Hi,
Wanting to get back into hobby electronics after 30 years away from it I would like to own a scope and the budget DSOs are priced right and I want to learn what the technology can do for me. I don’t have a specific purpose in mind, just general use.
I was attracted to they lay-out of the controls, it has a rechargeable battery with gives me options to quickly place the scope anywhere and start testing instead of worrying about having a power source nearby. Battery is not a deal breaker, just thought it may come in useful. The bigger 8 inch screen is another plus. The fact it has an actual Ext Input for trigger, though since I posted this message I have learned by reading other messages that one of the 4 channels would act as an External Trigger source on the 1054z
The hacking to unlock more features is not a big plus, frankly I would be scared of bricking it, special as I assume the Manufacturers have got to be getting wise to this by now.
I guess I don’t have a strong reason, it was just what seemed right, but that is why I’m asking for opinions and experience from others, I can be swayed.
As I mentioned, its 5 years since the SDS7102 has come out and knowing my luck, the moment I buy, they will come out with a new model.
thanks,
Len
Some factors to consider:
1. You can easily duplicate the functionality of a battery operated oscilloscope by combining a UPS (in unplugged, battery powered mode) and the oscilloscope. This is also usually the cheapest way to get galvanic isolation (which is necessary to be able to haphazardly probe circuits). The 'uncleanliness' of this powering method has no effect on the performance of the 1054z, but I can't speak for other oscilloscopes. The Rigol can also be run directly from DC power (~ 35 volts or more), and the only problem here is that the AC trigger functionality no longer works (usually not a problem).
2. When comparing screen sizes, keep in mind both the size of the screen
and the number of graduations. The Owon seems to be: 15 divisions wide (14 with a half on either side), 10 divisions tall. The Rigol 1504z is 12 divisions wide, 8 divisions tall. The Owon seems to use nearly all of the screen, and the Rigol uses
about 4 divisions wide for button labels (2 left, 2 right), and 2 divisions tall for information. In other words, the overall characterization of the two is that the Rigol reserves a portion of the display for the labels (so the graph is smaller overall), but the additional screensize of the Owon is half wasted (the bottom right hand side of the Owon display that is mostly blue paint). In addition, some people have preferences for these sorts of things - some people seem to like even numbers of graduations, some prefer identical x and y axes. I don't have the luxury to make such a preference.
3. The Rigol's 4 channels explains the differences in controls: the Owon, with an extra two knobs, gets dedicated vertical controls per channel.
4. Depending on what you plan to do, it can be
critically important to have at least 3 channels. This is because of the existence of important 3-wire buses like SPI, I2S, etc. Yes, it's true that logic analyses play a role here (I have the $5 knock-off one and I love it!) -- but if you want to correlate a bus signal to a non-logic-level-voltage signal (anything above 5V) you will need 4+ channels.
5. The Owon scores one for having a VGA output, assuming it works well. It can be wonderful having that big display being enlarged even further -- on a big monitor, on a projector, or recording it to video. On the other hand, the Rigol 1054z has quite a few software choices,
one of which can take screenshots at the rate of about 3 per second, which can be easily stitched into video.
6. The Rigol 1054z probably outsells the Owon many (10? 100?) to one. This means there are more people testing the product, and assuming that the two companies are equally responsive to firmware problems, then the Rigol should be more refined and have more bugs. I do not claim to know if this is true, however.
7. There is
absolutely no reason to think the "hacked" options are going away. They have been available for many years now. Rigol certainly knows about the hacking, and they have chosen not to do anything about it. It's very likely the hackability is part of their popularity, and they know this. Rolling back people who have hacked their scopes would piss of
tremendous numbers of people and would ruin them in the eyes of the hobbyist public.
8. The Rigol HELP system is actually pretty good, especially for beginners. Also, the firmware hackers in another thread are beginning to understand how this is written, so it's possible that we could one day be putting custom information in the firmware to make it even more useful (more diagrams, more reference material, etc).
9. The Rigol (obviously) comes with 2 extra probes, which are worth at least $10-15 each.
10. The Owon has a 200 MHz rate and 2GS/s rate, while the Rigol is about 100 (supposedly 130 effectively) with a 1 GS/s rate. This means the Nyquist rate for the Owon really is substantially higher, so if you need to scope rates which are in the 100-200 MHz range, then the Rigol will fail you.
I don't mean to sway you from one or the other in general, I just want to make sure you consider as much as possible before making a choice. Good luck!