The Rigol Scope fan criticism

[Ecklar]

The Rigol scopes seem to get generally great reviews from users when comparing to what else is out there in their price range on a relative basis.  The one complaint I consistently see is fan noise.  This goes so far that there are YouTubes specifically on Warranty breaking Rigol fan replacement. 

With this stated, what is the difference in engineering that the low end Rigols all use fans and the low end Tektronix digital scopes of same bandwidth up to 200 MHZ do not use fans?  In addition to noise, fans suck dust through the instrument that must be gathering over time (altering performance characteristics?) and are an additional point of annoyance and possible failure; being an electromechanical.   

It would seem that if Rigol could engineer the fan out of the current design, then, they would truly be perfect.

Thanks,  Ecklar

[Bud]

Everything Rigol touches turns to sh!t. However as far as fan noise concerned, any other professional equipment i have on my bench is noisier than the Rigol scope, unless it is a fanless piece of equipment.

[Lightages]

Everything Rigol touches turns to sh!t. However as far as fan noise concerned, any other professional equipment i have on my bench is noisier than the Rigol scope, unless it is a fanless piece of equipment.

? really? Everything Rigol makes is shit? I find that a bit hyperbolic, if not just outright wrong. I am no fan boy of theirs but really?

[BlueBill]

I recently bought a DS1074z-S. Outstanding value really. Build quality is quite good and it's feature packed too.

[Mechanical Menace]

With this stated, what is the difference in engineering that the low end Rigols all use fans and the low end Tektronix digital scopes of same bandwidth up to 200 MHZ do not use fans?

This is purely a guess but I'd say Tektronix are much more likely to use ASICS than FPGAs and are also less likely to be running the aforementioned parts and ADCs, MPUs/CPUs, RAM etc towards the high top end of their ratings. Rigol have been known to overclock parts too so much more cooling needed.

[xrunner]

In addition to noise, fans suck dust through the instrument that must be gathering over time (altering performance characteristics?) and are an additional point of annoyance and possible failure; being an electromechanical.   

That's an interesting point, because I've worked on a lot of electronic equipment in my career, and I know that a fair amount of it had fan filters, which you could easily take off and clean. And they got pretty dirty even in a relatively clean room.

Whatever happened to the idea of filtering the air that the fan draws in? 

[Jeroen3]

Rigol has great feature packed scopes for home & edu use, for a home & edu price.
Tektronix also has a few edu and budget scopes. But these are still significantly higher priced than Rigols.

This is similar for Rigols other business lines.

Thats why Rigols are adored on the forum.

We have some 10+ year old tektronix scopes, heavily (ab)used. In the field and on the desk. They still work fine.
I do not expect that from a Rigol.

[DIPLover]

Rigol has great feature packed scopes for home & edu use, for a home & edu price.
Tektronix also has a few edu and budget scopes. But these are still significantly higher priced than Rigols.

This is similar for Rigols other business lines.

Thats why Rigols are adored on the forum.

We have some 10+ year old tektronix scopes, heavily (ab)used. In the field and on the desk. They still work fine.
I do not expect that from a Rigol.

Why?

[rollatorwieltje]

Rigol is weird.

They obviously have the capabilities to make great stuff, but then screw up on something trivial. The DS1052E for example, quite a well designed device. Except for that one damn linear regulator that acts as a space heater.  Rigol has no problems implementing a scope with reasonably high bandwidth (it really isn't trivial to design something like that) and then screw up on a stupid linear regulator that needs to be cooled with a massive fan.

Or the 1054Z. Even more features, more powerful electronics and it all works fine. Except for a stupid PLL that doesn't lock...

Or that DP832 bench power supply, same retarded overheating linear regulator and that weird sense line issue.

I don't get how stuff like that happens...

[BlueBill]

Might be an interesting project to design a passive heat-pipe solution for the DS1054z.

[nctnico]

Rigol is weird.

Or that DP832 bench power supply, same retarded overheating linear regulator and that weird sense line issue.

Agilent has made several such mistakes in their ESG4400 series generators. Many have failed regulators and output amplifiers due to poor thermal design.

[rdl]

And what about how weird looking some of the Rigol stuff is? The telephone style dial on the DP832 is just too off the wall for me to ever buy one of those. I guess they just grabbed some random pcb layout person to design the front panel of their newer scopes with all those 45 degree angles everywhere.

[Ecklar]

Rigol has great feature packed scopes for home & edu use, for a home & edu price.
Tektronix also has a few edu and budget scopes. But these are still significantly higher priced than Rigols.

This is similar for Rigols other business lines.

Thats why Rigols are adored on the forum.

We have some 10+ year old tektronix scopes, heavily (ab)used. In the field and on the desk. They still work fine.
I do not expect that from a Rigol.

I've seen a picture of internal circuit boards comparing the Tektronix to Rigol's board and then one other.  It seemed the Rigol had at least 3 to 5 times as many components compared to the Tek.  Maybe since they are using more off the shelf components instead of custom items, so, not being as highly integrated they have a much higher component count and therefore a much greater power consumption?   Is that the reason for the loud fan?

Also, if they MUST have the fan, in this modern era would it really be sooo difficult to come up with a silent fan cooling structure without pushing up the price point?

[Howardlong]

Everything Rigol touches turns to sh!t. However as far as fan noise concerned, any other professional equipment i have on my bench is noisier than the Rigol scope, unless it is a fanless piece of equipment.

? really? Everything Rigol makes is shit? I find that a bit hyperbolic, if not just outright wrong. I am no fan boy of theirs but really?

I think it's fair to say that Bud is consistent in uniformly commenting negatively regarding Rigol!

I am not sure if Bud actually owns anything of theirs though, but that's not a bar to comment of course, in much the same way that I don't think Justin Bieber's any good even though I don't own any of his songs.

For bang for the buck I consider Rigol equipment to be extraordinarily good value for money, and I have plenty of Agilent and Tek stuff in the lab too.

[BlueBill]

And what about how weird looking some of the Rigol stuff is? The telephone style dial on the DP832 is just too off the wall for me to ever buy one of those. I guess they just grabbed some random pcb layout person to design the front panel of their newer scopes with all those 45 degree angles everywhere.

As for me, I like the look of the DP832 number pad. I also think their scopes look fine and I'm not sure where you're seeing the 45º angles everywhere?

[Hydrawerk]

the low end Tektronix digital scopes of same bandwidth up to 200 MHZ do not use fans? 

Do you mean TDS2000, TBS1000 and TDS1000? They are based on 1997's technology. They have no DPO and a short memory. Not a competitor for Rigol DS1000Z or DS2000.

[Ice-Tea]

I don't get how stuff like that happens...

I do. That's the difference between chinese engineering and western. A western engineer will tinker on a design for a decade if you let him, squander a ridiculous amount of company resources, make it more expensive than it needs to be untill he gets everything just right.

A chinese engineer will bring his design live, check some design specs and move on.

[jlmoon]

I don't get how stuff like that happens...

I do. That's the difference between chinese engineering and western. A western engineer will tinker on a design for a decade if you let him, squander a ridiculous amount of company resources, make it more expensive than it needs to be untill he gets everything just right.

A chinese engineer will bring his design live, check some design specs and move on.

I'm thinking a "Chinese Engineer" hasn't changed his old tricks of employing "Western / ugh 'American' Ingenuity" and will simply copy - with slight changes what the Americans do best!
Around the WWII era and after the Japanese & Chinese were known for their ability to copy the Westerners design as well as expand on a idea, sometimes creating a better mousetrap.
 

[rdl]

I realize not everyone thinks the keypad on the DP832 is stupid as hell. That's fine. Me? I'd rather buy something that looks more like lab equipment than a child's toy.

The angled styling cues have just gotten a bit out of hand on the DS1054z (I'm sure they're not all exactly 45 degrees, but I don't have a protractor handy).

It's not so much that it's a bad idea, just that I think Rigol has taken it a bit too far.

As for me, I like the look of the DP832 number pad. I also think their scopes look fine and I'm not sure where you're seeing the 45º angles everywhere?

[vinicius.jlantunes]

If anyone's unhappy with their Rigol 1054Z I will exchange it by my Agilent DSO1072B no problem 

Not that I don't like it, but I would rather have the 4 channels Rigol offers instead of my slightly higher BW (70 vs 50 MHz [considering a non-hacked scope]) and the Agilent sticker.

The Agilent was the best deal I could get in the Brazilian market at that time. We don't have Rigol distributors down here as far as I know (and if we did, pretty sure it would cost 5 times more).

[Howardlong]

Or the 1054Z. Even more features, more powerful electronics and it all works fine. Except for a stupid PLL that doesn't lock...

This was corrected (in that the PLL definitely locks, I have probed mine) in a firmware release. The PLL output still doesn't look great, but I have no noticeable jitter problems any longer.

Or that DP832 bench power supply, same retarded overheating linear regulator and that weird sense line issue.

Later units had this corrected, but yes, not good. Rule of thumb (literally) if it's too hot to touch, you'd better be able to explain why.

[Ice-Tea]

Later units had this corrected, but yes, not good. Rule of thumb (literally) if it's too hot to touch, you'd better be able to explain why.

That's the rule of thumb for high end equipment.

The rule of thumb for consumer electronics is that if it is not too hot too touch, you're using a too big (expensive) package....

[Ecklar]

the low end Tektronix digital scopes of same bandwidth up to 200 MHZ do not use fans? 

Do you mean TDS2000, TBS1000 and TDS1000? They are based on 1997's technology. They have no DPO and a short memory. Not a competitor for Rigol DS1000Z or DS2000.

The original question was about why Rigol doesn't engineer their lower end scopes without the cooling fan, which, receives lots of criticism from many reviewers.  And yes, I WAS using the Tek TBS and TDS because they are comparable and although they are not as feature rich, they are similar as with respect to functionality for most applications encountered.

[Howardlong]

the low end Tektronix digital scopes of same bandwidth up to 200 MHZ do not use fans? 

Do you mean TDS2000, TBS1000 and TDS1000? They are based on 1997's technology. They have no DPO and a short memory. Not a competitor for Rigol DS1000Z or DS2000.

The original question was about why Rigol doesn't engineer their lower end scopes without the cooling fan, which, receives lots of criticism from many reviewers.  And yes, I WAS using the Tek TBS and TDS because they are comparable and although they are not as feature rich, they are similar as with respect to functionality for most applications encountered.

As I understand it, they do not use ADCs running at the sampling rate. These scopes store samples in real time in analogue memory, like a bucket brigade if you remember them, and then replay them at the native ADC speed, so they get to use much slower, cheaper and lower power ADCs but also that's why the memory is so limited, it's restricted to the technology in the bucket brigade devices.

Not only are the ADCs slower, but also all the digital stuff around them can be much slower and lower power. Hence, no need for fans.

While I realise that these days they're much maligned, I have an affinity for them because until I came to eevblog the 4ch 200MHz TDS2024B I've had for about ten years was all I ever needed, so I thought.

[DIPLover]

the low end Tektronix digital scopes of same bandwidth up to 200 MHZ do not use fans? 

Do you mean TDS2000, TBS1000 and TDS1000? They are based on 1997's technology. They have no DPO and a short memory. Not a competitor for Rigol DS1000Z or DS2000.

The original question was about why Rigol doesn't engineer their lower end scopes without the cooling fan, which, receives lots of criticism from many reviewers.  And yes, I WAS using the Tek TBS and TDS because they are comparable and although they are not as feature rich, they are similar as with respect to functionality for most applications encountered.

The TDS 1K and 2K are old, cheap and dreadful. I can't think of any redeeming quality. I'll use an analog before I touch one of those.
I'll take the fan in my DS2000A anytime so I can have the pleasure of using a scope that's much more responsive and has a very good menu system and controls.

Now the old TDS 600 and 700 on the other hand... Those were good, but they were huge and had fans (as well as CRT's).

The fan in DS2000A is also not that bad. Much less noisy than a Tek 2465B or my 50dB+ Agilent and Tek logic analyzers. Real labs are usually quite noisy places, and 50dB(A) was seen as an acceptable level for equipment (and computers!) for the longest time.

It's only in my very quiet basement lab that I notice the DS2000, which is in the low 30's.