Hello everyone. I'm a beginner hobbyist setting up an electronics lab, and yeah, I'm also looking for advice on what scope to buy, and I've been reading quite a few posts about the most popular oscilloscopes, including reviews, opinions and "feature unlocking" threads.
I already have the parts for my first project (a linear power supply with 0-30v and 5 or 10 amps max.), a few more basic components and arduinos, soldering equipment, a few leads and connectors, two DMMs, some breadboards and a boatload of wall warts and laptop power supplies. I also have one of those little 15€ scopes which claim 200Khz bandwidth but are more like 50KHz.
I'm really a beginner: don't know much more than ohm's law and Thevenin and Norton's theorems, and I have a basic intuitive grasp of what most electronic components do. In the theory department of the hobby, I'm refreshing calculus, following The Art of Electronics, and periodically looking for help and exercises in books like Practical Electronics for Inventors and a few others.
As for what is the inteded use for the scope, well, I'm mostly interested in learning about power supplies, and my plan is to try and upgrade my power supply project to have at least two independent channels and tracking switching inputs before the linear regulators. It would also be nice to add some digital controls with programmability and data-logging, but I might be way over my head. I'm not in a hurry in any way though.
After that project, or maybe starting inbetween, I would like to build an audio amplifier with an integrated DAC. Most likely it wont be very good, but I want to learn about amplifiers. That's all I have planned right now, I guess there will be more projects coming along as I continue learning.
So, provided I have never used a scope (bar some analog ones at the university 10 years ago) and I'm not really fully aware of it's capabilities, I probably cannot be specific enough, but well, I want a tool that helps me "see" how the different components work in test circuits for learning and I want to use it to learn about power supplies and audio amplifiers, and to try and design my own (with a lot of external help).
That being said, I have around 1000€ left for test equipment and I guess I would need both a scope and an AWG. I was pondering the following options:
- Rigol MSO5074. Seems like a lot of bang for the buck, has a built-in AWG and it's hackable. ~1070€ total.
- Siglent SDS1104X-E and an external AWG. 850-1000€ total, depending on the AWG I choose.
- Rigol 1054Z + external AWG. 110-120€ cheaper than the siglent, but a bit too old and most people around here recommend the siglent when in doubt between the two.
- GW INSTEK GDS-1054B or 2000E + AWG. 850-1000+€. I like the Insteks with the dedicated controls for each channel, and I've seen them used in some youtube channels and the user interface seems pretty good. The problem is that the prices ramp up pretty fast from the basic model and MDO series is out of my price range, also, I don't know if things like the FRA (which I think would be useful for the amplifier project) will work with an external AWG with a hacked GDS 1000 or 2000. Also the 1054B is a bit too pricey in Europe; in Tequipment is around 280 vs 410 in EU.
- A MICSIG with an external AWG (the one with knobs and buttons). It looks nice and has features like video recording and a pretty intuitive interface, but I don't need portability and I don't know what tradeoffs it's form factor has.
I guess that's It. Any opinion is appreciated, be it about second hand scopes, different models or no scope at all. Also I have not yet researched much about AWG, but I guess that if I choose the siglent, it should also be siglent to easily use the bode plots.
Thank you in advance.
Antonio.