My workplace had quite a large selection of cheap-and-nasty benchtop power supplies that over time (not that much time) failed one-by-one. When only two were left I cracked it with people continually wanting to replace them with the same useless garbage, and I started looking around for alternatives. I ended up purchasing a couple of the Siglent supplies to try out. Not only was I impressed, but so were the people that had once been so keen on the cheap crap!
I ended up purchasing two for my home workshop and several more for the workplace. Needless to say they are all going strong.
However, I do have a couple of observations/complaints. [1] how the device operates when in parallel mode, and [2] how 'wavedisplay' functions.
The first observation is that when the unit is in serial mode, the screen continues to display the individual channel output. Hence, a glance at the display when in serial mode gives the impression the voltage is only half of what is appearing on the outside two terminals (1- and 2+). Admittedly this is probably OK as a separate connection to channel 1 OR separate connection to channel 2 is actually what is seen on the display. One suggested way to mitigate any confusion might be to change the colours of the displayed channels (green/yellow) to a single colour (maybe orange?) whilst keeping the displayed information exactly the same as it is.
What is considerably more misleading (and falls into the area of a complaint) is when the unit is operated in parallel mode... the current available from either channel is now double what is shown on the display. My suggestion for rectifying that would be to double the width of one channel of the display (double up the horizontal pixels, keeping the displayed information the same) but double the value of the current display. The unit *knows* what mode it is in as the icon on the top left indicates what it is(!), so applying a "x2" to the current should not be a problem.
A further suggestion would be to make the serial/parallel icon in the top left corner a bit more prominent.
My final observation (note: not complaint) is the 'wavedisplay' function. Admittedly I don't use it much, but I have found it really handy when dealing with battery voltages or supplies that vary their current consumption as they are operating. It would be really useful if I could vary the time/division setting... and yes I know an oscilloscope would do a better job, but since the function is there (and I don't have to run more wires across an already crowded bench), such a facility would be quite useful.
Many thanks to Siglent for a great benchtop supply, and many thanks for listening to my rant...!
Cheers,
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