Hello guys and gals.
I been watching the EEVBLOG posts on youtube for years and read the forums a few times but never had cause to post till I decided to buy my first piece of real test equipment... LOL
Little back story I been working with basic electronics for a few years and have become familiar with the basics. I was finally opened up to the world through the Arduino platform like hundreds of others and have grown in leaps and bounds because of it. Now I'm ready to start buying some actual tools to work with instead of guessing. Some of the projects I'm working on require viewing Car bus networks and also need to generate signals that I would see from say a ABS sensor or a HIGH speed output hall effect on a transmission shaft. All these are signals I need to create and signals I need to be able to view.
I have been looking at buying a my first scope for about 3 weeks now. I was looking at a Tek465 and was about to pull the trigger on buying it when I came across the videos that Dave had put up on youtube about the Rigol Ds1000z series. I had saw many of his other videos about all sorts of other stuff but ignored these because I thought It was to much out of my price range. Then When I did I was blown away by how much I could get for the price.
So then that started me down a deep rabbit hole and 3 weeks later here I am. I Was really leaning towards getting the Ds1054z but saw they had a DS1074z-s with built in Function generator for 818$ on TEquipment.com. I liked the features but the price was double what I was looking at. Then I stumbled across the DS2072A-S-DEMO on Tequipment and for the price of 750$ it was in between the DS1074-s and the DS1054z. But offers over double of everything BW, Mem, Sample Rate and more decode options BUT only 2 channels instead of 4.
So this is where I am stuck. This is my first scope and I haven't fully been able to determine which I would favor more 4 channels and less BW and sampling OR less channels and more BW and More Sampling. I would like to have the signal generator built in as it helps have everything in one package but I already have a 3mhz signal generator So I wouldn't have to have it.
I am mostly doing Digital Circuitry stuff, So The decoders seem nice and the DS2072A has CAN BUS decoder options where the DS1054z does not. Mostly trying to figure out CAN Bus related things and other obscure Car based networks IE: toyota BEAN and so on. I am thinking of getting into HAM radio in the next year or so also.
I have kind of driving my self nuts with looking so I figured I would ask for some help from people who have been in my shoes or who have enough future vision to know what might be valuable in the future.
So any suggestions would be great sorry to ramble but it's been a really bumpy road trying to figure this out.
But I know I will grow into it because I keep stepping into more advance stuff every time I complete a project.
From Dave's reviews and other stuff I have saw, I'm leaning towards buying the DS1054z and just using it till I say Man I NEED more bandwidth or NEED more Sampling then just spend the big bucks on something higher end. Then just fill in the gaps with dedicated hardware IE Function generator(better than my 3mhz) and anything else I need.
So I'm open to your guys help.
I appreciate it.
(All above Oscopes are with assumptions of the liberation of their firmware in mind.)