Rigol DG1000z Rant

[echen1024]

Well, being excited that this new product might be around 4-500 USD, imagine the look of horror on my face when I opened up Tequipment and looked at the prices. 775 USD for the 60MHz version? You gotta be shittin me!? I could pay around $25 more, get a DG4062, and hack it up to a DG4202 goddamit! And 616 for the 30Mhz? For $50 more I could get a Siglent SDG5082 80Mhz!!! What was Rigol thinking.

[Harvs]

Firstly forget what you can hack, that's totally irrelevant to pricing.

Have a look at the spec sheet. 
DG4062 == 500Ms/s, 16kpts
DG1000z == 200Ms/s, 8Mpts (16Mpts optional).

If someone wanted to swap me a 60MHz DG1000z for my DG4062 I'd probably do it because the longer memory would be more useful to me than the bandwidth.

[Electro Fan]

Hi Harvs - are you still feeling like you might prefer a DG1000Z over the DG4062?   

Have you been making any arbitrary waveforms? 

One thing I don't quite get is the spec on the DG1000Z.  It says 8 MPts standard; 16 MPts optional Memory Depth but on page 2-16 (correction, should be 2-17) of the DG1000Z User's Guide it says "allows users to edit the arbitrary waveform which can contain 8 to 16384 (16k) data points, namely 8pts to 16kpts."  Any idea what the difference is between 16kpts as stated in the User's Guide and the 8Mpts in the overall spec?  (Maybe altogether the individual built-in and user-defined arbitrary waveforms can total 8 MPts of memory consumption but an individual user-defined or edited waveform is limited to 16 kpts?)

http://www.batronix.com/pdf/Rigol/UserGuide/DG1000Z_UserGuide_EN.pdf

Setting aside the specs, I'm wondering which product (DG1000Z or DG4000 series) has the better user interface (from the front panel or with the PC software) for making user defined arbitrary waveforms.

Harvs, do you (or anyone else) have any insight into the relative merits of the DG4000 series and the DG1000 series when it comes to ease of use and overall flexibility in making user-defined waveforms?

Thanks!  EF

[Harvs]

Sorry I really can't off you any more insight since I haven't had the opportunity to use a DG1000z.

Would I still swap my DG4000 series for the DG1000z?  Probably, I still find the lack of memory depth highly irritating on the DG4000, it's very limiting if you want to play any reasonable length of waveform that has a reasonable bandwidth.

You're right that the manual has not been written very well, not that surprising really.  On page 2-17 which I think is what you're referring to, it talks about editing 16kpts, then talks about loading 8/16Mpts from a PC.  While it's far for clear I would suggest that you can only edit up to 16kpts on the actual device itself.  Anything larger than that and you need to use a PC, which I reckon is totally reasonable.  I've pretty much found editing waveforms on them to be a fairly useless exercise anyway, you're almost always better off generating the waveform on the PC first then uploading.

[Electro Fan]

Thanks Harvs, if you get a chance to see if you can create longer waveforms (and more easily) from the PC please let us know.  EF

[Harvs]

Thanks Harvs, if you get a chance to see if you can create longer waveforms (and more easily) from the PC please let us know.  EF

I'm only speculating as I don't have a DG1000z, so you need someone who has one.  Creating the waveform is a non-issue as you do that in whatever software you prefer (sometimes I use Matlab, sometimes Excel, sometimes Python.)  The issue is whether the DG1000z will take the large waveform.

Your best bet might be to have a look through the programming reference manual, that will have the commands used to upload a waveform and may well have some info about max size.