Owon XDG2000 Arbitrary Waveform Generator

[fredo_]

Hi folks,
Has anyone been using one of the Owon XDG2000 AWG line ?
It seems like a very capable unit at a reasonable price (336€ VAT included for the 35MHz version) with a nice 7" display, but I couldn't find much information about it..
All I have found so far :
- User manual
- Video Review from TechCorner TV :
- One small blog post from 2020
I'm hesitating between this model and the (ugly) Rigol DG811 (upgraded).
I know the wise choice would be the Rigol but I might fall for the nice 7" display (+ LAN + keypad)  :-)...
Any advice welcome !

[Veteran68]

If you're considering Rigol, why not Siglent? Arguably the better overall choice of the three (IMO).

And while Owon makes a few good products, especially in their price range, I don't really see Owon competing head to head with either Rigol or Siglent. I consider them at least half a tier above Owon.

[mawyatt]

One very important consideration when getting a modern AWG is will it work with the DSO/MSO you have or are planning. New folks may not put value in doing Bode Plots and such, but will soon encounter the amazing capability within even the lower end DSOs, many of which actually do a decent job with Bode Plotting.

Do a search and you can judge for yourself the value of AWGs and Bode Plotting!!

Best,

[DaneLaw]

Give it a shot and report back, I recall you do have the ablelity to return it from these European resellers.

If it's the big screen that is rocking your boat, it's also worth having in mind Rigol's newer Professional Signal Gen line.
Rigol  DGxxxPRO  https://www.rigol.com/products/products/waveform-generators
DG800PRO https://www.rigol.com/products/DG_detail/DG800Pro

If you want any of the English user manuals, datasheets, or quick guides for any of the DGxxxPRO, just say so.
I purchased one of these in November 2023 and arrived mid-December.

A note-worthy con is the temperature-based fan, it uses the same form factor as Rigol scopes [DHOxxx], so the same hysteric little SOB of a whiny fan.
- it also takes quite a long time for it to boot, it's based on Android.(A Linux sw stack)

It's sadly not released yet here in the West, I talked with Niels at Eleshop & Phillip at Batronix, and none of them had any estimates when it would be released in Europe, though its 1½ months back, so it could be close, or maybe not?.

[Zenith]

I haven't seen that much about them either. I'm sure it's a fine instrument but I'd go for Rigol or Siglent, which have good reputations, good firmware support and support on here, including unofficial upgrades. A big display on a function generator doesn't really appeal to me, but each to his own. Owon have always struck me as a rank below Siglent and Rigol.

Yes, I'm cautious and unadventurous when it comes to buying things like this.

[Wil_Bloodworth]

You could also consider the new one from UNI-T (which looks super nice) if you're considering spending that much money with OWON.
https://uni-t-shop.com/products/utg4082a-waveform-generator



- Wil

[fredo_]

Thank you guys for all your insights !

Re. the UNI-T UTG4082a, it's not at all in the same price range as the Owon here in Europe : the Owon is 280€ VAT excl. vs. 769€ for the UNI-T.

Thank you @DaneLaw for the heads up on the no Rigol PRO line, it could actually be a good match for my brand new DHO804 :-) !
I was able to found prices and user manual on BatterFly : https://www.batterfly.com/shop/fr/rigol-dg822-pro
Prices are the same as the DHO line (i.e. 399€ VAT excl. for the DG822) but the DG821 seems to have the connector for the second channel so maybe a hope for a software upgrade ?
BatterFly say units will arrive by March 15th...

Maybe I'll hold my breath until the new Rigol comes out, or maybe I'll follow DaneLaw suggestion and give the Owon a try and report back !...

Still, I'm surprised that no one here ever had his hands on the Owon that has been out for 4 years !...

[Wil_Bloodworth]

You're right fredo. I meant to say that if you're considering the Siglent prices, then you might consider the UNI-T prices as well.

- Wil

[Zenith]

Still, I'm surprised that no one here ever had his hands on the Owon that has been out for 4 years !...

Maybe no one who has one noticed your post. Maybe it's like pop songs, where some catch the mood and take off, and others not much different don't.

The market for AWGs is crowded and there are lot of makers. Owon AWGs don't seem to have found their way to many tear down and test Youtube videos, which is a way to gain publicity and recommendations. Looking at it briefly, they don't seem a particularly compelling proposition.

A lot of products popular on here have been reverse engineered, opening possibilities that make them far more attractive. Maybe Owon are not particularly good at the less obvious aspects of marketing.

AWGs that generated a lot of posts a time back, were the Feeltech FY6600/6800/6900. They were at the time very cheap and offered a lot for the money, but had some faults. There were endless discussions about the faults and how to correct them.

[Veteran68]

The market for AWGs is crowded and there are lot of makers. Owon AWGs don't seem to have found their way to many tear down and test Youtube videos, which is a way to gain publicity and recommendations. Looking at it briefly, they don't seem a particularly compelling proposition.

The little Uni-T UTG900 series got and still get a lot of attention from YouTubers and other makers. It stole a lot of the thunder from the Feeltech AWGs when it came out. My UTG962E, for what it costs, is an excellent, simple little AWG that is worth more than what I paid for it. Eddie Aho from KissAnalog recently mentioned that he sold off his Siglent AWG when he got his UTG962 because he liked it better.

That said, I still plan to add a Siglent AWG to my bench one day. I mean, I have two each bench meters and oscilloscopes -- I wouldn't want my AWG to feel lonely, LOL.

[mawyatt]

That said, I still plan to add a Siglent AWG to my bench one day. I mean, I have two each bench meters and oscilloscopes -- I wouldn't want my AWG to feel lonely, LOL.

When you do you'll open up some very interesting adventures

Just a few to scratch the surface!!

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/fooln-around-with-dso-awg/msg4421209/#msg4421209

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/dso-awg-based-curve-tracer/

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/capacitive-impedance-plots-with-sds2104x-plus-bode-function/msg4342009/#msg4342009

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/admittance-measurements-with-dso-awg-with-bode-function/msg4491952/#msg4491952

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/diy-transformer-for-use-with-bode-plots/msg4182022/#msg4182022

Best,

[fredo_]

Hi guys,
I felt adventurous last night and placed an order on Eleshop for the Owon XDG 2035 ! 
They don't have it in stock so it may take a while until it gets there, but I'll report back here when I receive it.

For those interested, I found some more information about this generator (which is also sold white labeled by Farnel as Multicomp Pro MP75051x) :







https://knowledge.pinon-hebert.fr/index.php/Multicomp_MP75511

One thing unclear in the user manual is the ability to generate a sync pulse in sweep mode at the beginning of a sweep.
The manual states :
"Sync - The generator can output the sync signals of basic waveforms (except noise),
arbitrary waveforms (except DC), harmonics, sweep signal, burst signal, and
modulated signal from a single channel or two channels at the same time. This sync
signal is output from the Sync connector at the front panel."
But later in the "Sync signals of various waveforms" section, sweep is non longer mentioned...

[Zenith]

The manuals for these instruments are not always clear. When you get it, you'll have to investigate the sync output with a scope.

I found a problem with the FeelElec FY6800 was that there was no sync pulse in sweep mode. There was a sync feature but I recall it was to do with synchronising several instruments.

There were two ways to work around it.

Feed a ramp function from channel 2 into the VCO input for channel 1 using a BNC cable.  This was too non-linear and wasn't great. It could have been made to work properly with a custom ramp waveform.

Use FM modulation on channel 1 and use a ramp waveform from channel 2 as the modulating waveform. Trigger on the falling edge of the ramp. The amplitude of the ramp wasn't important. This worked very well.

With any luck, the Owon AWG will have a proper sync output for sweep, and you won't have to resort to a dodge like that.

[fredo_]

Quick update : my Owon XDG 2035 arrived last week :-)
I need to find some time to take pictures and report back on the performances, but first impressions are good in terms of build quality and accuracy.
That being said, it's my first AWG so I don't have anything to compare it to...
If you think of any measurement I should make, please let me know ! I'm equipped with a DHO804 and a tinySA Ultra.

[fredo_]

So I spent some time this afternoon with the XDG 2035 and took some pictures and screenshots.

Heart shaped arbitrary waveform
For starters, the famous heat-shaped arbitrary waveform. To get a clean display on the DHO804 I had to use a low frequency (1kHz), activate the 20MHz low-pass filter on the scope and set the trace persistance to 2s :

You can see on ch2 that the sine wave Vpp set to 3 volts is spot on with 3.0032V measured on the DHO804. I used 50 Ohm output setting on the XDG and a 50 Ohm terminal on the scope end (by the way, the 2 BNC cables provided with the XDG are nice quality RG 58/U coax).
Same with square wave en ch2 :


Ch1/2 Phase alignment
I read somewhere that phase alignement between ch1/2 was complicated on Owon DGE series so I wanted to check on the XDG.
There is a 7-8° phase shift at higher frequency :

But i can be easily adjusted with the StartPhase parameter :


Rise time
Rise-time is within spec with a nice value of 6.6 ns (here with a 25Mhz square wave) :

And here another example with a pulse where the fall time as been set to 8.5 ns (measured 8.6ns) :


Arb waveform and modulation
Here is an example of Arb waveform at 1Mhz :

And a nice colored am modulation (440 Hz sine carrier and 1 Mhz sine modulated signal) :

[fredo_]

Now some pictures with the tinySA Ultra.

Counter accuracy
Here the counter input is connected to ch1 output set to a 35Mhz sine wave (good thing the XDG agrees with himself on the frequency reading !) :

Now the counter is fed with the generator of the tinySA at 50, 100, 150, 200 and 220 MHz :

[fredo_]

And finally some SA measurements.

Sinewave


Square wave


Saw wave


White noise


Harmonics


In the end I'm pretty happy with my purchase : the built quality seems really good and the generated signals are clean and with good specs.
I don't regret choosing the XDG over the Rigol mainly because of the keypad which I think is more practical for me than a touch-screen and the overall form factor (big screen, handle, vertical scope-like shape).
On the down side, the ventilation is a bit noisy (but less than the DHO804) and the software is not very polished (e.g. there is a push-button on the rotary encoder but it does nothing ; when browsing the (huge) arb waveform catalog, the output is not updated until you click OK ; the Ethernet connection is rudimentary (no DHCP etc.)).
And I almost forgot, the sync output in sweep mode does NOT give a pulse on each sweep start but rather on each wave period :-/...

Please let me know if you have any question on this generator !

[fredo_]

And here I am again with a new experimentation with this generator.
In case you were wondering if it can be used as a radio transmitter, the answer is YES ! 
Here is my setup :
- Channel 2 is used to generate an audio signal (sine sweep from 220 to 880 Hz) and is fed to the modulation input of the XDG.
- Channel 1 is set to FM modulation with a carrier at 34.900 Mhz + 7 kHz deviation. Channel 1 output is sent to a small telescopic antenna.
- Signal is received by a pocket Quansheng UV-K5-8 where the VFO is set to 34.900 Mhz

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Well, that’s pretty damn cool!

- Wil

[fredo_]

So I've been working on a Python script used to generate Cospas/Sarsat 406MHz beacon frames in the .bin format used by the Owon XDG.
One of my intentions with the purchase of that generator was to use it's PSK modulation capabilities to help me in the testing of my Cospas/Sarsat beacon decoder project.
The python script is available here : https://github.com/fredzo/owon-xdg-python-tools
And here is a video of the result :

[fredo_]

One final video with the XDG, even if it's more of a demonstration of a repeater cable from Aliexpress for Quansheng UV-K5-8 alongside with the prototype of my SarsatJRX project :


Overall I think it's a good value for money (€280 VAT excl. for the record) and it's meeting my expectation except for some quirks in the software and the absence of sweep start sync signal.
I'll be glad to run more tests if anyone requests it.