Rigol DS1102E vs Xytron DSO1102CAL aka (Atten ADS1102CAL)

[ClearZ]

Hi All,

First I'd like to so hello to everybody. I'm new to the forum but hope to be here regularly. I studied Comp Science at college but always regretted not doing Electronic Engineering. Instead I have decided to take up electronics as a hobby and have recently spent a few hundred on components etc. I am now in the market for an oscilloscope but don't know which to buy. I have seen Dave do a review of the Xytron DSO1042CML which is a 40Mhz version of the one I am looking at and it looks very good. I especially like the 7" screen but have read that it is next to impossible to export data to a PC using the USB due to proprietary protocols/file formats. Which scope would you reccomend over the other and why?

Xytron DSO1042CML Review

Rigol DS1102E @ Amazon
Atten ADS1102CAL@ Amazon

Thanks,
John.

[aghp]

Hi All,

First I'd like to so hello to everybody. I'm new to the forum but hope to be here regularly. I studied Comp Science at college but always regretted not doing Electronic Engineering. Instead I have decided to take up electronics as a hobby and have recently spent a few hundred on components etc. I am now in the market for an oscilloscope but don't know which to buy. I have seen Dave do a review of the Xytron DSO1042CML which is a 40Mhz version of the one I am looking at and it looks very good. I especially like the 7" screen but have read that it is next to impossible to export data to a PC using the USB due to proprietary protocols/file formats. Which scope would you reccomend over the other and why?

Rigol DS1102E @ Amazon
Atten ADS1102CAL@ Amazon

Thanks,
John.

Why Atten? Atten buy (these models)  from Siglent.  Original manufacturer is Siglent who make this model also to LeCroy. (do not mix never this model to Siglent/Atten/xxx/LeCroy older models what have small display)

ADS1102CAL  = Siglent SDS1102CNL  (with max 40k sampling buffer  (full speed)
ADS1102CML  = Siglent SDS1102CML (with this full speed sampling buffer  + max 2M half speed sampling buffer memory)

These can (least Siglent and LeCroy) use also normally with computer using NI-Visa.  SCPI commands. It can command also via RS232 if someone want.
Also of course these models own PC-software (but these softwares are, as usual, least partially crap)


".....but have read that it is next to impossible to export data to a PC using the USB due to proprietary protocols/file formats."

Really?

Data format  is .CSV
Now, what is problem? File format is strange?

With PC:

Using  NI-VISA. Yes.
Using SCPI commands with what ever software made for this via USB, via RS232. (example using NI-VISA drivers  or third party made software for communicate via RS232)
Using GPIB (IEE488) (need USB-GPIB module available from Siglent) and SCPI.  Very common industrial control bus.  Using third party made software for communicate via GPIB.
Move files using USB memory to PC and file format .CSV

In internet you find  many things and opinions. Sometimes it is very difficult to find what information is reliable.

[Bored@Work]

This is not a review from Dave.

Regarding an Atten/Siglent (formerly known as Din Young Technology Company, a subsidiary of Atten), the question is why? Service or support from Atten/Siglent is unheard of.

Regarding the PC interface, well ... If it works at all (Atten did sell function generators with a fake front panel USB interface), and if it does send data to the PC, then it should be possible to make it work.  If all else fails you sniff the USB traffic and reverse engineer the protocol. Or like the Hantek guys did, disassemble the firmware.

[aghp]

This is not a review from Dave.

Regarding an Atten/Siglent (formerly known as Din Young Technology Company, a subsidiary of Atten), the question is why? Service or support from Atten/Siglent is unheard of.

Regarding the PC interface, well ... If it works at all (Atten did sell function generators with a fake front panel USB interface), and if it does send data to the PC, then it should be possible to make it work.  If all else fails you sniff the USB traffic and reverse engineer the protocol. Or like the Hantek guys did, disassemble the firmware.

If ATTEN have sold signal generator with fake USB (maybe you also have read this case) what hell doing this is with Siglent oscilloscopes or Siglent SDG1000 or SDG5000 series today.  This ATTEN signal generator is just piece of crap. Attendingdongmeilichingchang do not have resources for  design this kind of products.  This (Atten crap) generator have nothing to do with example Siglent SDG1000 series generators, nothing...  so what is point of this opinion.

Personally I do not at all understand what have happend between you and Atten in history.
I sympathized sad if something bad happened. But what does that have to do with today's Siglent? Hard to understand.
After history, many things have changed.

ATTEN   buy  from many many sources (even from some  lowest end "car-garage factories" they equipments and rebrand these to "Atten" name.  (look example (some models)  piece of bullshit copycat soldering stations) Also they buy some things from Siglent - maybe better for Siglent if they buy from some other source so Atten name do not smudge Siglent anymore.   If there is some same shareholders behind these companies, do you know what all companies in China they may own partially or fully.  But Siglent have they own new factory and ATTEN is one Siglent factory customer.  Some ATTEN oscilloscopes they BUY from Siglent.  Atten do not even have production line for make these oscilloscopes. But for different products Atten use many sources, not only Siglent.

Also if (and when) Atten buy oscilloscopes (as OEM/ODM) from Siglent they can, if they want, make order using they own  specifications also example for reduce price.

Also, as you well know, Siglent have just started sharing some FW updates and I believe they will develop this system better in future.
Personally I do not have be in any kind of problem to get all kind of support from Siglent.


Subsidiary of Atten... wel you are fun but prhaps best joke for this morning.

(Btw, I have just been in south China and "looked around" 2 months around south China. maybe you also know that today, many of chinese manufacturers want NDA before you enter in to security check... )

[Bored@Work]

Subsidiary of Atten... wel you are fun but prhaps best joke for this morning.

You explain to me why Siglent gives its history exactly in the same words as Din Young Technology Company.  Including the same spelling errors. Word for word, except that every mention of Din Young Technology is replaced by the word Siglent. You further explain to me why I did find DinYoung's history on the Siglent website. It took Siglent until the beginning of the year until they finally removed the last mentioning of Din Young from their website.

But they still didn't manage to purge everything. Here is an old whois record, see the listed owner of the siglent.com domain?

http://reviews.gcoupon.com/info/whois/www.siglent.com

Domain Name.......... siglent.com
Creation Date........ 2008-07-14 14:06:41
Registration Date.... 2008-07-14 14:06:41
Expiry Date.......... 2017-07-14 14:06:41
Organisation Name.... DinYoung technologies Co.,Ltd.
Organisation Address. 3/F,Bldg No.4,AntongdaIndustrial Zone,3rd Liuxian Road.Bao'an District,Shenzhen,518101,China
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. Shenzhen
Organisation Address. 518055
Organisation Address. GD
Organisation Address. CN

You know, I hate to be lied and deceived. So why don't you ask your friends at Siglent about Din Young, and why Siglent gives its company history in exactly the same words? And why don't you rethink your claim that Siglent and Atten aren't related? Oh, I know, you want to sell your Siglent stuff, and the relation between Siglent and Atten is harming your business. But that doesn't make the relation go away.

To refresh your memory, here is a 1:1 comparison of how Atten's DinYoung subsidiary gave their company history, and how Siglent does. Note that even the spelling errors are the same, as if Siglent just used search & replace to make up their company history. Now, quick, call your Siglent friends and ask them to invent a new company history:

D: 2002, entrepreneurs of DinYoung Technology Company.,Ltd started to studies  preliminary digital oscilloscope.

A: 2002, entrepreneurs of SIGLENT Technologies Co.,Ltd started to studies  preliminary digital oscilloscope.


D: 2005.10, DinYoung Technology Company.,Ltd producted the sampling rate of up to 1 G, have EasyHunting and a number of innovative technologies such as the ADS7000 family, EasyHunting makes the digital oscilloscope's precision of DinYoung Technology Company.,Ltd increased 2-4 times than the same level of precision digital oscilloscope .

A: 2005.10, SIGLENT Technologies Co.,Ltd producted the sampling rate of up to 1 G, have EasyHunting and a number of innovative technologies such as the ADS7000 family, EasyHunting makes the digital oscilloscope's precision of SIGLENT Technologies Co.,Ltd increased 2-4 times than the same level of precision digital oscilloscope .


D: 2007,the series of ADS7000  sales in the United States and Western European , our digital oscilloscope  product sales 10,000 in 2007.

A: 2007,the series of ADS7000  sales in the United States and Western European , our digital oscilloscope  product sales 10,000 in 2007.


D: 2007.1, DinYoung Technology Company.,Ltd introduced ADS2000 series,it will be the first time that introduce the U disk storage technology and the introduction of printing technology to 1 G sampling of the digital oscilloscope.

A: 2007.1, SIGLENT Technologies Co.,Ltd introduced ADS2000 series,it will be the first time that introduce the U disk storage technology and the introduction of printing technology to 1 G sampling of the digital oscilloscope.


D: 2008.1, DinYoung Technology Company.,Ltd  begined to the researchs of  bandwidth of 500 M-1G-oscilloscope and plans to empolder products in 2010 of the bandwidth of up to 1 G of the mid-range digital oscilloscope products. [/i]

A: 2008.1, SIGLENT Technologies Co.,Ltd  begined to the researchs of  bandwidth of 500 M-1G-oscilloscope and plans to empolder products in 2010 of the bandwidth of up to 1 G of the mid-range digital oscilloscope products.


D: 2008.3, DinYoung Technology Company.,Ltd producted ADS1000C series, fashion aesthetic appearance, compact size and powerful features.they maked ADS1000C to sharp rise in sales.

A: 2008.3, SIGLENT Technologies Co.,Ltd producted ADS1000C series, fashion aesthetic appearance, compact size and powerful features.they maked ADS1000C to sharp rise in sales.


D: 2008.8, DinYoung Technology Company.,Ltd introduced real-time sampling rate of up to 2 G's ADS1000CE series.

A: 2008.8, SIGLENT Technologies Co.,Ltd introduced real-time sampling rate of up to 2 G's ADS1000CE series.

Then Din Young disappeared from the face of the earth and suddenly it was all Siglent.

[aghp]

I have not tell that they are not related.
There is relationships.

But...

Siglent SDG1000 and SDG5000 are made exactly inside Siglent factory new product lines.

Siglent SDS1000 some models ATTEN buy from Siglent. This do not mean they are exatly same, there maybe or not some differencies .. depends how Atten have specified what they buy.

Atten sell lot of different things named as "Atten" and yhey may be from many many sources.

Siglent make and sell Siglent!  You can not buy Atten named oscilloscope from Siglent.

Atten do not have manufacturin line for these oscilloscopes.

It not meaning anything if I sell or not Siglent or Atten, also I have sold before Rigol, Hantek, Tektronix, Hewlett Packard, Agilent, Rohde&Schwartz, Meili (MeiChuang), Trimble, Symmetricom, Fluke etc. It do not change this truth that Siglent models what I named here are made exactly inside Siglent factory product line. They are not made in any Atten product line.

Also in history I have named Atten and Siglent just piece of crap.

2012 I have _littlebit_ updated my opinion becouse I take some models to my lab tests and for full inspection including functional and also inside HW.  I find that I need change my earlier  opinion (yes it was difficult to change own mind "thruths") due to these new models/versions made in Siglent modern manufacturing lines.

Peoples have many opinions and also many wrong old obsolete opinions what they carry whole they end life. Also some people who tell his opinion and "tests" may be just first time in his life touching any oscilloscope or other test equipment.  It can also littlebit see that some peoples have more interets to rewievs than go to first study and get some real experience for do even onen real lab test with acceptable quality.   Some opinions come from long road real "high-end" professionals who may have long lifetime experience  to do real lab works (sometimes these can see even here) and then all between these two situations. I'm somewhere between these two, far away from high-end test equipment lab professionals but still long experience with working and using test equipments as tools to make my salary. (this do not mean selling, selling is only just side car nearly like hobby). 

My opinion is that today Siglent have reasonable good quality in some products and example nice features in UI in these selected products and if also look prices.

LeCroy also use these (some) models. Why?

(of course sometimes you find LeCroy, Tektronix and Agilent have "bad luck" customers and this is possible with every brand)

Then one effect. Mostly, not allways, if people have troubles with using some equipment you see this all around internet. If people is just happy with his equipment... many times he do not tell it all around internet. Some peoples are just so that making "big noise" is more fun than solve problems. Then some, example you, make your own "truth" using these information without your own real knowledge.  Some times I have seen that people talk that equipment have problem but real problem sit on the chair front of equipment... not in bad meaning but many times total lack of any experience and knowledge how to use equipment  and  understand  what it really show and why. 
 
Of course everyone have been novice some day but why so often without any real reason first thinking is that equipment have problem. "oh I just touch probe tip and oscilloscope diplays sonmething like chaos .. do it have probvlem, do some other people know if this name <piip> oscilloscope have this kind of fails or problems etc...

In history, there was also some Siglent oscilloscope model. Well... it is history, Quality was more low than today.  You know, chinese are clever and they also learn fast. What you know about something from last year or before... all it is obsolete today.

Yes there is dingdongyoungs  aka Din Young Technology.
It can still find example if you look Siglent introduction  about Siglent USB-GPIB module.
What is wrong with dingdong..

If there is Atten factory who make or buy  from some smudge car-garage "factory" and then sell with Atten name some real crap product ... do you think it means that becouse there is digdong then also Siglent factory do all they production as crap. 

If Atten have made some mistakes with one crap signal generator. Do you really think it change   SDS1000L series oscilloscope as bullshit or same for SDG1000 series AWG (in they price class). With it features and building quality it is amazing.

Do you have your lab made real tests?

I have.  Biased? Well these test can repeated if need in every lab. Tests have made using good lab practices and documented so that they can also repeat in other labs if need.





And final, honestly. I'm not interest to continue this talking.

But if you have some real data from tests and if my test give different data, then I will look if I can shoot down your data or not.
Also I'm not so interesting to sell these equipments. It do not give enough money.
10 hour work, carry risks, and you get barely 2 euro per hour. Do you really think with this money I sell my soul for trying tell that crap is best in world.   Also I sell face to face to peoples who can also meet me after deal.  They are also welcome to test and look equipments before buy.  So I'm in very bad situation for lies and high bias... they laugh me out if I even try.   I'm not american shop-TV seller.

But well, you have heard some guy tell some place time ago that... and then you have strong knowledge and opinion that some models are perhaps bullshit becouse you have heard that some...and so on.

Also one question: Why you do this? What is your agenda?
(oh... please this is retoric question, do not answer.)

[torch]

Fascinating thread. Deteriorated beyond all belief, but fascinating.

I will say that another hobby of mine is machining (I have a small home machine shop). Similar debates about Chinese quality rage in machining forums too. Guess what? The Chinese are indeed learning to build decent quality stuff. Not all Chinese stuff is good quality, but some is decent and a few things are even very good. And the percentage seems to be climbing.

But back to the OP's question: I don't have a lot of experience playing with all the different brands of scopes, I'm a beginner like you. I do have a Rigol DS1052E, firmware hacked to the DS1102E. I have had it for over a year now, and it has done exactly what it is supposed to do. Rigol did have some glitches introduced by some of the firmwares they rushed out to try and prevent the hack, but they seem to have fixed those now. One can't really fault them for trying to stop the hack, and there's no excuse for rushing out the "fixes" without proper testing, but the fact that they DID eventually fix the problems eventually shows some commitment to quality and customer service.

That said, it is what it is. The screen is a bit small and the resolution is a bit pixelated. The specified sample rate is for single channel and is halved when both channels are in use. Actually, the sample rate only applies to the shorter timebases, and decreases as the timebase increases. So at 2ns, the sample rate is 1Gs, but at, say 100ns it might be only 500Ms and at 100us it drop to something like 500ks (don't quote me on the exact numbers, I'm going by memory here). However, the odd thing is that the sample rate is still halved when using the second channel, which seems a bit of a waste to me. The memory depth is similarly shared between the two channels, and the sample rate is halved again when long memory is selected. So transients are less likely to be detected when using two channels, long memory depth and low frequencies. Oh well, that's what the persistence feature is for...

Overall, I'm quite happy with it. The value for the price was exceptional and it's a perfect entry-level DSO, in my opinion and very limited experience. Both as a learning tool, to discover and understand all the potential of oscilloscopes in general, and as a tool to graphically learn and understand what is going on in a particular circuit it has been well worth the investment. I suspect that if I ever advance enough to need something with more capabilities, I would still keep the Rigol around as a back-up or utility machine. It's small size, low relative cost, versatility and light weight make it suitable for use in the field. For example, I have used it as an automotive scope trying to track down a sensor glitch. Another time, I connected one channel to a microphone and the other to the distributor points to identify and locate and a strange knock in a marine engine. I'm not sure I'd want to set a large, heavy, expensive scope on the fan shroud in the driveway or the edge of the dock on the lake!

That is not to say the others on your short list are of any less value. I am unfamiliar with them. The Rigol is getting a bit long in the tooth by a consumer electronics yardstick, so maybe there are even better deals out there now. I am only saying that I, personally, have been quite happy with the Rigol and do not regret the purchase.

[T4P]

It looks so clear atten is a subsidiary of Siglent 

[Achilles]

Well, I do have an Siglent SDG1025.... for the price it's actually pretty nice and I got responses from the Support email address...so it's OK.

I don't care what's written on it as long as I have seen some online reviews and it's working fine/acceptable.


I also have an Hantek DSO1202B which has a few bugs but Hantek doesn't care and isn't answering..... so that support is actually much worse.

I never tried Atten directly and the fake USB made me stay away from the generator as one option, but in my opinion Siglent is OK if you're on a budget. Rigol is much more popular and has a better distribution network...that for sure. So swapping in Siglent as replacement for Atten would be probably a better choice.

[BMac]

Did you ever get the USB drivers, they supplied on the CD or online, to load?

Thank you,

Bmac

[aghp]

Did you ever get the USB drivers, they supplied on the CD or online, to load?

Thank you,

Bmac

I have tested several SDG1000 series units. Every unit what I sell I have tested. First pre ageing and then tests with measurements.
 
Of course I also test that both USB connectors works ok.
I have not meet any unit what have problem with USB communication.
Your seller send unit to you without CD where is USB drivers? If so, only problem is your seller.
You can not get anybody to talk with you from Siglent? There is phone number, there is email, there is QQ, There is Skype, there is MSN.  If I call now to Siglent I get answer inside 15 minutes just now. You have now talked this situation many days. Now please documents what you really have done? Or is is just talking with fun. I have even give posibility to you that you can PM me and I can try maybe help you for connect with Siglent help center,  even in situation that I'm not your seller distributor and I do "free work" for help you. But I have not seen anything but many times I see this same story here. Now, please go to real world and give all documents what you have and what you have done for get help.

[echen1024]

Sorry for coming in late, but being Chinese, I can tell you that there are 3 types of manufacturing companies in China.

1. There are the foreign companies, like Intel, who own and operate their own factories/fabs within China.
2. There are the ODM's, such as Foxconn and Siglent, who manufacture their products, and either sell them as their own brand, or sell them, to others, e.g. Agilent with their 1000 series.
3. The crap companies. Companies like Atten, who buy from the sweatshops, and the garage factories, and rebrand it all under their name.

I have used Siglent before, and can say that the quality is quite good, comparable to a Rigol, and considerably better than Atten. There is a considerable difference in quality, and Siglent is NOT a subsidiary of Atten.

[martinot]

This is not a review from Dave.

Regarding an Atten/Siglent (formerly known as Din Young Technology Company, a subsidiary of Atten), the question is why? Service or support from Atten/Siglent is unheard of.

Regarding the PC interface, well ... If it works at all (Atten did sell function generators with a fake front panel USB interface), and if it does send data to the PC, then it should be possible to make it work.  If all else fails you sniff the USB traffic and reverse engineer the protocol. Or like the Hantek guys did, disassemble the firmware.

Update; you can buy the dinyoung.com domain name for a very good price today ($2500);

https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=dinyoung&e=com