UNI-T UTG932/UTG962 200MSa/s Function Arbitrary Waveform Generator

[Mechatrommer]

saw this among feeltech/elec/kkmoon while aliexpressing for budget FG/AWG... $130, ie 40% discount from original price of $217 go figure
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000373256414.html (old link dead)

googling shows the web is up on 15th Nov (UTG962E)
https://www.uni-trend.com/html/product/NewProducts/UTG900E%20Series/UTG962E.html

i searched for UTG962, none, but it turned out in chinese website..
https://www.uni-trend.com.cn/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=416&id=741

i thought UTG962 is reject version, because i cant find english page for it but the seller (uni-t official store) said its chinese version, english version is UTG962E, but its not for sale yet. but the chinese version we can set to english (according to him)... no link/doc available yet in english web, but in chinese web, there are SW and pdf, but all in chinese...

in short, its 200MSa/s, 66MSa/s slower than feelelec, but it has 4.3" LCD with more proper front panel buttons etc, quite compact 172mm x 90mm face and only 68mm depth, so it will still fit nicely under my dso rack. 5V input, connections and BNC outputs all are on the side, so better candidate to mod to portable unit. no clear indication memory depth for arbitrary function, but there's hint 4kpts in the chinese pdf, correct me if i'm wrong i cant read chinese. for more details, you can follow the links.

There is no a single review in the net nor hinted even a single word here, even in official website it looks still "under construction".. but its 40% discount and $100+ range tag made me wait for the Black Friday to get even more discount 44% ie $121, and it is now so i ordered one 60MHz version, i'm number 2, so there is still 98 pcs for UTG962, UTG932 (30MHz $105) still no purchasers hence 100 stocks. i wish to make a thread plus short review when it arrived and tested, but Black Friday discount is only until 3 Dec, so if someone interested, they may missed the 44% discount, so here it is. but since this is unknown, this maybe turned out to be apple or orange i dont know, this is just a bet when its on bullish price (or maybe peak? depending on how it will perform later). so if you want to risk $120 or yourself as a victim of circumtances, then you may click that order button now. Cheers.

SOME NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS THROUGHOUT THE YEARS BY MEMBERS:
Some Performance Testing (JamesLynton, Page 5)
Open Source Python App for UTG900. (Jukka, Page 9)
mCU, FW Commands and UTG932 -> UTG962 Hack (fremen67, Page 9)
Another Performance Testing (IAmBack, Page 11)
My Battery Pack Mod (Page 14)

UTG900's Synch output rise time (963ps) (page 2)
...
PM me if i miss some other important facts/achievements/discoveries regarding UTG900 here in this thread, cheers...

[ataradov]

Thanks! Ordered one as well.  I was just looking for a small footprint signal generator. It would be interesting to see if this can be hacked to be battery operated.

[thyself]

This is the site of the brand new UNI-T UTG900E Function Generators: 
https://www.uni-trend.com/html/product/NewProducts/UTG900E%20Series/

Here is the English manual:
https://www.uni-trend.com/uploadfile/2019/1118/20191118091436691.pdf

Although on specs looks little shy, and its GUI kind of ugly,
its features look amazing, especially for this class of device in that price range.
Probably is going to be a hit among hobbyists, even open new market niche.

[Mechatrommer]

from my perspective, in term of performance, the feeltech fy6900 is better (250MSa/s vs 200MSa/s uni-t), (8kpts vs 4kpts), and uni-t is more expensive $80 vs $130. but the better thing for me in uni-t is, smaller footprint, numeric pads, ie more buttons, larger screen, colorful/intuitive GUI (if the ads similar to the real thing). btw black friday still 2 hours left, only 9 sold still 191 stocks to go. so maybe we are the first 10 who's going to try it..

[ataradov]

Mine has arrived. It had English enabled by default. There is a way to enable Chinese as well in the menu, so the current firmware is universal.

I played with it a bit, and I like it so far. The UI is fine, not the greatest, but very usable. The actual mechanical feel of the buttons and the device in general is excellent for its size.

I'm not even going to bother to check actual performance numbers, I simply don't care in this case. The only complain I have about "visual" quality of the signal is quite soft edges on the square wave (~20 ns rise/fall time 0-100% levels at all frequencies).

[ataradov]

And a couple of quick pictures of the guts.

There is ~25 mm (1") of free space on the inside over the whole unit. It can easily fit a battery bank and be battery powered.

[Mechatrommer]

nice... mine should arrive few days ago (100km away) but either our local postal staffs are too busy or are sleeping (5-7 days no movement). the 20ns rise time will make it acceptably around 2-3MHz square wave only. at 25MHz, its just a sine wave. investigation on the output front end will be interesting. will it output 10Vpp sine as claimed on 50 ohm load?

[Mechatrommer]

mine arrived (with free gift). did a quick test and some pictures...

pros:
1) good build quality and GUI/buttons (with LED)
2) large LCD for such mini device (and colorfull GUI too)

cons:
1) there is full swing signal burst for about 10-25ms on relay click amplitude transition, 2 to 2.1Vpp, 0.4 to 0.5Vpp, 0.1 to 0.2Vpp, 20 to 30mVpp (50 ohm load). the worst is transition from 2 to 2.1Vpp (10Vpp or 23+dBm burst) see attached picture (DS1Z_QuickPrint1.png - DS1Z_QuickPrint4.png). it maybe can damage sensitive RF circuitry (or not? i dont know, maybe it depends) but it should not be happening.
2)no frequency sweep sigh! correction: yes they have sweep function, its called "Line". so yes, they have no sweep function, but "Line" function (shaking my knee fall and slip carefully )

as i dont really need modulation so far, so i dont test all extensively, only did some quick test on AM modulation. but it does have many modulation options such as sine/square/arb etc on AM modulation, not sure how important this is. from experience, i usually will use sine wave only mostly, but lack of sweep function to do frequency respond of a DUT make this device a bummer (use Line Mode for sweep, my bad terminology ). if you dont care 2 1 serious cons mentioned above, this is a cute little device with easy to operate and change parameter using numeric pad.

what ataradov mentioned also confirmed, there is a bit of space between GUI/LCD pcb and FPGA/AWG pcb, so we can add holder for, and battery/fan circuitry pcb there for improvement if needed. the output is using THS3092 if i'm not mistaken from the picture and give nearly (flat?) 10Vpp (50ohm load) up to 10MHz this maybe good or not depending on how you used to (attached DS1Z_QuickPrint5.png - QuickPrint8.png)...

[nctnico]

No frequency sweep? Really? 

[PA0PBZ]

No frequency sweep? Really? 

The manual thinks otherwise (page 30 as you can see):

[ataradov]

Yes, there is frequency sweep. I have not looked at the output, but there is definitely an option for that in my menus, just as shown in the manual.

[Mechatrommer]

No frequency sweep? Really? 

The manual thinks otherwise (page 30 as you can see):

this is the second time i'm being fooled by UNI-T terminology the first time i read the manual i saw "Shake" specification, took me sometime to realize its probably "Jitter". i did use search function in Adobe reader for "sweep" keyword in the manual, but turned out nothing, so i thought no sweep function. i guess they used image instead of text to save the pdf manual, hence not text searchable. i remember seeing that "Line" button earlier (and Log) but i thought its somekind of modulation type (Line as in "Straight Line", not Linear ), so i skipped it. thanks. (updating previous post)

[Mechatrommer]

still hoping for the english SW version as i tried to make arb wave in it. managed to freehand drawn a wave in chinese SW, but i dont know what i was doing, and cant get the wave into the AWG.. the menus is all squared characters on them, so i was just shooting blind. while searching for latest SW, they released their video last week...



attached is square wave rise time (17.6ns, 10-90%), still wait for time to do spectral purity evaluation on the popular waves (sine, square, ramp etc)... if fast rise time square wave is needed, it should be easy with external high speed comparator feed just with sine output from the FG, but try to get good sine purity from square wave output or synthesizer will need more works and components, let alone at broadband... so, slow rise time of this unit is not so much trouble for me. fwiw...

[ataradov]

Over USB this thing is a standard USB Test and Measurement Device (USBTMC). It should not be too hard to figure out commands and create new software. But I have no interest in doing that myself.

[Mechatrommer]

below is capture of 1MHz and 10MHz square (using diy inline terminator) fwiw... currently i cant test the freq you want properly as i'm cleaning up the bench with many stuffs on it.

[ataradov]

It does not look to pretty.

[BravoV]

Don't you guys have higher BW scope ?

Say >300 Mhz or even better, just curious to see how the square wave looks like at max. 20 Mhz ? And also Sine @ 60 Mhz.

[ataradov]

I did test it at work on some Tek, which is a bit better than Rigol here. It is basically the same. 20 MHz square is really a distorted sine. That's the real output of this thing.

[BravoV]

Noted, thanks.

[Mechatrommer]

when its notably distorted at 20MHz, there's not much point using higher BW scope. if i'm not mistaken, below is 20MHz square. 20MHz sine (last 2 pictures) is much better than this with ~30dB down 60MHz harmonics.

[ataradov]

Second picture is named "square_20MHz.png".

[Mechatrommer]

ditto! the manual only specified square wave up to 15MHz.. maybe next project is to study/hack front end output/filter if increasing risetime is possible. but i guess, decompensating hack will screw original output respond. ymmv.

[ataradov]

I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of sense to mod this for signal quality. I doubt you will get a significant performance increase. This just needs to be accepted for what it is.

It is a very good generator overall, I would absolutely recommend it for a general purpose work. If you work with RF and need the cleanest signal ever, then consider other options. UI-wise it is WAY better than anything you get in this price range.

[Caliaxy]

Can you adjust the phase?

[ataradov]

Yes, both channels have independently adjustable phase.