.1. Does 1.5.0 fix any of the issues listed earlier in this thread? In particular, I'm interested if they fixed the issues with the AWG GUI. Buzzer menu option might be nice for some, too.

i noticed the 200MHz 1GSps version HDS2202S is already out on sale in aliexpress

Dang. I wish I had a project that needed that sort of bandwidth, so I could justify the upgrade!

[Mechatrommer]

also the firmware in my unit is V1.5.0

I'm still on 1.4.1. Does 1.5.0 fix any of the issues listed earlier in this thread? In particular, I'm interested if they fixed the issues with the AWG GUI. Buzzer menu option might be nice for some, too.

i dont think i can test all, 1st i dont quite understand all, 2nd there are too many report to test... i checked your version 1.4.1 can be upgraded to V1.5.1 why dont you do it? https://www.owon.com.hk/download.asp?category=Digital%20Oscilloscope&series=HDS200%20Series&model=HDS2102(S)&SortTag=Latest%20Firmware (see 1st attachment)

quickly test Flopdoodley report about AUTO mode, my version do it more consistently, it doesnt switch trigger channel when press once or twice, but on channel that got signal will be turned on and set as trigger channel, pressing AUTO the 2nd time, its still the same, so its consistent in my version and i think its a feature. i'm not a fan of AUTO button anyway, it can change any settings that i've made manually that i dont want to be changed when pressing that damned AUTO button. i will be very much annoyed if anything i've set manually changed with any unrelated button/menu press, including that AUTO and "Default setting" button.

your concern about buzzer menu in AWG/FG mode, i can see it under System->System (F2) Page 1, but not in the other DSO and DMM mode, maybe they have added it just for you i'm not sure what it does and i'm not sure why i should care. i still can visually see if my press take any effect or not even without buzzer. buzzing on each button can be annoying to me too. its quite loud. ymmv.

quick test on capacitance meter, i think its unusable, not trustworthy. but i like quick respond of continuity mode, much qucker than all my DMMs here, voltage mode seems fine, but for more precise, i need to compare it with Fluke 87V and a voltage reference, later. currently doing leo bodnar pulser to get rise time, during the process of setting cursor etc, i managed to make HOR menu blank once, i pressed the rightmost blank tab (F4) and Back (U-Turn arrow) button, press the HOR menu again now its appear normal, i cant reproduce it again so far, not sure what i've pressed before that, but some process can make it blank. the data wave output file looks gibberish but its too early to make conclusion... attached are images for leo bodnar pulse (on cheap through 50 ohm terminator) on both channel. eyeballing it is 2.8ns eqv 125MHz BW. ymmv.

edit: looking at you leo bodnar pulse, i think you didnt terminate it in 50 ohm... near 2Vpp is my hint. terminated signal should be close to 1Vpp only. ymmv.

[Mechatrommer]

while trying to implement owon's hds200 CSV format into my VisaDSO, i discovered few Bugs in the CSV file implementation. let me point out so owon can fix in the next fw update

1) "Time interval" section is using only 2 decimal places number in µs unit. resulting higher than 100MSa/s rate, time interval will not be written correctly (1st attachment), at 250MSa/s and above time interval is zero µs. simply changing unit to ns or add more decimal place can fix this easily.

2) about 1K or less sample points at the end (from full 8Kpts), record wrong/corrupted signals, 2nd attachment should show a nice 10kHz square wave, but at the end, it is "squeezed"

3) "Vertical pos" value also can be improved. in 1st attachment, i set CH1 to -0.16div @ 500mV/div, CSV should register -80mV, in 2nd attachment i set CH1 vertical pos to 0.84div ie 420mV, but both files register 0.00mV

btw, plotting leo bodnar rise time in excel from data points in CSV file will only involve 4 points, so its difficult to calculate correctly, better just eyeballing it in dso display imho.

wishlist: CSV can save both CH1 and CH2 in one file, currently only one channel is allowed for each file, and the workaround is we need to manually combine them in PC by hand. if you really want to save space, i think Index column is not necessary, it is just a waste of space, that we can recreate in PC/excel/programming easily. ps: sorry for my bad mouse writing in the attachment

[hobbeeist]

I upgraded to 1.5.1 (545c1313). I can confirm that the buzzer option is in the menu again!

Unfortunately, the AWG GUI is still buggy. For instance, if you set
waveform: sine
frequency: 24MHz
then switch to period mode, you'll see that it says "42ns", however you can't actually edit the units digit, and it actually should read 41.666666667ns. If you switch back to frequency mode, change it to 25MHz, and switch to period mode again, you'll see that it says "40ns", but again, you can't change the units digit.
Now to break things, change the 40ns period to 70ns. Then switch to frequency mode and (laboriously) zero out all the lower digits, starting with the least significant. If you try adjusting the MHz ones digit, you will find that you can no longer set the frequency up to 25MHz. It maxes out with a reading of 24,999,999.9Hz rather than 25MHz.
You can "fix" this by cycling the waveform, since it will truncate to exactly 5MHz for square and then 1MHz for the ramp/triangle, and when you cycle back to sine, you can then set to 25MHz again.

One new bug that appears in 1.5.1 is that the reference waveforms appear to be corrupted in two ways. First, they have discontinuities for some reason. Second, if you save a waveform, then save again to the same slot (or sometimes even to a second slot), you end up with TWO traces, both of which are turned on/off by the same reference control. I think there is an off-by-one sort of thing going on for reference waveform indexing, and then some other sort of issue with the memory storage. After trying to downgrade (and failing - error 4, presumably a version increment check), I then grabbed some 4k length refs, which didn't quite work - they would save one reference later. I then switched to 8k, and they appeared to start working correctly. Not sure what's going on exactly, but something to watch out for.

With respect to the CSV, it's been buggy for multiple reasons for a long time. sequoia reported issues with CSV and unless somebody reports it directly to OWON's support team, I doubt it will get fixed just by posting the issue here.

With respect to the pulse generator, Mechatrommer, you're absolutely correct that I didn't 50ohm-terminate it - just a direct connection. Adding a 50ohm termination with a T-adapter gives the same result as luma found.

Finally, I'm curious about your experience with the continuity testing. In my testing, the continuity buzzer is SUPER sluggish compared to my other cheapo DMM. Here's a video comparison.

[boggis the cat]

Finally found the SCPI example in this thread posted by eti. Tried to test various DMM commands, unfortunately for me, nothing works.
Did an improvement to that script to continuously update data.

This instrument should have SCPI commands for the DMM.

Download the "SCPI Protocol for HDS200 series Oscilloscope" from here:
https://www.owon.com.hk/download.asp?category=Digital%20Oscilloscope&series=HDS200%20Series&model=&SortTag=

[Mechatrommer]

Finally, I'm curious about your experience with the continuity testing. In my testing, the continuity buzzer is SUPER sluggish compared to my other cheapo DMM. Here's a video comparison.

you cant slide scratch probes quickly like that you'll be disappointed with latched continuity tester. latched tester need some latency/delay to beep on, we need to understand this, and make sure our probe is clean. i'm also a fan of non-latched tester like your Best tester in the video, zero delay and we can know if probes are dirty or connected in very brief moment. but non-latched tester on newer auto ranging meter is now as rare as hen's teeth. fyi i built my own dedicated non-latched continuity tester (but now broken, i have no time to repair yet) if i want to do quick sliding test on pcb or smd parts. btw, done comparison with Fluke 87V reading voltage mode AD584JN reference (attached).

[sulzer]

Hello
I think I follow the update procedure but I get: upgrade error 3
I have tried everything.
I put the "Scope.upp" file, downloaded from the Owon site, at the root of the oscilloscope disk.
But I still get the same error.
Anyone have an idea.
I wanted to upgrade the firmware to 1.5.1
Thanks in advance

Model            : HDS2102S
Serial Number: 2210043
Version          : V1.4.1
CheckSum     : 0d55aa00

[hobbeeist]

sulzer, that's exactly what I did. I do recall there being two downloads on the site - one for the *S, one for the *(non-S). Any chance you downloaded the wrong one?

[sulzer]

Oh big mistake! 
How could I confuse model 2102s vs 2102 and thus download the wrong firmware.
hobbeeist thank you very much.
Now I'm in V1.5.1

[konnor]

I received the HDS2102S with new board and firmware.
F/W Version 3.0.1
ADC is not HMCAD1511!

[TheBay]

I dug this out the other day as I needed to use a handheld scope for something.
Did the CH2 issue ever get resolved on any firmware versions?

If I ever use Auto on mine it will always default to CH2 for controls even though there is nothing connected to CH2, makes it a real PITA to adjust the timebase for CH1 as I have to keep manually selecting CH1. Or I get the annoying message "Channel 2 is Off"

Mine is:
PCB V2.20
Firmware: V4.2.0

Answering my own question here but it may help others. I updated the firmware to V4.6.1 from the Owon website and it has solved the CH1/2 Auto issue.

[JogaBonito5]

Hello guys, I just bought the OWON HDS242!

I attached some pictures regarding software information and PCB revision.

I just have one minor problem: I have no batteries right now so the only way to turn it on is via USB cable. The problem is that when i plug it in, the power button starts flashing without stop. The oscilloscope works without any issues but this red flashing light is so annoying!
Here's a video that shows the problem: https://gofile.io/d/FuRrn5.

Is this a feature? Because i can't find any reference about it. Maybe it's because there are no batteries in?

[rn777]

Very interesting. Firmware v7.1.1. In site https://www.owon.com.hk/download.asp?category=Digital%20Oscilloscope&series=HDS200%20Series&model=HDS242(S)&SortTag=Latest%20Firmware&seek=&curpage=1
latest 6.1.0