taximan Posted August 8, 2011 Report Share Posted August 8, 2011 Hiya, I am looking for an oscilloscope but as usual on the net there is loads of conflicting information. It will be used in the construction and fault finding on the type of projects here and elsewhere on the net (arduino stuff,analogue synths,drum machines etc) After reading tons of material I have formed the opinion that I need a digital scope with a 100mhz range and a minimum of 2 channels. I am asking the knowledgeable members here for any valuable advice and or an opinion on which machine they would personally use and the price range (lower the better obviously). cheers Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkeye Posted August 8, 2011 Report Share Posted August 8, 2011 (edited) Hello Paul, am somewhat also in the position, that I want one, but those things are not soo cheap. After some research, I´ve come up with a candidate unit, that offers most of the features I´d like, it is the Rigol DS1052e - 2 channels, but only with 50mhz range, but anything above that and it gets really expensive... cost is around 350€, which is outright cheap for a new unit with the features offered in comparsion to others, but still I think it is too much for my amateur needs - for the price, I could get nice music gear :-). The question is, what you will use it for - if you want to debug microcontroller logic levels, e.g. to debug display-problems :-), you will need as much bandwidth as possible, but if you are "only" into some 2-channel oscilloscope audio circuit "in-out" measurements, you could as well go lower and buy anything second-hand off evil-bay (but the really old gear is bulky and can have calibration problems)... As an interesting sidenote, sneakthief made me aware of these "ultra low-cost" scopemeters, which might already be enough for your starting needs - have a look at the gabotronics.com xprotolab which offers 2 channels for only 50USD (at a nonexistent bandwidth, but probably enough for audio signals). I think, I will give one of those thingies a try at some point in time :-) - they also come with an OLED ftw :). Greets, Peter Edited August 8, 2011 by Hawkeye Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jojjelito Posted August 8, 2011 Report Share Posted August 8, 2011 The Rigol is really good for the price and I see no reason whatsoever to spend more as a hobbyist. It has worked nicely for me so far. Us geeky people with geeky jobs probably have access to better gear at work (or know someone who does) if push comes to shove. Donate old tube scopes to your local high-school or college instead - do something worthwhile for the community The OLED units are nice as a basic audio display, general fault-findning aid and for rough idea measurements. Don't use them for any kind of precision measurements though. You can get no-name knockoffs with higher advertised (not necessary useful) bandwidth of the Gabotronic scopemeters if you're really cheap - look at evil-bay but caveat emptor, buyer beware. I can't say anything about those selling those things. J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
findbuddha Posted August 8, 2011 Report Share Posted August 8, 2011 There's this: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/dso-quad-4-channel-digital-storage-oscilloscope-p-736.html?cPath=174 ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jojjelito Posted August 8, 2011 Report Share Posted August 8, 2011 Any variant of the DSO203 (very much like the 4-channel offering from Seed) can be gotten of Evilbay for about 180USD. That's the thing I was alluding to in my post (the older 2-channel offering is far cheaper). I'm not 100% confident that the probe connectors are rugged enough to withstand plugging in and out probes over the years. Also, I haven't tried those. Would be interesting if someone took the fall and tested 'em :devil: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shuriken Posted August 8, 2011 Report Share Posted August 8, 2011 (edited) I did some research on this subject awhile ago. A lot of cheaper scopes do tricks to get to a full signal. They will take multiple samples to actually build a sinus from several points along those samples. So such a device would not notice an incidental drop. It's basically to obscure the fact that their sampling rate is way to low. The EEVBlog has some good info on this subject. Although his presentation is a bit over the top. Here is one telling why you should not buy a DSO scope The Rigol DS1052E is the cheapest device i found which has good hardware. It uses an Agilent chipset which is also used in much more expensive stuff. The hardware allows for 100Mhz. However it's firmware limited to 50Mhz. But some smart folks found a way to do a firmware hack. The Rigol goes for about 400 Dollar in the states, or i can find it in a decent shop here for about 299 Euro. Edited August 8, 2011 by Shuriken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taximan Posted August 11, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2011 Hi all, Thanks for the replies and suggestions,rather than just making do with the cheaper end of the market I am going to go into 'scrooge' mode and scrape some money together for a Rigol (as these get a lot of favourable comments from folks). Again,thanks for replying Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkeye Posted August 12, 2011 Report Share Posted August 12, 2011 That is a wise choice... Me is ´prolly also following that road :) Greets, Peter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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