WENS 540 Handheld 10MHz Oscilloscope and Debug Meter

[EEVblog]

A very brief look at the new WENS 540 Debug Meter with Charles from Trio Test at the Electronex show stand:
http://www.triotest.com.au/shop/en/handheld/3125-wens-540-10mhz-automotive-oscilloscope-and-debug-meter.html

[Pedram]

the forum link on the blog post is wrong .

[caroper]

I hope you are able to do a full review, looks like an interesting product.

[Hamster]

love to get my hands on one in the US to do a full review against my HP 16702B w/Pattern Genny

Would be super handy for working on pinball/arcade machines @ 10Mhz.  Who is the distributor?

[R_G_B_]

A much cheaper version of the fluke 125.
Most probely not as good seems like an expensive antenna with all that noise its picking up.

[EEVblog]

Would be super handy for working on pinball/arcade machines @ 10Mhz.  Who is the distributor?

No idea outside of Australia.

[max_torque]

Hmmm, i think Fluke might have something to say about the colour scheme of that meter..........      Bet you can't buy it in the US ;-)

[nctnico]

It has a neat bag of tricks but the price is way too high.

[mikeselectricstuff]

That plug for the logic probes looks little more than a pin-header - seems like it would be rather fragile.

[Nermash]

For a moment I thought that it is Fluke 287 II

[Rasz]

Price is crazy, but this is what car/boat/airplane engine service people are used to paying. They will be all over this.

[dentaku]

It seems a bit expensive but still useful. I hope you get one in the lab to test it out.

[kcozens]

The price seems a bit high for the meter but you are getting quite a few instruments in a very small and quite portable package. Not something you would use on a workbench but great if you need test gear while you are away from the lab and are under tight constraints as to space or weight for what you can have with you.

The next model up from the 540 should include an inductance meter and the ability to select other (e.g. sine, triangle, and ramp) waveforms in the signal generator.

[Galenbo]

I read some people here saying it's expensive. What other make, model is cheaper and has the same specs, possibilities?

[Rasz]

I read some people here saying it's expensive. What other make, model is cheaper and has the same specs, possibilities?

already mentioned earlier http://www.all-sun.com/EN/d.aspx?pht=1184
not as sexy, no logic analyser, 8x cheaper

but service tech working on airplane engines wont give a toss about the price

[Artraze]

I read some people here saying it's expensive. What other make, model is cheaper and has the same specs, possibilities?

Well, for a similar price you can get a significantly more powerful device .

Obviously it's not in the scope-meter format, but that's as much an advantage as disadvantage: bigger screen, less fiddly interface, etc.  Unless you need the portability, it's hard to justify paying for the better part of a 'real' scope for a portable but otherwise fairly inferior instrument.

If it's the kind of tool that would make your day job quicker/easier then it's worth every cent (especially compared to what Fluke would charge).  But for most of the folks here it's a very neat tool, but not something worth blowing that much budget on.

[nctnico]

I read some people here saying it's expensive. What other make, model is cheaper and has the same specs, possibilities?

If I go to a customer I typically bring a laptop. You can buy lots of USB test equipment for that kind of money.

[EEVblog]

Unless you need the portability, it's hard to justify paying for the better part of a 'real' scope for a portable but otherwise fairly inferior instrument.

Well, yeah, that's the entire point of this product!
It's silly to compare apples and oranges in this instance.

[Lightages]

I would seriously like to see a review of this thing. I am curious if it appears to be what I think. It appears to be something that is just not quite up to the job of any of the individual tasks you might need it for. 10MHz with how many samples per second? How many samples per second for the logic? 10k samples might be enough but usually isn't when trying to troubleshoot. Is it truly CAT rated and protected properly for poking around where problems lurk? To me, at first glance and with prejudice, it looks like more of a toy than something that you can trust. I am willing to be proven wrong......

[max_torque]

Unless you need the portability, it's hard to justify paying for the better part of a 'real' scope for a portable but otherwise fairly inferior instrument.

Well, yeah, that's the entire point of this product!
It's silly to compare apples and oranges in this instance.

It's easy to forget just how important "other" factors are or can be in a piece of test equipment.
 I work on rally cars a lot, often in what would be considered terrible working conditions (cold, dark, wet, muddy etc) and i've got a trusty Fluke 123 scopemeter i use.
If one were just to look at the price, and the 20Mhz bandwidth, you could be forgiven for thinking "WTF!". However, add in the fact it doesn't break when you drop it (generally ;-) is completely portable, water resistant (not actually waterproof, but mines survived a few serious dunkings in it's time), easy to operate with big buttons (when wearing gloves) and has nice, strong probe connections that are difficult to mis-insert or damage, THEN you see the point of the device!!!

[VK5RC]

I  would agree with max_torque, while the device looks pretty good value for money initially, I suspect after a few years I reckon it would be annoying me!
I looked at Trio's website and was drawn to the U1620A, while it is over 4x the price, the bandwidth is really useable, the ground's fully isolated, and I suspect some really tough kit. In 10years if it broke I could imagine missing it.

[gocemk]

WENS is practically Agilent, now Keysight Technologies. I own a WENS 820, 20MHz DOM(Digital Oscilloscope Meter) and it is THE SAME as Agilent U1602A/B series. The spec sheet is exactly the same, and also the menus and the controls are practically identical. The meter is 6000 counts, and the continuity speed (as Dave asked) is just awful. I expect it wouldn't be any different on the WENS 540. Don't know about the 540, but it seems the 820 was targeted at the Eastern European market where you are most likely to find one. They are very rare on eBay.
 
For a comparison:

Agilent U1602:
http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-1765986-pn-U1602B/handheld-oscilloscopes?nid=-536906711.920244&cc=MK&lc=eng

and the WENS 800 series:
http://wens.en.ecplaza.net/trade-leads/wen-800-series-wen-820--66442-2337373.html

[nctnico]

I own an Agilent handheld meter as well and I agree the continuity test is too slow to be usefull.

[VK5RC]

I wasn't impressed with the Agilent U1602B but the U1620A I liked from the outside.
Re Agilent continuity speed, you can manually put it in low resistance range to speed things up and you can get the U1253B to give a different tone for different lower resistances. They (well U1253B does) also give you an actual ohms reading in continuity.

[nctnico]

Even in fixed range it is too slow. Contininuity testing must be instant to be usefull otherwise you start to doubt the pins make contact.