tbh i've never used the PC software, i just expected it to be crap so wont bother with it.
With my Rigol DG1022 generator the problem is it is an arbitrary waveform generator. It takes up to 4096 points to define a single waveform for channel 1. It takes multiple button presses and knob turns to define a single point of that 4096 points via the front panel. So that is easily 20000 or 30000 operations on the front panel to define an arbitrary waveform. It is a PITA to check for errors or update a waveform. And it requires that you pre-calculate the points and then dully type them in, one after the other.
Without PC software the arbitrary waveform feature of the generator is therefore unusable. And that PC software doesn't work. Other features are also unusable, but the arbitrary waveform part being unusable is the worst. Rigol doesn't care. As fare as I understand it, they don't even care twice:
- DG1022s with 00.01 hardware, probably just 1.5 years old, as the DG1022 was released 2008
For those the PC software was intended, and that software doesn't work on anything newer than XP (although Windows Vista was released a year earlier than the DG1022). All requests to get information if and when they will update the software are stone-walled. In other words, they won't do shit for 00.01 hardware.
- Newer DG1022s with 00.02 hardware. Maybe just a few month old, AFAIK indistinguishable from 00.01 hardware, except by the firmware version and maybe the serial number
As I understand it, for those the PC software was/is not intended and of course doesn't work. And for those 00.02 DG1022s they claim to have some LabView/VISA drivers for ages. Well, they have it online since four days.
Guess what, all instructions are in Chinese, it is not really clear what that software is supposed to do (expensive additional LabView license required or not?), and (second best of all) it doesn't install for me. Best of all, it is not supposed to work with 00.01 hardware anyway.
Now take this for comparison
http://www.hantek.com.cn/english/produce_list.asp?unid=68 $150 buys you one. It has probably a product lifetime of three years, then I guess it will be dropped by the manufacturer. Or as I like to call such stuff, throw-away hardware. I usually don't consider such products. Its analog part (the output circuitry) is likely not on par with that of Rigol's DG1022. But they have NT, Win 2000, XP, Vista, and Win 7 software and even some programming examples. They have a product that can be used now, for the intended and advertised purpose. Compare the $150 to the (once) $700 for the DG1022. $150 buys you an arbitrary waveform generator for a few years, while $700 bought a DG1022, which is even to light to be used as a boat anchor.
No one at Rigol really talks to you. Getting information out of them is like pulling teeth. I have tried to get hold of someone in management (naive, me?). I always end up at their "service".
May their fuses blow at the most inconvenient moment.
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PS. Rigol has sanded off two ICs in my DG1022. How unimaginative. They are either DACs or DDS chips.