NEW - Siglent X-Series Oscilloscopes and Arb Waveform Generators

[Wuerstchenhund]

For those of you who would like to see a demonstration of Siglent's EasyWave arbitrary waveform software you might want to check on this video:

I'm sorry but EasyWave still looks like a program from 15 years ago made for Windows 2000, and it really shows that very little thought has been put into EasyWave.

Just to give you some idea, this is how a good modern and intuitive waveform editor software could look like:






It's really a shame when decent hardware is let down by poor software, but a big part of the AWG package is the software that comes with it.

[Wuerstchenhund]

Here are screen shots of a SDG2122X outputting a square wave at 1 MHz, 15 MHz and 25 MHz into a SDS2304 (300 MHz) oscilloscope.

Thanks for the screen shots! That doesn't look too bad. I assume the lower bandwidth models should perform similarly?

[miguelvp]

Here are screen shots of a SDG2122X outputting a square wave at 1 MHz, 15 MHz and 25 MHz into a SDS2304 (300 MHz) oscilloscope.

Thanks for the screen shots! That doesn't look too bad. I assume the lower bandwidth models should perform similarly?

What is the rise time? look like a bit over 10ns

[tautech]

What is the rise time? look like a bit over 10ns

From the datasheet
http://www.siglentamerica.com/USA_website_2014/Documents/DataSheet/SDG2000X_DataSheet_DS0202X-E01A.pdf
Squarewave ristime: 9 ns 10% ~ 90%, 1 Vpp, 50 Ohm Load

[_Wim_]

I'm sorry but EasyWave still looks like a program from 15 years ago made for Windows 2000, and it really shows that very little thought has been put into EasyWave.

Just to give you some idea, this is how a good modern and intuitive waveform editor software could look like:






It's really a shame when decent hardware is let down by poor software, but a big part of the AWG package is the software that comes with it.

I agree I would love a software like this for my Rigol DG1032Z, but the software alone (pro version shown in the youtube video's) costs more than my unit itself (500£) To be honest, if it was available for my unit, I would not buy it.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I agree I would love a software like this for my Rigol DG1032Z, but the software alone (pro version shown in the youtube video's) costs more than my unit itself (500£) To be honest, if it was available for my unit, I would not buy it.

Actually, the Basic version is free (and does most of the stuff from the videos!), you only pay if you need the (quite advanced) Pro features enabled.

However, my point is *not* that Siglent (and Rigol) should come out with something that copies all the Pro features for free. My point is that software doesn't need to be an unintuitive and primitive mess that looks like it was stuck in the Windows 95 era, and it wouldn't cost them fortune to come up with something that is better than the poor tools they provide with their AWGs, even the more expensive ones.

Especially for Siglent the archilles heel has mostly been software. It's about time they realize that this is part of the product and deserves the same attention as the hardware.

[_Wim_]

I agree I would love a software like this for my Rigol DG1032Z, but the software alone (pro version shown in the youtube video's) costs more than my unit itself (500£) To be honest, if it was available for my unit, I would not buy it.

Actually, the Basic version is free (and does most of the stuff from the videos!), you only pay if you need the (quite advanced) Pro features enabled.

However, my point is *not* that Siglent (and Rigol) should come out with something that copies all the Pro features for free. My point is that software doesn't need to be an unintuitive and primitive mess that looks like it was stuck in the Windows 95 era, and it wouldn't cost them fortune to come up with something that is better than the poor tools they provide with their AWGs, even the more expensive ones.

Especially for Siglent the archilles heel has mostly been software. It's about time they realize that this is part of the product and deserves the same attention as the hardware.

On that I can totally agree! Modern programming evironments make it just so much easier and faster to produce user friendly software, so there is absolutely no reason to still use Win95 like devellopments tools. Even the free version of visual studio has tons of feautures to produce very nice GUIs very fast.

Maybe Siglent and Rigol should make their code open source, so the community can devellop some nice tools for their hardware. I for sure would be willing to help!

[_Wim_]

This open source code would be ideal to start from: http://www.mathdotnet.com/

Now, how to convince Rigol and Siglent to make the necesarry tools available so that we can write a C# program to download arbitrary waveforms to our favorite hardware...

[Wuerstchenhund]

Now, how to convince Rigol and Siglent to make the necesarry tools available so that we can write a C# program to download arbitrary waveforms to our favorite hardware...

You can already, although it could mean you'd have to transfer the data via USB flash drive. Or if the AWG supports SCPI and have documentation then you could even put something together to push the waveform directly to the device.

[tautech]

Now, how to convince Rigol and Siglent to make the necesarry tools available so that we can write a C# program to download arbitrary waveforms to our favorite hardware...

You can already, although it could mean you'd have to transfer the data via USB flash drive. Or if the AWG supports SCPI and have documentation then you could even put something together to push the waveform directly to the device.

Have a look at what Tek supplies with their AWG's:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tektronix-afg1022/msg761474/#msg761474

[_Wim_]

Now, how to convince Rigol and Siglent to make the necesarry tools available so that we can write a C# program to download arbitrary waveforms to our favorite hardware...

You can already, although it could mean you'd have to transfer the data via USB flash drive. Or if the AWG supports SCPI and have documentation then you could even put something together to push the waveform directly to the device.

I will study this a bit to see what is necesarry...

[nbritton]

I can't get past Siglent's crappy website. Their top navigation bar doesn't work in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome on Mac OS X. Furthermore, they're using mixed fonts all throughout their website, nobody uses serif fonts on the web. It's unprofessional and shows inattention to detail. A website represents a company, and is typically the main face of a company. If they can't get something as simple as their website right I can only imagine their products are just as crappy.

[tautech]

I can't get past Siglent's crappy website. Their top navigation bar doesn't work in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome on Mac OS X. Furthermore, they're using mixed fonts all throughout their website, nobody uses serif fonts on the web. It's unprofessional and shows inattention to detail. A website represents a company, and is typically the main face of a company. If they can't get something as simple as their website right I can only imagine their products are just as crappy.

Use this one:
http://www.siglentamerica.com/index.aspx

[nctnico]

I agree. Siglent's website is total crap. They should hire a decent web designer. The website of Siglentamerica is slightly better but you need to know what you are looking for.

[nbritton]

I can't get past Siglent's crappy website. Their top navigation bar doesn't work in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome on Mac OS X. Furthermore, they're using mixed fonts all throughout their website, nobody uses serif fonts on the web. It's unprofessional and shows inattention to detail. A website represents a company, and is typically the main face of a company. If they can't get something as simple as their website right I can only imagine their products are just as crappy.

Use this one:
http://www.siglentamerica.com/index.aspx

The fonts are consistent on that site, but the top navigation bar is still broken.

[tautech]

The fonts are consistent on that site, but the top navigation bar is still broken.

Win 7 and Chrome OK here. 

Steve from USA will see this and maybe get some optimisation done for other browsers and HW.
State yours exactly.
 

[Wuerstchenhund]

Have a look at what Tek supplies with their AWG's:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tektronix-afg1022/msg761474/#msg761474

It's of course unfortunate that ArbExpress doesn't work with their new entry level AWGs (which even aside from the software support don't look particular attractive unless you're a Tek fan, the only interesing AWGs from Tek are the high end ones).

But that doesn't change the fact that Arb Express is a nice piece of software, plus it also supports a lot of older Tek AWGs.

[Wuerstchenhund]

Steve from USA will see this and maybe get some optimisation done for other browsers and HW.

Well, they should have done that long ago, shouldn't they? I mean, there are exactly *three* main browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome) and designing a website that works with all three isn't rocket science.

Plus what nbritton said, it's annoying and highly unprofessional. The website is the first face of your company most customers will see. Siglent.com is a mess, and very few visitors will be aware that they should go to siglentamerica.com (which is only partially better than siglent.com). Both websites clearly reflect the complete disregard for anything software in Siglent. Maybe it's not just the developers of EasyWave that are stuck in 1995?

I mean, seriously, if you can't even be arsed to get your website in order how can you expect people to see you as anything else than amateurs?

[Timur Born]

www.siglent.eu

[Wuerstchenhund]

www.siglent.eu

Not really:
http://www.siglent.eu/customer-info/

Who is Siglent.eu?

Siglent.eu is a registered trade name and owned by JR Special Electronics company registered under the chamber of commerce #: 62793575 in the Netherlands. Siglent.eu was founded in 2013 in cooperation with Siglent technologies CO.,LTD. Siglent.eu is an independent official  distributor that will represent Siglent technologies CO.,LTD in sales and service.

Even though the URL suggests it this is not one of Siglent's websites.

[nctnico]

siglent.eu is not an official Siglent website! They just shuffle boxes from various Chinese equipment manufacturers. I'm not quite sure about how official their ties with Siglent are. Tautech was way more helpful with my SDS2000 problems than siglent.eu where I bought the damned thing! My complaints appearantly went on the 'if we don't respond they hopefully go away' stack.

[hendorog]

I agree I would love a software like this for my Rigol DG1032Z, but the software alone (pro version shown in the youtube video's) costs more than my unit itself (500£) To be honest, if it was available for my unit, I would not buy it.

Actually, the Basic version is free (and does most of the stuff from the videos!), you only pay if you need the (quite advanced) Pro features enabled.

However, my point is *not* that Siglent (and Rigol) should come out with something that copies all the Pro features for free. My point is that software doesn't need to be an unintuitive and primitive mess that looks like it was stuck in the Windows 95 era, and it wouldn't cost them fortune to come up with something that is better than the poor tools they provide with their AWGs, even the more expensive ones.

Especially for Siglent the archilles heel has mostly been software. It's about time they realize that this is part of the product and deserves the same attention as the hardware.

On that I can totally agree! Modern programming evironments make it just so much easier and faster to produce user friendly software, so there is absolutely no reason to still use Win95 like devellopments tools. Even the free version of visual studio has tons of feautures to produce very nice GUIs very fast.

Maybe Siglent and Rigol should make their code open source, so the community can devellop some nice tools for their hardware. I for sure would be willing to help!

Personally I value cross platform software higher than .NET windows only software - even if it doesn't look as pretty and didn't use a flashy ribbon interface. Bling doesn't count for much after a while.

.NET might get there one day - at last Microsoft are getting off their high horse and talking about supporting other platforms, but its not a reality yet.

[nctnico]

I agree. If you develop electronics related software nowadays better make sure to support MAC & Linux as well!

[Wuerstchenhund]

.NET might get there one day - at last Microsoft are getting off their high horse and talking about supporting other platforms, but its not a reality yet.

Not sure what you're talking about. .NET isn't Windows only, .Net programs can be made to run under Linux through Mono (OSS .Net clone), and Microsoft has now made relevant parts of the .Net framework open source anyways.

I agree. If you develop electronics related software nowadays better make sure to support MAC & Linux as well!

Mac (btw, it's 'Mac' not 'MAC', the name of Apple's computers is not an acronym, and 'MAC' is something completely different than a computer made by Apple!) and Linux are pretty much niche platforms (Macs even more so than Linux) when it comes to T&M applications, fact is that Windows is by far the best supported platform and this is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Plus there's the problem that many (most?) cross platform programs often violate the style guides of at least one platform unless each variant gets an UI that is adapted to the target platform, which means a simple port won't cut it.

If Linux/Mac support is possible without compromising other variants then great but I'd primarily focus on the platform that roughly 95% of users are going to use.

[nctnico]

Running .Net programs on Mac or Linux requires these programs have been designed to do so from the start. Microsoft isn't pushing that. Its the same mess they made with Windows CE. Portable on crutches.

Recents polls on EEVblog indicate about 30% of the people on this forum use Linux. I wouldn't call that a niche market for T&M and CAD software. The major vendors have been providing tools with support for multiple platforms for a good reason.

Last but not least: it is not difficult to write cross platform programs which are native applications when compiled for a certain platform (no, not emulated). There are excellent frameworks which do the heavy lifting and hide much of the idiosynchronies of the underlying OS (win-win). I'm writing Windows applications regulary but my primary test & development platform for those applications is Linux. When I hit compile on Linux I get a native Linux application and when I hit compile on Windows I get a native Windows application. In both cases the application will adhere to the user's style settings.