Recommendations for Oscilloscope.

[Jon Kirwan]

Get a Rigol color digital scope. DS1052E is good. Under $400.

Rigol dropped the price on their DS1102E to under $400, ...
more than 1/2 year ago, I think.

Jon

 

[notbob]

Rigol dropped the price on their DS1102E to under $400, ...
more than 1/2 year ago, I think.

Yeah. $399.

 

[Jon Kirwan]

Yeah. $399.

Of course, I knew. When it dropped, I immediately bought one
from a business that had dropped it even lower still, to
$349. I'm cheap but I actually needed it for a project
evaluating these low cost units. Good timing!

Jon

 

[notbob]

Of course, I knew. When it dropped, I immediately bought one
from a business that had dropped it even lower still, to
$349.

Are you going to reveal this magical place?

I found half doz prices online and none were below $395USD.

nb

 

[Jamie]

Are you going to reveal this magical place?

I found half doz prices online and none were below $395USD.

nb

This isn't a bad starter..

http://www.saelig.com/PSBEB100/PSBEB100009.htm

Jamie

 

[notbob]

This isn't a bad starter..

http://www.saelig.com/PSBEB100/PSBEB100009.htm

The real trick is finding a 1052 50MHz model. I've seen 'em fer
$329USD at Rigolna.com (north america). Then, you jes do the software
upgrade to 100MHz! If I'm not mistaken, it's the exact same hardware,
right down to the same chip numbers. There's an entry on D Jone's
EEVblog website that talks about it. I may have misinterpreted what
he was saying. Ima geezer.

nb

 

[Jon Kirwan]

Are you going to reveal this magical place?

I found half doz prices online and none were below $395USD.

I believe you.

I'll check my invoice (dated in December, so I have go look
for it) from Saelig to be certain of the price. Do that
tomorrow, I think.

There was a short sale I picked up on at the end of November
or very early December, announced a few days after Rigol
dropped the list price. Prices soon changed, though.

Jon

 

[Jon Kirwan]

The real trick is finding a 1052 50MHz model. I've seen 'em fer
$329USD at Rigolna.com (north america). Then, you jes do the software
upgrade to 100MHz! If I'm not mistaken, it's the exact same hardware,
right down to the same chip numbers. There's an entry on D Jone's
EEVblog website that talks about it. I may have misinterpreted what
he was saying. Ima geezer.

It's not quite so easy anymore. I think they have made it
"tougher" to do.

I'd like to figure out a cheap way to add the MSO functions
to the DSO!

Jon

 

[Jamie]

The real trick is finding a 1052 50MHz model. I've seen 'em fer
$329USD at Rigolna.com (north america). Then, you jes do the software
upgrade to 100MHz! If I'm not mistaken, it's the exact same hardware,
right down to the same chip numbers. There's an entry on D Jone's
EEVblog website that talks about it. I may have misinterpreted what
he was saying. Ima geezer.

nb

True however, 2 of the guys I work with did that and I decided to get a
100Mhz labeled one. I can tell you that both do look the same as far as
the software functions however, after several comparison test, it
appears the converted ones seem to have problems with wave forms not
exactly matching the 100 Mhz when pushing the scope to the upper limits..

This leads me to believe that some 100 MHz intended boards didn't
quite pass QC at the high end or, there are some software OEM parameters
that need to be tweaked per unit to account for differences which didn't get
done.

Jamie

 

[newshound]

As I get more advanced at creating circuits, I can see the benefit to
owning an Oscilloscope. I'm on a fairly tight budget, and was hoping to
get a recommendation on a cheap oscilloscope that is "good enough" for
hobby work. I've used one at school years ago, which probably had more
bells and whistles than I would ever need.

What features are essential for a hobbiest? What can I do without? Any
particular brands that are cheap but reliable?

Thanks for suggestions,
Daniel.

Unanswerable without knowing more about what you are making. Audio?
Computers? Radio? GHz comms?

FWIW Ive started dabbling with simple stuff again (used to have access
to serious research kit) and thought about getting one of the little
digitals recently, but in the end got an old Phillips 30 MHz storage
scope from eBay for not much over £100. Partly because although it has
lots of knobs, I understand what they do; I suspect that doing
everything via menus would be a PITA.

 

[Michael Black]

Nowadays the benchtop digital scopes have the usual knobs, volts/div,
time/div, positions, trigger level. They do have menus for stuff like
ac/dc, trigger slopes, that sort of thing. The Rigols are pretty easy
to drive.

In the early days of digital scopes, some had, like, 4 buttons and all
menus. We domo'd one HP scope that nobody could get to do anything.

But is that all that different from the old Tek scopes with endless knobs?
We've had questions here over the years, people can't get their scopes to
work, and the answers are usually things like make sure the knobs are set
right. I remember losing traces decades ago, a switch thrown the wrong
way and easy to miss since there were so many combinations.

The most valuable button on my Tek scope is "default setup" which,
basically, means "get me the hell out of here!"

My calculator was acting up last night, into some mode that I accidentally
put it. Couldn't remember how to get it back, the manual not handy. Then
I remembered the reset button, and wham, all was right.


Michael

 

[Fred Abse]

We've had questions here over the years, people can't get their scopes to
work, and the answers are usually things like make sure the knobs are set
right.

AKA RTFM.

Tek analog scopes were made for *engineers*, who used to know at least
something about how they worked.

 

[[email protected]]

I bet I remember that one. Two stacked boat anchors, one a 10-Ms/s
digitizer, the other a display. You had to drill down two menu levels
to set the vertical gain.

The Tektronix digital oscilloscope was pretty cool, OTOH. It was basically a
7704A with a digitizer inserted between the display half and the plugin bays.
It took any combination of 7000 series plugins. An external computer was
required, though. ;-)

I got it off the IBM corporate surplus list, and within an hour it was
out in the hallway to be taken away and thrown out.

I'm sure at least a couple of the Tektronix DPOs were in there, too. I put
them there. ;-)

I'm pretty fond of my 475 and 2467. You can see stuff that's invisible
on most digital scopes. They also don't alias, which Simon found
helpful this summer. (I'll be integrating some of his LPC1769 code into
my noise canceller design this week.)

I like the 475s and would probably buy one for myself, If I knew it would work
(don't trust the ones on eBay). OTOH, I doubt I'd ever find a reason to
replace my Agilent MSO-X-3104 at work, with one.

 

[[email protected]]

AKA RTFM.

No, it's a matter of going through all the knobs to see which one is set
wrong. The manual won't help one bit.

Tek analog scopes were made for *engineers*, who used to know at least
something about how they worked.

Don't be an ass. You still need to go through all of the settings to see
which one is messed up. With no trace, it's not obvious which one it is.

 

[Fred Abse]

No, it's a matter of going through all the knobs to see which one is set
wrong. The manual won't help one bit.


Don't be an ass. You still need to go through all of the settings to see
which one is messed up. With no trace, it's not obvious which one it is.

Brightness fully CCW.
Time/div 1ms.
Timebase main.
Trace #1.
Volts/div fully CCW
Input grounded.
Trigger p-p auto, or auto.
Beam locate in.
Advance brightness for visible trace.
Center trace and release beam locate.

It becomes second nature. You can look at the front panel of an analog
'scope and it's obvious how to drive it. An unfamiliar digital means a
session with the manual to find out which menu does what. I've never spent
more than 60 seconds getting a central, focused trace on a working analog
'scope.

I had a Tek 4-trace, 1GHz B/W, color, TDS something-or-other, that I never
fully got the hang of. My digital 'scopes are now all HP.

I still use a 7904A, by preference, except if I *need* math.

 

[Winston]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:38:16 -0700, Fred Abse wrote:

(...)

I had a Tek 4-trace, 1GHz B/W, color, TDS something-or-other, that I
never fully got the hang of. My digital 'scopes are now all HP.

I grew up with analog scopes and found the TDS learning curve to be
almost flat. Before long the instrument was just like a natural
appendage. I never could get the hang of the Agilent scopes.
'Seems like the least little operation required lots of time looking
at the manual. Feh.

--Winston

 

[[email protected]]

My eBay success rate is probably 92%, averaged over several dozen
instruments. The exceptions have been mostly due to poor packing.

For cameras, my results have been excellent, too, but I worry about >40YO
electronics where parts availability is zero.

 

[[email protected]]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 12:38:16 -0700, Fred Abse wrote:

(...)

I didn't have any trouble figuring out the TDS-3034(?) and 3014(?) we had at
the PPoE. It was a very logical layout.

I grew up with analog scopes and found the TDS learning curve to be
almost flat. Before long the instrument was just like a natural
appendage. I never could get the hang of the Agilent scopes.
'Seems like the least little operation required lots of time looking
at the manual. Feh.

I would have stuck with Tektronix at my CPoE but the "lead" engineer was sorta
stuck on Agilent and had their reps in for demos. The boss said we could
order scopes (one for each of the new guys), so we did. I requested a
MSO-X-3054 (didn't want to be greedy) but when it came it was a 3104 - don't
know where the switch was made but I didn't complain. Again, I've had no
trouble finding my way around it. Like the Tektronix scopes, it also is a
very natural layout. After driving it a while, I much prefer the digital
aspects over the Tek. The bus analyzers have hardware assists so are
real-time, rather than sampling off the digitizer. The only negative about
the Agilent is that most others around have Teks, so probes are a problem. But
that's fixed with $$. ;-)

 

[Winston]

Agilent learned how to make scopes about a dozen years ago, right around
the time that Tek forgot.

I'll take your word for it in both cases Phil.

The Agilent I tried to use was one made in '94 or so (18 years?!).

I've seen some scuttlebutt about some of the very latest Teks and I'm
saddened because the TDS I used in '95-'98 was an excellent tool.

--Winston

 

[[email protected]]

When I was at IBM, around 2006ish, the Tek guys demoed a 10-GHz scope
that had about 8% overshoot on the step response.

It was a really sad experience, having to explain to *Tektronix factory
engineers* that a scope lives and dies by its step response.

The 7-GHz TDS7704 I eventually bought (a demo model) was much better,
but still not what it should have been.

They do seem to have wised up considerably in the interim--I had a demo
of their nice MSO-spectrum analyzer combo, which I might buy if a couple
of contracts come in. Unfortunately the spectrum analyzer part doesn't
have that great close-in phase noise, but the three-domain capability is
very powerful.

You do know that the SA on that box uses (hardware accelerated) FFT from the
sampled input. It's certainly useful to correlate time and frequency domains
but it isn't a great stand-alone spectrum analyzer.

And the new ones don't run Windows, huzzah!

I thought they did.