Looking for O-scope suggestions / reviews

[Byte_Butcher]

Yep. Got a new scope. Again.

It's been here for a week or more but I've been too busy to fool with it much. It might be another week before I get a chance to spend some serious time with it.

FWIW, I sent the B&K back to Digikey. Their Product Manager had a look at it and agreed that it was junk. It goes back to China.
Digikey refunded my money including tax and shipping. I love Digikey. I almost never have trouble with them and if I do they always make it good right away.

I ended up not getting the Owon. The lure of higher bandwidth and sample rates got me, and I got a Rigol DS1102CA instead. 100MHz, 2Gsa/s.
At $899 it was still inside my budget limit. I ordered it from Saelig and it shipped the same day.

Initial impressions are much better than with the B&K. The window glass was clean, the fan is quiet, and all the controls seem to work smoothly and predictably.
The only "problem" I've noticed so far is that the USB connection doesn't seem to work, but I haven't fooled with it enough to know if the problem is with the machine or the operator...

So far I've only used it to look at the serial data stream between PIC and a graphic LCD display. It seems to trigger reliably and show what I need to see.

Hopefully next weekend I'll get a chance to really put it to the test and get a feel for how well it works. Initial impressions are OK so far.


steve

[WOZZY-2010]

Steve,

I just checked it out on the web and it looks really nice.

Nothing like a new toy...errr tool with lots of buttons to play with.

Bob W.

[HankMcSpank]

I went with the times about a year ago & sold my Tektronix for 100 notes & paid out 120 notes for a Hantek DSO-2150 - digital storage Oscilloscope.

It knocks spots off the my old scope - built in storage, auto measurement (peak to peak, DC offset, frequency, duty cycle blah blah) - oh yeah, I rescued one helluva lot of bench space back too!

The only downside, is 'screen' real estate .....as a Byte_Butcher says- alt tabbing between the schematic, datasheet & scope can be a little tiring (I guess I could print out the schematic & datasheet though!)

Also the more visible 'digital noise' on the baseline trace isn't as aethetically pleasing as a luminescent scope trace - there's just something organic about a proper scope's trace.

Have to say though the Hantek (China) support has been fantastic - the developer listens to ideas and will facytor them in (thery're also quick to respond)

[Byte_Butcher]

I finally spent some quality time with the Rigol DS1102CA last weekend.
I got the USB problem figured out (well, I didn't really "figure it out", but it works now), so everything appears to work correctly.

It's got a few "features" that irritate me a bit, but for the most part I like it a lot. This one is a keeper.

I'll post my review of it sometime later this week.


steve

[Byte_Butcher]

Well, spring is here and I've been spending much of my free time tending the garden and fooling with deer fences and NOT playing with electronics...
But I've finally spent enough time with my new (again) scope to get comfortable with it and collect a few of my thoughts about it.

The B&K 2534 just didn't make the grade so I returned it and bought a Rigol DS1102CA. The Rigol isn't perfect, but I like it plenty well to keep it and use it. My scope quest has come to an end for now.

If anyone cares, here's my review of the Rigol:
http://www.weirdstuffwemake.com/swee...newscope2.html


steve

[ronstevens]

This one’s really quite amazing. It just feels like a quality scope. All the button indents are really quite high quality. The button presses, the screen. The screen is really good. But it’s got a nice bright LED back light. It’s almost too bright really and it’s a big step up form their previous series. Other things are a really nice carry handle which locks into place. You have got some real nice sturdy feet which snap out into position like that. It’s got a USB host. Very important. It also you to plug in a memory stick, get screen captures and takes a few seconds to do boot up. One of the, I guess really the main annoying aspect which I have is that it does actually have a fan.