Siglent SDS2000X Plus

[nctnico]

Rigol and Siglent aren't known for rock solid protocol decoding so it doesn't surprise me that Lecroy does it better.

[2N3055]

They got a function called "link to trigger", when you activate it, the trigger changes to the decoding type, adjusted automatically and you get a rock stable signal/decoding also.
Much better than rigol or siglent, therefore I´d post it here some days before as a "wish":

That function is similar to Siglent's "Copy to trigger" except it is dynamic, real time link. It means that you setup channel/signal mapping and thresholds, lengths and parameters in protocol decode and you don't need to manually copy those parameters in trigger dialog.
Keysight on 3000T (and family) doesn't even have separate settings for duplicate data: you set channels and levels in decodes, and in trigger only data related parameters.

Siglent has "Copy to trigger" and "Copy fromto trigger" options. You setup signals and thresholds in decode and then copy to trigger. Go to trigger and setup data masks... It won't automatically update, but also no need for manual setup. If you happen to twiddle with trigger later and find better settings, you can copy back to decode...

[kcbrown]

Siglent has "Copy to trigger" and "copy to trigger options". You setup signals and thresholds in decode and then copy to trigger. Go to trigger and setup data masks... It won't automatically update, but also no need for manual setup. If you happen to twiddle with trigger later and find better settings, you can copy back to decode...

Yep.  This is particularly handy when you need to experiment with decoding to determine the right settings to use.  You can do an acquisition using a simpler trigger (such as rising edge), stop the scope, play around with the decoding settings until it decodes things properly, then copy the whole thing over to the trigger.

[vad]

Could someone who owns SDS2000X+ explain to me how does custom probe attenuation factor work on this scope? Does it support arbitrary values other than ratios that are power of 10 times 1, 2 or 5? In other words, let’s say I have a power rail probe with attenuation ratio of 1.25:1. Would it be possible to specify 1.25X as a custom attenuation factor?

My apologies if this was answered before (this is a long thread), and user manual does not shed much light on this topic. I am considering buying one of these models.

[Anik]

I can enter a value of 1.25:1 for a channel manually, and it is accepted/saved.
However, I can't check that with an actual probe of that kind.

Cheers, Anik
 

[vad]

I can enter a value of 1.25:1 for a channel manually, and it is accepted/saved.
However, I can't check that with an actual probe of that kind.

Cheers, Anik

Excellent! Thank you

[kcbrown]

I can enter a value of 1.25:1 for a channel manually, and it is accepted/saved.
However, I can't check that with an actual probe of that kind.

Cheers, Anik

The attenuation value is just a conversion factor for the incoming voltage seen on the inputs.  All it does is change the value shown on the scope.

1.25:1 just means that a 1V signal seen on the input will show as 1.25V on the scope.  10:1, which is commonly used, means that a 0.1V signal seen on the input, which is after attenuation by the probe by a factor of 10, will show as 1V.  Which is to say, for 10:1, you have a 1V signal, which is then attenuated by the probe by a factor of 10, which gets you a 0.1V signal as measured at the scope's input, which the scope then applies the 10:1 display conversion to by multiplying the input signal by 10, which gets you 1V shown on the scope.

So you don't need a 1.25x probe to check to see if the 1.25:1 value you entered works.  Just directly feed your scope a signal with a known voltage with an attenuation value of 1:1 and 1V/div, then change the attenuation value to 1.25:1, change the V/div back to 1, and see if the scope shows a voltage value equal to the voltage you're feeding it multiplied by 1.25.

[tautech]

This is now custom probe attenuation looks in SDS5000X and SDS2000X Plus is identical.

[Neptuni]

Hi,

I cant find any SCPI commands for the Bode measurement functionality, its not in the programming manual…?

[highpower]

Some really good news for those that have purchased SDS2104X Plus, hacked it and need/want higher BW autosense probes.

It seems Siglent does want to sell probes and at really hot pricing too on the SP2000 and 3000 10x autosense range.
https://siglentna.com/products/accessories/probes/passive-probes/

Yes I may have helped them to see the obvious.   

I just received the SP2035A I ordered from Siglent. I was quite surprised at how much shorter the probe body is compared to my SP2035 probes. It feels like I'm holding a golf pencil. 

[tautech]

Some really good news for those that have purchased SDS2104X Plus, hacked it and need/want higher BW autosense probes.

It seems Siglent does want to sell probes and at really hot pricing too on the SP2000 and 3000 10x autosense range.
https://siglentna.com/products/accessories/probes/passive-probes/

Yes I may have helped them to see the obvious.   

I just received the SP2035A I ordered from Siglent. I was quite surprised at how much shorter the probe body is compared to my SP2035 probes. It feels like I'm holding a golf pencil. 

Don't you mean PP215 probes ?

Yes all the SP2000 300 and 350 MHz probes are a compact probe design whereas SP3050A is more a full size probe.
https://siglentna.com/products/accessories/probes/passive-probes/

[eloso]

Took delivery of an SDS2104X Plus yesterday.   Wow - what a nice piece of kit.  I liked my previous scope, a Rigol DS2072A but I struggle to read the very small fonts used  and I have been thinking of going for 4 channels for a while. I thought I was happy with two channels but now, well, I'm twice as happy 

I have a very quiet lab environment and yes the fan is quite obvious and yes it has the ever so slight clicking/ticking sounds. Slightly loosened the torx screws but no difference.  Wouldn't say the screws  are particularly tight as some have reported elsewhere.  One day, I may upgrade the fan but am in no rush - please don't get me wrong, this is not a great problem.  To give you an idea the "ticking" sound kind of disappears as I move my head around - the room acoustics are sufficient to make it come and go in slightly different places.   - I have plenty of other kit that is louder and having just finished a small 1 hour piece of work with it, I didn't bother to reach to switch it off, and kind of realised that I wasn't noticing it any more. So that's a win.

Gorgeous UI - whether  touch, mouse, web or buttons.

For completeness I also  recently bought an SDM3045X DMM  which is nice but doesn't make me warm all over like the Siglent 'scope and the SA.   I think the UI needs a lot of work. I have little doubt that it is a better machine than the low brand recognition VC8145 that it replaces as a main lab bench DMM but, I hate to say it, for a while I think I preferred my trusty VC8145 even though you can tell that its not in the same league as the Siglent quality wise. After a settling in period I am now pretty enthusiastic about the Siglent  which just has to be my goto machine in the lab so that's another win.   I am a hobby user and this, the 'scope and the recent SSA3000X were  rather indulgent luxury purchases.  Without EEVBlog and its contributors  I am pretty sure none of it would be now sitting on my desk - worth saying, 'cos its true.   

OK, I am straying OT for this particular thread but not sure it warranted starting a new one.  Not a lot of point in me reviewing the SDS2104X+ - its been done many times by folk who have done a better job than I would do. Suffice to say, pleased as punch with the machine and having just solved my first little electronics problem with it (a noisy opamp based  differential amp that turned out to be picking up  radiated SMPS  noise)  you'd have to fight me to take it away !

Kind Regards

Eloso

[highpower]

Some really good news for those that have purchased SDS2104X Plus, hacked it and need/want higher BW autosense probes.

It seems Siglent does want to sell probes and at really hot pricing too on the SP2000 and 3000 10x autosense range.
https://siglentna.com/products/accessories/probes/passive-probes/

Yes I may have helped them to see the obvious.   

I just received the SP2035A I ordered from Siglent. I was quite surprised at how much shorter the probe body is compared to my SP2035 probes. It feels like I'm holding a golf pencil. 

Don't you mean PP215 probes ?

No, the SDS2204X+ I bought came with 4 new SP2035 (1X / 10X) probes in the box.(TEquipment) No idea why but I certainly wasn't going to complain about it. 
Maybe Siglent was out of the PP215 probes at the time? 
Or maybe they just liked my sparkling personality and decided to give me a free upgrade. 

For what it's worth I paid it forward and bought a bunch more Siglent accessories to make up for it. They got far more money than I would have paid to upgrade to the 350 MHz probes.

[Anik]

... and need/want higher BW autosense probes.

Does the autosense  feature actually work with the SDS2000x plus series?
If yes: Anyone with an idea how this works? (The probe connection consists of only signal + GND??)

Cheers,
Anik

[tautech]

... and need/want higher BW autosense probes.

Does the autosense  feature actually work with the SDS2000x plus series?
If yes: Anyone with an idea how this works? (The probe connection consists of only signal + GND??)

Autosense probes are required with the pogo pin in the BNC to contact with the gold sense ring. Works just fine with the standard pin resistance values in 10x, 100x and 1kx probes.

[eloso]

Hi

Just playing with my new SDS2104X Plus doing some noise measurements involving removing random low level noise.

Average is not on the Acquisition Menu.    Other posts indicate you have to implement it as a Math funcvtion. Am I the only one who thinks this is a real messy way of doing it ? I can only see how to create 2 average traces from F1 and F2 - leaving aside the number of keypresses to just look at the average of a trace, anyone know how do I apply "Average" to all four channels ?

If not possible - Siglent please introduce it as an Acquisition option again. Any others think this is important ?

Thanks

Eloso

[Martin72]

Hi,

anyone know how do I apply "Average" to all four channels ?

As you have already noted, "Average" is only available as a math function.
The siglent got only two mathchannels, so "Average" won´t be avaible for all channels at the same time.
This is really a pity (the mathchannels) and for me the only "big" negative point on the sds2k+ .

[eloso]

Thanks Martin, At least it confirms my understanding, but yes, it is really the only big disappointment for me too.     I am very used to just pressing a single button on the acquire menu to start averaging. On the SDS2104X Plus you have to load up and create a maths function then mess around turning off the original unwanted trace. Then you have the limitation of only having 2 channels you can do this with.  Then you can see a delay after every trigger as it does the calculations.  You aso have to figure out the vertical scale for the trace on a different menu to that of the source trace.  Yuk !!   Not what I saw on my previous scope, a Rigol nor  on some other brands I've used that don't belong to me.

I often just quickly flick it over to avergage for a quick look then put it back. No more of that with the Siglent.

I'd like to think Siglent could add this to the acquire menu in a firmware release but I suspect if they could, they would have already designed it like that - after all this is how some of their other scopes work, both cheaper and more expensive.   Must be a hardware limitation ?

I was fast on my way to being a Siglent FanBoy and have noted that there seem to have been occasions when they have  listened  to customers.     I will drop them a line and explain why I see it as a limitation and the only drawback to choosing their scope and ask them to consider introducing this if they can.  To me, I'd rather have a hardware "Average" button on the front panel than "Roll Mode" which seems an odd choice to have in somewhat limited real estate.


Regards

Eloso


 

[Martin72]

Hi,

Like everything in the world, each thing got two sides...

Average is another function that has been changed from an acquisition mode to a math function. One of the advantages is that we can now combine ERES and Average for the same signal.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds2000x-plus-coming/msg2840802/#msg2840802

Also:

ERES is not an acquisition mode anymore, but a math function (LeCroy send their regards!).
This has many advantages.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds2000x-plus-coming/msg2788466/#msg2788466

Important informations to understand why siglent was going this way with the sds2k+, IMHO.

Martin

[eloso]

Absolutely - I agree with you 100% Martin. I have no doubt there are those that like the flexibility of the Math Average method.  This is what software driven instrumentation is all about. Options and preferences. The two methods are not mutually exclusive (well ok, not for use at the same time perhaps    ). A menu option for both techniques perhaps keeps everyone happy.


In the meantime, I have been playing with the Math and Measurement functions more and they sure are implemented in a nifty way - especially love the function code generator screen where you assemble a function for one of the two math channels. In my noise measurement case I used function Average(C3-C1)  which is pretty cool.

Regards and thanks again for having taken the time and trouble to provide answers.

Eloso

[knudch]

The only wish could be if you have a 4ch scope that you also have 4 math channels
But maybe the CPU can't cope with that load

[Martin72]

Agree with it, when I got 4 channels, I want 4 math traces.
On my former rigol mso5000 I got it and it tooks a little time to understand why my siglent doesn´t.
It should be no problem to implement 4 traces with an firmwareupdate, but they didn´t to this.
And won´t do this, I guess.
Even the more powerful sds5k do not have 4 mathtraces..
I think they want to keep the performance level high in every case.
Maybe siglent is too careful in this case and shouldn´t worry so much about, I don´t know it.

[knudch]

Is it really thru that you can not save a waveform/trace to USB storage and then afterwards reload it back into the scope for investigations, eg by math function ?

[Deichgraf]

Is it really thru that you can not save a waveform/trace to USB storage and then afterwards reload it back into the scope for investigations, eg by math function ?

That's reserved for Matlab or Excel on your computer 

[DL2XY]

Is it really thru that you can not save a waveform/trace to USB storage and then afterwards reload it back into the scope for investigations, eg by math function ?

You can save/reload REF traces from/to external memory.  You can measure them but you cannot do MATH with them.