Waveform Generaters FY6600 vs JDS6600

[tjxkeith]

Hi

Can you help a newbie out, sounds good that considering I am 65. I have see the reviews and
Tear downs  of both of these and am trying hard to make my mind up. It would seem there is little support from the manufacturers.

Has anyone out there with more experience than me had  both on the bench and make any recomendedations

Thanks

Keith

[ArcticGeek]

I think this is a real good question to pose to everyone out there that has experience with either or both of these units.  I too have been considering purchasing one of these, but there seem to be pros and cons of each from what I can tell:

1.  The FY6600 has more features and capabilities as far as different types of modulation (FSK, etc)
2.  The FY6600 has an internal line operated power supply, the JDS6600 uses an external 12V brick.  While the internal power supply is handier and neater, many people are concerned with the presence of AC line voltages on the shell of the BNC connector due to the fact that the power supply is a floating supply that is not grounded.  The JDS6600 will also have this same issue, but would be easier to remedy by just replacing the wall wart with a wall wart that is grounded. 
3.  From what I have read the JDS6600 is more stable in frequency and has less jitter than the FY6600 - people can feel free correct me if I'm wrong here.
4.  Most people prefer the buttons and the user interface of the JDS6600 over the FY6600
5.  Price is approx the same

That's how I see it, I'm sure others will chime in here.  I already have a HP 8116A signal generator which in the day was a high end generator, but it's a large beast that is heavy and has a somewhat loud fan.  It's also a pain in the you-know-what to calibrate as there are a TON of pots to tweak to do the alignment.  So for that reason a newer unit that is smaller and quiet would be a nice addition to my bench.

I'll look forward to what others have to say.

[onesty]

I too am a newbie 62. Been dabbling in electronics all my life. But alas I am still a dumb F**k. licensed ham since 1990.  I have the fy6600-60 and being a newbie, I don't seem to have a problem with it yet, Only had it a few weeks now. along with a rigol ds1054z, a sdm3055 and I just received today a ssa 3021x. being recently divorced and having a good job has caused the creation of a monster. I must sat Dave has had an effect on me along with a host of others on youtube. Time to get to know my new tool.
Happy Trails

Pat

[Adrian_Arg.]

I also intend to acquire one of those two, my question is I do small projects of arduino and electronica, I own a rigol ds1054z,with one of reaches 15mhz me alcaza for small projects? I forgot, I am only 52 years old, a child!

[Candid]

I own both of them. I modified the FY6600 (removed the SMPSU and replaced it with a linear one). For the JD6600 I use an external linear PSU. So I don't have the problem of ghost voltage on the connectors on both of them. On the paper from the point of functionality and the technical data the FY6600 is the better one from the point of haptics the JD6600 is much better (especially the buttons are much better and the display is brighter and bigger).

The output quality of the waveforms of the JD6600 most time is better, only in higher frequencies the FY6600 can outperform the JD6600. With the FY6600 I often have ghost/double waveforms even in lower frequencies or overshots. The FY6600 has some nice functions the JD6600 is missing but if you don't need them I would prefer the JD6600 because of most time better output performance and way better haptics. I never used the software of both of them so I cannot say anything about it.

If you are going to modify the function gen you may prefer the FeelTech because of the really good support here at the EEVBlog.

[paule]

Question about hacking the JDS6600.  Remember when the Rigol scopes came out with different top frequency options and prices?  Software hacks were worked out to allow the lower freq scopes to be upgraded to the higher freq.  Looks like the JDS6600 may have the same potential.  anyone looking at the physical/firmware to see what the differences are between the 15, 25, 30, 40 and 60 mhz versions?  is it hardware differences or just firmware differences.  Way beyond my technical ability to look at this, but I know there are some really saavy folks out there.  I think I am about to grab a 40mhz version based on reviews here and on youtube...  thx

[rhb]

I have a borked FY-6600 (V 3.1 FW). If you want to hack, buy the FY-6600.  There is a *very* active thread on that.  If you just want a cheap AWG, buy the JDS-6600 unless you *really* want the back panel BNCs of the FY-6600.

I can't speak to the support on the JDS as I don't have one (yet).  But FeelTech made a lot of promises about support, but I am still stuck with a crippled unit.

If you get a working unit, the performance is really good for the price.  Keep return shipping cost in mind when choosing a supplier.  If you get an FY-6600 with FW below V3.2 return it immediately. You do not want the headaches unless you have a strong masochistic streak.

Supposedly both units were designed by the same person.  That seems plausible given that the implementations are rather different. The FY uses a DAC, the JDS uses a discrete R-2R ladder and a different FPGA.  The sort of thing someone reputable would do if they changed jobs and were asked to reproduce a previous design.

Both designs appear to be sold as private label devices with a variety of names on the front panel.  The proper identifier seems to be the model.

[geekGee]

I too have been facing this little dilemma.  I think I am leaning toward the FY6600 due to how well it is covered in this forum.   

Another important technical consideration is my dislike of the font used to label the JDS6600's connectors.   

And as age seems to be a factor in this decision, I'll mention I'm 53. 

[Gandalf_Sr]

If you want to tinker and learn about the test gear, are on a very low budget, have plenty of time to spare, and are a masochist, then consider these waveform generators. 

For what I consider not much more money - around $337.50 total after eevblog discount - you can buy a Rigol DG1022Z from TEquiment and have it shipped to you for free. Then you will be able to:

1. Get a real warranty and return it if there's something wrong
2. Apply firmware updates when they are released
3. Not worry about power supplies frying you or the DUT
4. Get free AWG control software that runs on your PC
5. Be able to 'talk' to your AWG over LAN/USB using LXI
6. If you already own a Rigol scope like a DS1054Z, you can capture a waveform on the scope and then load it into the DG1022Z as an AWG file.

The DG1022Z hasn't been hacked (yet) but the only things you won't get are a) deeper AWG waveform memory and b) sine waves up to 30/60 MHz (the DG1032Z/DG1062Z ($500/$850) only give you the deeper memory and sine waves of higher frequency, the spec of non-sine wave stuff is only up to 25 MHz for all 3 models as far as I can tell.

I considered buying one of the XX6600 AWGs but came to my senses and decided to order a DG1022Z that arrives today, I've wasted too much time f***ing around with beta-level products that never get supported properly to do it again.

[Candid]

@Gandalf_Sr
You are right when you say that you get more for more money but I think less than $100 compared to about $340 it is ok to think about what one gets. If you are a hobbyist or if you earn money with what you need e function generator for may make a big difference what money you spend for such a product. For sure you get a much better product when you by a Rigol or Siglent e.g. but the FeelTech or JDS function gens are nice products for what they cost and will do a fine job in many situations. As I read tjxkeiths' inital post I think going with one of this low budget products will be a good decision to go with.

If the price would not be in his concern I am sure he would have asked about pros and cons for a Rigol or Siglent.

[rhb]

Some general comments:

A 25 MHz square wave will not be very square on an instrument that goes to 60 MHz sine wave unless there is quite a bit of additional BW in the output stages.  It would need to be in excess of 125 MHz just to include the 3rd and 5th harmonics and 250 MHz BW to be really good.  The sine wave is limited by the DAC sample rate.

A Russian FPGA designer with a lot of Altera experience recently joined the FY  thread.  He's on holiday at the moment, but returns the end of the month. One of his suggestions is adding the ability to load FW updates without wiping out the original FW.

Quite a lot of progress has been made on new FW for the FY. At present a "blue pill" STM32F1xx board makes it a capable USB instrument and the SMPS mains leakage is an easy cure on both devices.  All those Arduino wall wart power supplies have the same mains leakage issues.  It's just no one notices.

I strongly  suspect that the FY will become similar to the WRT54G/GL.  People buy it and immediately chuck the OEM FW for FOSS  FW.

[paulca]

I bought the FY and I'm now wishing I had bought the JDS.  I don't need multi MHz bandwidth, certainly not now anyway.

I have bought stuff to replace the supply with a linear one, but it's such a faff trying to fit it in the case.

It's also had to find a straight answer to the question:

If I hook it up as is to some breadboard op amp audio circuit will the mains leakage actually cause any risk or issues?  Does it matter if I end up earth referencing the breadboard with something like a USB DAC?

I'd like to use the FY, but I'm not sure I'm ready to swap the PSU to a homebrew linear one.  The later will involve fitting a fairly large (for the space available transformer in there + two voltage regulator boards.  I can get them to fit but it's tight.  I haven't even bench tested the PSU yet.

[ArcticGeek]

As far as risk is concerned, I would say the risk is small.  Even though you can see 100V+ pk-pk on the shell of the BNC connectors with a scope, that level of leakage is present on just about any consumer device you purchase.  For example, if you probe the shell of the audio connectors on a DVD player you will see the same thing.  Just about any switching power supply will have this leakage due to the Y caps that are inside the supply.

That being said, test equipment still should not have this level of leakage on it and it's not the best practice.  A simple solution is just ground the shells of the BNC connectors to earth ground.

I actually just purchased the JDS6600 function generator just because it will be easier to ground the BNC connectors by simply replacing the wall wart with a grounded unit.  That's really the main reason I purchased it over the FY unit - it will just be much less horsing around to ground the unit.  It was also pretty reasonably priced the other day because Ebay was having a 15% off everything sale here in the US and that pushed me over the edge to buy one.

There was also a thread here on EEVblog the other day where a member got an email claiming that there will be a new FY6800 (not a typo) coming out soon.  This new unit will fix the leakage on the BNC connectors, that sounds encouraging.