EEVblog #1146 - New Low Cost Rigol MSO5000 Oscilloscope

[Martin72]

To Keep the hacking thread clean, I´ll carry on here.
Done the "upgrade" Thing, before I took a pic from the 70Mhz BW while the 40ps pulse-gen. was running:



(Unfortunately forgotten the 50 Termination)

Now, with 350Mhz BW:



Quite "faster", but somewhat of a "glitch" into it.

Compare it with lecroy WS3024, first with 1M too:



Looks "better"...

Now, with a 50 external termination resistor, rigol:



No "glitches", really fast (under 1ns) but massive overshoot...

Hm, hm....test it with the same resistor on the lecroy:



Aha, same on the lecroy..
Now, with it´s own integraded 50 termination:



Ahh, perfect....

And external termination as needed by the rigol is just crap.

Ah, some more about the problems, in this case a forgotten thing :
Functiongenerator, decreasing/increasing the amplitude : There´s no choice between Vpp or Vrms, it´s only in V....

[Commodore8888]

So looks like your's still works relatively well then Martin!

Still waiting over here for an overshoot fix on a couple 5ks and 7ks.
Been in contact with Rigol, and AFAIK, they're looking for a way to get the "work lab" ones done remotely if possible.
The paperwork required to ship them out....would be terrifying.
No word yet on just sending personal stuff in, or if the same "remote software" fix would work on the 5k too.

I'm just hoping it's some special key combo or firmware that allows the full cal. Work has a full lab that'd take care of it for us.

Been lucky so far all we've been doing is basic digital, but there's some fairly sensitive analog stuff coming up and I'd rather not be fighting over the single MDO3000 in our smaller group  Getting more scopes otherwise takes aaaaages. 1mo ages? Nah...try 4+...on a good day.

[Martin72]

Hi,

So looks like your's still works relatively well then Martin!

Yes, I got none of the mentioned issues so far( flickering screens, trigger problems, issue by using the averaging mode, non compensable overshoots…).
But the fact that I would have only luck by getting a fine working model...

Martin

[NoisyBoy]

True about the alignment.  But it is also a compromise to ensure the buttons on the screen are taller for people who likes to use touch. 

Not that they are right in doing this, just a design factor which might cause the misalignment you mentioned.

Another big issue is that the BACK key does not go back on the menu hierarchy navigation, it goes back on the menu navigation steps you took.  I cannot reproduce it, but in one case I ended up in a menu option where the settings were changed and I was shown a previous setting

And it also bothers me a lot that the menu options on the display are not aligned to the right navigation buttons.  Maybe it is time to create a new thread of all the problems with this scope...



One last rant... you need to press the multi-purpose knob all the time, and it is prone to moving and selecting an adjacent option instead of the one you need... you can scroll and it should set the last option where you stopped when scrolling, without needing to press the knob.

One last last rant... when you press the option key, you are presented to the touch keypad... if you want to use the multi-purpose knob, you need to press the option key again to make the touch keypad go away... then you need to scroll and there is no accelerated function, it just scrolls slowly through all the values... you are not presented by default with the typical values, like the UART baud options, etc

And so on and on and on...

The firmware needs to be completely rewritten...

[KC0PPH]

Just curious if those of you who have this would think its still a good buy with the firmware bugs? Are we fairly confident that they will be worked out, or will Rigol ignore these issue?

[Martin72]

Hi,

For me I do - I spend 1069€ for it and it is nothing in sight which can beat it at this price.
And Bugs:
There are some annoying things which could be easily wiped out per firmware updates - Annoying, but not unable to work with this scope yet.
I do have mine on work, use it daily - there was until now nothing which let me take over to another one, except tests which requires official calibrated scopes.
Therefore, for me it´s still a great deal, with the hack for the full options even more.
As I was for weeks in nearly daily touch with the rigol support, I got the impression they take the complaints serious.
They also know this thread here.
Unfortunately, it´s a common method to transform the customers to beta-testers instead of holding the new product off from the market untill it´s nearly flawless.
And so do Rigol too.

[Fungus]

firmware bugs? Are we fairly confident that they will be worked out

Yes.

We don't know exact timeframes though. 

[TK]

More BUGS... now with i2c...

It triggers better than SPI, but cannot decode address and data 90% of the time.

Attached 2 photos, same signal, different decoded information.  I get consistent decoding on Keysight 1000X...

Am I missing something?





EDIT: The threshold on the decoder was set to 0V.  Changed to 1.6V and it is decoding fine now

[2N3055]

How are thresholds set for decodes?

[TK]

How are thresholds set for decodes?

I had them set at 1.6V but somehow they got reset to 0V.  Now it is decoding correctly.

[luma]

I've been monkeying around with XY mode and I have to say I'm not super stoked.  A lot of the options that the DS1054Z had are missing.  For quite a while the 1054 only had split screen mode, with no option to go full screen (added in a later firmware update).  The MSO5000 is the opposite - there's no option for split screen which was handy.  I also don't appear to be able to adjust trigger options while in XY.

[Martin72]

Hi,

"New" user guide(02/2019 instead 10/2018) is avaible…

[el_man]

Hi,

"New" user guide(02/2019 instead 10/2018) is avaible…

Yes, I've download it few days ago... but it is the same as previous one - except few words about HiRes mode and a picture of the LA probes and that's all. There isn't a word about the new Eye and Jitter analyzes ....

[oliv3r]

I've been monkeying around with XY mode and I have to say I'm not super stoked.  A lot of the options that the DS1054Z had are missing.  For quite a while the 1054 only had split screen mode, with no option to go full screen (added in a later firmware update).  The MSO5000 is the opposite - there's no option for split screen which was handy.  I also don't appear to be able to adjust trigger options while in XY.

When you say 'split-screen' mode, what do you mean? The 'zoom' button does some split-screening?

[luma]

When you say 'split-screen' mode, what do you mean? The 'zoom' button does some split-screening?

It sure does, but not in XY mode that I can figure out.  See OP here for an example of how this worked on the DS1054Z.

[Martin72]

Apropos split-screen, this would be a feature which I want to have it on the rigol in every case.
On older LeCroy waverunner models, you can choose between single-grid, dual-grid, quad-grid mode and this is sometimes very useful.
Splitable screen and the possibility of "hiding" channels, that would be great to have.
But first of all I want to have a "real" Hi-Res Mode....
If you read the description about in the "new" manual and then have a look what´s real going on with it...

[hhappy1]

hi!~ Guy's


I don't English well. But I'm curious.

Who can show me a 1khz sine wave,  fft screen? (mso5000)

fft screen : start-0hz, center-5khz, end-10khz


Because distortion changes every time moving vertical offset.
Keysight and siglent is changes.   Tek and R&S is perfect.

[luma]

[hhappy1]

Thanks sir.

One more?  Please.

rbw : 10hz
vertical : decibels
window : hanning
scale : 10db

Sweet day.~
 

[luma]

edit: a static screenshot doesn't really illustrate how godawful slow the FFT mode is on this.  Here's what it looks like in real time:

[2N3055]

So you have 10 MS/sec and 10 Hz resolution bandwidth...

What do you think how fast screen should refresh on this FFT ?

In order to have 10 Hz RBW  on 10 MS/s you need to have 1Mpoints FFT. So this is FFT on 1 Mpoint.
And also, in order to get 1 Mpoint at 10 MS/sec , you need 0.1 sec to acquire data for single FFT.

So if FFT took no time to calculate at all, at those setting you would have maximum 10 refreshes per second.

And 1 Mpoint FFT will take a bit of time.
So few times per second is realistic... Even once per second is definitely not slow for a 1 Mpoint FFT at that sampling speed....

As it was mentioned many times before, measurement instruments don't measure anything. Operator does, using instruments.
Know the theory, know how instrument operates and work within it's operating principles and hardware limits.

Regards,

[rsjsouza]

As it was mentioned many times before, measurement instruments don't measure anything. Operator does, using instruments.
Know the theory, know how instrument operates and work within it's operating principles and hardware limits.

Sinisa, I haven't heard that one. I absolutely love it!

[TK]

More worrying signs about Rigol...

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/rigol-customer-service-appaling/msg2297541/#msg2297541

Does anyone know if Rigol ownership changed recently?  I noticed in the back of the scope it does not say Rigol Technologies, it says Rigol (some chinese name I don't recall because my scope was returned) Technologies.

[luma]

So you have 10 MS/sec and 10 Hz resolution bandwidth...

What do you think how fast screen should refresh on this FFT ?

In order to have 10 Hz RBW  on 10 MS/s you need to have 1Mpoints FFT. So this is FFT on 1 Mpoint.
And also, in order to get 1 Mpoint at 10 MS/sec , you need 0.1 sec to acquire data for single FFT.

So if FFT took no time to calculate at all, at those setting you would have maximum 10 refreshes per second.

And 1 Mpoint FFT will take a bit of time.
So few times per second is realistic... Even once per second is definitely not slow for a 1 Mpoint FFT at that sampling speed....

As it was mentioned many times before, measurement instruments don't measure anything. Operator does, using instruments.
Know the theory, know how instrument operates and work within it's operating principles and hardware limits.

Regards,

Yeah I'm comparing against dedicated analyzers which is probably not a fair basis of comparison.  Your point is well taken.  Overall I'm pretty stoked about the capabilities of this device, and for the price it's a great solution for my own needs.

edit: To better illustrate the point, as a dumb operator I was doing a dumb thing which was impacting the measurement on the instrument - the RG316 cable was crossed over itself as it sat on the bench.  Simply repositioning the cable on my bench has removed some of the spurs shown in the previous capture.  Here's how it looks now.  Idiot operator == idiot results!

[2N3055]

Yeah I'm comparing against dedicated analyzers which is probably not a fair basis of comparison.  Your point is well taken.  Overall I'm pretty stoked about the capabilities of this device, and for the price it's a great solution for my own needs.

Dedicated spectrum analyzers use overlapped FFT, so they can provide continuous running FFT update after initial block is loaded..
No scope does that AFAIK.. If some does it would be good to know..