REVIEW - Rigol DS2072 - First Impressions of the DS2000 series from Rigol

[marmad]

I can't believe that when I first started playing around with making movies from recorded frames I was stacking .BMP files into massive .MP4 movies    and with almost no compression, of course, because you would lose the detail of the waveform. It took awhile to finally penetrate my thick skull that animated GIFs were much better for this 'vector' animation 

[marmad]

I just used a flashlight and looked through the vents as shown in one of the pics.  You can see all the clips and retainers this way, though it does take some work to get the viewing angle and flashlight angles...  I didn't remove my Void sticker.   The shaking I did was mostly just rolilng the parts around near the vents.  No where near what a real product verification vibration test would do:)

Thanks for this info, Martin. Maybe we all need to do a minor shake test once a day before we bootup (and with power cord unplugged) 

[scummos]

Is that software of yours cross-platform, so it could be ported to another OS by implementing a different backend for device communication? What language is it written in? Did you consider putting it on e.g. github?

Greetings,
Sven

[marmad]

Is that software of yours cross-platform, so it could be ported to another OS by implementing a different backend for device communication? What language is it written in? Did you consider putting it on e.g. github?

VB.NET - because I already had some SCPI modules written from when I briefly owned a DS1052E.

[Sparky]

I posted an update on IVI drivers/info for the DS2000 series in the "Software & Tips" thread.  See my post here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/software-tips-and-tricks-for-rigol-ds200040006000-ultravision-dsos/msg177056/#msg177056

[jeeff47]

Wow... you guys sure hit the thread hard in the last 24h... took me a little to catch up.
Thanks for all the thoughts and info everyone.

So just to confirm... I know on pg 22 or 23 people were talking about scope probes and someone pointed out that there are currently no alternate probes that can be used with the Rigol DS2000 models. This is due to how the probes are powered?
So overall its essentially confirmed that there are currently no Tek, Agilent or other scope probes that are not cross compatible?

I also experienced issues with the probe clips not staying on the scope probe I will try and "click" the tips on there; hopefully I wont break anything.

Thank you for posting about the heat sink? Aside from the one person on here and the video which was created back in September (?) which was mentioned in Dave's video(?)(I could be wrong of the alternate place i heard of this); has anybody else experienced any issues with this? Do you know when you scope was manufactured?

The way to determine this is in your serial number for instance:
DS2A143500123
the 14 represents rigols 14th year of operation
and the 35 represents the 35th week in that year.

Maybe this is a batch issue?

[Wim13]

Wow... you guys sure hit the thread hard in the last 24h... took me a little to catch up.
Thanks for all the thoughts and info everyone.

So just to confirm... I know on pg 22 or 23 people were talking about scope probes and someone pointed out that there are currently no alternate probes that can be used with the Rigol DS2000 models. This is due to how the probes are powered?
So overall its essentially confirmed that there are currently no Tek, Agilent or other scope probes that are not cross compatible?


The way to determine this is in your serial number for instance:
DS2A143500123
the 14 represents rigols 14th year of operation
and the 35 represents the 35th week in that year.

Maybe this is a batch issue?

Rigol was founded in 1998, + 14 is 2012, mine serial number has 14 and 47 , so should be 2012, nov 19
that is quite new..

About the probes, yes there are cross compatible probes, a lot, but they cost a lot, on the agilent site
there are more then 100 kinds, but also second hand on the site of www.helmut-singer.de on the scoop accessories page.

[Wim13]

Hi,  DS2072   FW1.00.02    DSA1421xxxxx
when the stick was inserted/left-in before start-up .
Is this to prevent boot from Stick?
Is this only on 1.00.02?

Yes, i dont have this, on 1.00,05.

[marmad]

When loading Waveforms from a USB Stick I have to remove the stick and re-insert after I have  selected Storage, Load, when the stick was inserted/left-in before start-up .
Is this only on 1.00.02?

This isn't a problem for me using 01.00.05. Have you tried alternate sticks? Some devices are notoriously picky about the brand.

[Teneyes]

My Story to here!
    I was working on a project that needed a storage scope ,it was to measure motor Tach Voltages running very slow ,2 RPM with lots of Commutator Ripple. at 2s/div scan;  So I went t on a search for a DSO , And found reviews and Praise for DS1052 and the hack.  Then I found Marmad's series of Reviews. (*rigolds1052, Hantek, Owen, and I my wish list got more clarified.  I almost went for the Owen for the Battery Feature but waited.
I learnt about Sample time, equivalent Sample time,  Bandwidth, hacks, analog frontend, quality,screen size, resolution. memory depth.....

I looked at high-end stuff,  and lucked upon


I almost bought an agilent at $2000,
but heard that DS2000 was coming.  I knew that Rigol and Agilent had a deal and hope there was some design exchanged , Then when we all got the DS2000 specs, looking a lot like Agilent 2000x , with 50,000 Frame updates and , wow 56Mpts Depth. , I bought.

I had already received DS2072, before Dave's reviews and Tear down,   " I Like It !!!"
Good to see inside.
I do give Praise to Marmad, and Recommend Rigol reward him with a Bonus, "Free Upgrade to Options"

[marmad]

I do give Praise to Marmad, and Recommend Rigol reward him with a Bonus, "Free Upgrade to Options"

Thanks for the kind words, Teneyes. I did actually get one free license code for my Rigol - for the extra triggers - but that was more through the kindness and generosity of my dealer, drieg - than through Rigol. He was offered some compensation from Rigol because of the problems and service needed surrounding the early firmware of the DS4000 - and one thing he got from them was one of the option codes for me - to thank me for making the review and promoting the DS2000 series. Quite unexpected and generous of him. I still highly recommend him as the place to buy a Rigol for Europeans - with the same price / free delivery as Batronix - but much more personal and knowledgeable after-service.

[AndyC_772]

When loading Waveforms from a USB Stick I have to remove the stick and re-insert after I have  selected Storage, Load, when the stick was inserted/left-in before start-up .
Is this only on 1.00.02?

This isn't a problem for me using 01.00.05. Have you tried alternate sticks? Some devices are notoriously picky about the brand.

If it's anything like my DG4062, it'll be horribly picky - and the faults that show up vary between memory sticks. I had one not recognised at all, one became unreadable in the PC after being used in the Rigol, and one would work OK in both Rigol and PC, but they were clearly accessing different memory areas in the Flash because neither could see the other's files (and would clearly end up corrupting and overwriting them).

My dealer recommended Integral brand sticks as being ones which they'd found to work, and sure enough, I found an Integral 16GB stick worked fine:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002RL52K8/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

[AndyC_772]

...because of the problems and service needed surrounding the early firmware of the DS4000...

I know the DS4000 series is more expensive and there aren't quite so many around, but: am I to assume that the DS4000 series runs similar firmware and suffers from similar bugs to the DS2000 series? If I were looking at ordering one soon, should I hold off or at least insist on it being supplied with a particular firmware version?

Is there a list of known bugs in the DS4000 series anywhere?

[marmad]

I know the DS4000 series is more expensive and there aren't quite so many around, but: am I to assume that the DS4000 series runs similar firmware and suffers from similar bugs to the DS2000 series? If I were looking at ordering one soon, should I hold off or at least insist on it being supplied with a particular firmware version?

Is there a list of known bugs in the DS4000 series anywhere?

Clearly the entire 'new' UltraVision line (2000/4000/6000) must share a similar platform - and thus, must share some code - but I haven't seen a bug list for the 4000 or 6000 series - and the 2000 shares some features with the 6000, but not the 4000 - and has some unique features all it's own (like the 500uV sensitivity). So I don't think you can make any assumptions about shared bugs - best to confer with DS4000 owners. I'd hoped that a few would join in on this thread, but I haven't noticed if they have. The particular problem that I mentioned above was a bug in the early firmware of the 4000 series which caused corruption of the internal FLASH memory - and could lead to bricking (and so requiring service). I know that that bug has been eliminated in the latest FW.

[ve7xen]

Also, since I have the animated GIF option as a kind of compiled version of the screen images - I'd like to do the same for the CSV output. Does anyone know if you can make a database file that is in CSV format? So it could be opened in Access or another DB program?

To what purpose? A relational database isn't really appropriate for this sort of data I don't think. Though most database engines I'm familiar with can import CSV fairly easily (Postgres, MySQL and Oracle all can).

Have just ordered my DS2072 thanks to this thread and particularly your posts marmad. Thanks for the info and software, I'm sure I will be satisfied. Waiting anxiously for a shipment notification so I can play .

[ve7xen]

Well, I'm not sure - maybe we can discover a purpose later. But originally the idea was just as a possible solution to an organizational problem - if you want a voltage record of each waveform stored in a 100 different frames, the DS2000 doesn't allow you to save any files when in Record mode. But my software can pull out that voltage record from each frame and save it as a CSV file, but then you have a 100 (or whatever) separate CSV files. I thought it might be handier to have it stored in a single file, as a database of frames connected via their relationship to time. Anyway, just trying to think of more efficient ways to save recorded data for possible analysis or processing later.

I see what you mean, maybe something a little more elegant than a bunch of timestamped text files is required... Maybe a simple XML format? Unless you're planning on writing a 'waveform management system' as well though (and I'm sure many would be happy if you were!), this might be one to leave as an exercise to the reader.

[andrewfernie]

BTW, in the interest of pushing the software I'm writing on more owners   it takes the Rigol 15 seconds to write a PNG file to a USB stick - and then, of course, there's the time needed to transfer the stick to a computer and read the file. It takes the Rigol UltraVision Utilities 2.3 seconds (using USB) to transfer the data to the PC and save it 

Works like a charm.

In addition to it being faster you also get the opportunity to enter a (hopefully meaningful) name for the file as you save it.

Thank you for the work you have put into the application - much appreciated.

Andrew

[marmad]

This thread veered off into the software side - so in the interest of a little thread management, I'm going to repost this short discussion over in the other thread and delete my (software-related) comments here.

[marmad]

  I find that if Counter is On ,
 AUTO does not work
Does this happen on FW=1.00.05?

It seems to work for me with FW 01.00.05:

[EV]

  I find that if Counter is On ,
 AUTO does not work
Does this happen on FW=1.00.05?

It seems to work for me with FW 01.00.05:

It works here too. When I noticed this problem, I had also FW 1.00.02. Now it is 1.00.05 and I have not used AUTO for a long time.

[TP]

DS2072   FW=1.00.02
Update on Bug 7.) AUTO routine sometimes fails
  I find that if Counter is On, one channel Only ,
 AUTO does not work
   changes trigger and scan rate
   and only displays a blank Menu
See Displays att.

On my DS2072 with the .02 FW AUTO sometimes fails like you mention when the Counter is On and one channel selected, but it sometimes works (despite using an identical input signal).

[michi]

Hi Marmad, and everybody else

Based on your great review on the DS2072 and the posts to the EEVblog forum here, I decided to order the DS2072 for myself. Thank you all!

I did so trough Rigols official distributor for Switzerland. As soon as it arrives I will post software version and hardware revision, for you guys to see (to confirm your theory about RigolNa and Rigol Europe shipping different firmwares), also to see if there is already newer firmware on the market.

I hope that I can contribute to your efforts, especially help testing RUU software, where I find the GIFs absolutely brilliant.

As for my motivation, I have this idea that I might be possible to combine the readings from the DSO and feed it somehow into the software from saleae to allow decoding of two-channel protocols like I2C. (Or maybe into sump - altough it looks a lot less appealing than the software from saleae). Maybe I can contribute something to your effords here.

I'll update you as soon as the scope arrives. 

[Wim13]

Strange hat,

On small signals of about 1 mV i get a strange hat on
the trigger point, see att. picture, that little peak on the middle
of the screen on the top of the sinus.

It is only at the trigger point, perhaps to do with noise
trigger or something..?

Note the generator reads 536 uV, so very good rms on the scoop.

[CarlG]

Strange hat,

On small signals of about 1 mV i get a strange hat on
the trigger point, see att. picture, that little peak on the middle
of the screen on the top of the sinus.

It is only at the trigger point, perhaps to do with noise
trigger or something..?

Note the generator reads 536 uV, so very good rms on the scoop.

You've set the trigger level just below the "hat" level, so naturally that is what the scope is triggering on. Set the trigger to mid level of the sine instead, and see if you can see the hat then. If not, set to inifinite persistence.

//C

[martinv]

Strange hat,

On small signals of about 1 mV i get a strange hat on
the trigger point, see att. picture, that little peak on the middle
of the screen on the top of the sinus.

It is only at the trigger point, perhaps to do with noise
trigger or something..?

Note the generator reads 536 uV, so very good rms on the scoop.

You've set the trigger level just below the "hat" level, so naturally that is what the scope is triggering on. Set the trigger to mid level of the sine instead, and see if you can see the hat then. If not, set to inifinite persistence.

//C

My scope shows the same thing and it definitely appears to be trigger related.  I'm guessing you are running averaging?  My signal is a lot noisier without averaging.  I also noticed if you lower the trigger level the 'hat' follows, but is less obvious when not on the peak.  When you turn averaging off, it appears there is much less noise displayed at the triggerpoint compared to the rest of the wave.

Another thing I notice is the scope loses trigger if you go below ~ the zero crossing of the sine wave.  This is while using rising edge trigger.  The opposite is true with falling edge trigger.   

I think the waveform is only triggering above the peak of your sinewave, therefore is showing 'noise' in that particular peak. because it can't get averaged out...because it is there everytime it triggers.  The 'hat' effect becomes less noticable as amplitude increases because your signal to noise ratio improves.