New GW-Instek 2000 series digiscope-GDS 2202E

[commie]

Hi Fella's,


GW Instek have recently introduced a new line of digital oscilloscopes the GDS 2000E series, not to be confused with the older GDS 2000A series.I searched the forum for this new scope and came up zero, so I thought I'd start a thread.

Well it looks like Instek are going to take on Rigols 2000 series head on. The GW scope is cheaper and you get serial bus decoding and segmented memory plus lots more as standard. Read the spec. here

http://www.aspen-instek.com/gds-2202e

I decided last week to take a gamble and so I bought one a 2202E that is.Should have it this coming Friday.

[akimmet]

Instek has a new 1000B series too. It looks to be comparable to the Rigol 1000z series.
http://www.gwinstek.com/en-US/products/Oscilloscopes/Digital_Storage_Oscilloscopes/GDS-1000B

I still haven't made a final decision on Rigol or Instek, but I'm leaning towards the GDS-1102B.

[pascal_sweden]

Looking nice, but probably no BW upgrade hacks for these GW-Instek scopes

10M memory depth is quite impressive though, as it is independent for each channel.

The intensity grading does not look so nice. Rigol scores much better in this field.



No information about serial decoding or other decoding options on the GDS-1000B series.

It seems they do a lot of direct comparison with Rigol. Not only on their website, but also in some videos:


No matter if it performs better in FFT, I think that the Rigol scope looks much better.
The buttons next to the screen don't look so nice, but this is personal taste of course

[dadler]

1 GSa/s Maximum Real-Time Sampling Rate

[miguelvp]

On the 1st video, he didn't even bother to compensate the probe, that's just great advertising!

On the 2nd one he probably selected the worse setting for the DS1000z model.

I don't have a DS1000z but on my DS2000 one I get 500MSa/s with Auto Mem Depth capturing 14M points using peak detect and I can see all the harmonics fine, odd and even.

[pascal_sweden]

Yes, that also disturbed me a lot. He started adding measurement options, without compensating the probe. Gave me the impression that it is a marketing guy, and not an engineer who actually knows about the basic scope principles Looks like they did not even review the video internally, otherwise at least one of the engineers would have pointed that out too!

I actually don't like this direct comparison approach, breaking down other manufacturers.
This is not very professional. It makes me think about the Pepsi and Coca-Cola fights

[commie]

Well, my brand new GW-Instek GDS2202E scope arrived yesterday and it is having a lasting impression on me. I'm very glad I bought it.My Rigol DS1104Z has been moved to the back burner.

I just want to clarify something here regarding Rigols Ultra-Vision whose concept it is to make their digital scopes screens look and feel and behave like the old crt scope screens, that is increased intensity on modulated waveforms where the 'knots' appear. I must say that Rigol has done a very good job here, but wait...why make a digi scope screen behavior the same as a CRT screen?Whats so fascinating about CRT screen behavior? CRT scopes are gone and they are in the past now.

Cheers
commie

[dadler]

It's the graded persistence modes so you can more easily see transient behavior. That's what many are referring to when they like "analog" type scopes. The Rigol implementation is quite good, even on the DS1000Z series, and better on the higher models (more graduations-64 vs 256 IIRC).

[commie]

It's the graded persistence modes so you can more easily see transient behavior. That's what many are referring to when they like "analog" type scopes.

Did the 'graded persistence' effects come by a natural feature of CRT scope screens? or was there engineering done in the actual CRT tube to make this happen?

[dadler]

yes, by the natural persistence of the phosphor on the CRT.

edit: some analog scopes have a Z input, that can control the brightess at the given instant in the electron gun sweep. This can be useful in some cases and I am not aware of any digital scopes that have the same feature.

[commie]

yes, by the natural persistence of the phosphor on the CRT.

So any digi scope which doesn't copy CRT display characteristics in it's screen driver software are a pile crap then? Let me point something out here, Dave compared Rigol's  scope against a GW-Instek scope display and claimed the latter was a pile of crap because it did not deploy Rigol's 'Ultra-Vision' equivalent, I think that's a bit unfair and biased.

Valves and CRT's fooled mankind for half a century or more that to create electronic gain, a valve was required.

 

[dadler]

Well, he's essentially right. Those persistence modes are incredibly useful. I use them all of the time on my scopes and find them invalulable. For a modern scope to not have a reasonable implementation of persistence... I consider that to be a big faux-pas.

[rsjsouza]

Well, he's essentially right. Those persistence modes are incredibly useful. I use them all of the time on my scopes and find them invalulable. For a modern scope to not have a reasonable implementation of persistence... I consider that to be a big faux-pas.

I agree with dadler... It was the main reason why I upgraded from my previous DSO.

It is not a luddite-pleasing feature; it really helps catch hard-to-find or unusual behaviour in waveforms.

[pascal_sweden]

Not having a decent intensity grading today on your scope, is like going back 10 years in time

Regarding the implementation of intensity grading. Is the implementation of the algorithm public domain or under NDA?

Would Rigol have implemented this on their own, or would they have bought/licensed a 3rd party library from a company specialised in imaging/medical imaging/or the like?

Maybe there are even some patents behind? Would be cool to find out more about the various implementations, and see if there is some IP behind as well

[commie]

I agree with dadler... It was the main reason why I upgraded from my previous DSO.
It is not a luddite-pleasing feature; it really helps catch hard-to-find or unusual behaviour in waveforms.

What I can't understand is why go DSO? why not use a CRT analogue scope instead?

[pascal_sweden]

Why DSO and not analog scope?
Advanded triggering, Auto measurements, Protocol decoding, Single shot capture, Segmented memory, Search functions, Math operations, FFT, Mask testing, Screenshots, Exports to Excel, Instrumentation control, Easier calibration/adjustment, Low power, Cheaper to build new, Individual color per channel, Precise screen cursors, BW upgrade in SW, Trial options, MSO upgrade option, etc.

[commie]

Not having a decent intensity grading today on your scope, is like going back 10 years in time

Really?, intensity grading is a natural artifact of any CRT phosphor screen(this is according to Dadler and others), how far back do CRT screens go?

We are all trying to replicate CRT display behavior using digi scope software.

[miguelvp]

Intensity grading is very simple.

Say you have a sampling rate of 6,000 waveforms per second and you are displaying them on the screen at 60Hz, well if a pixels is hit 100 times then you leave that pixel at 100% intensity, if never than 0% and in between, well you can go linear or logarithmic. Then give the user access to contrast and/or brightness adjustment.

[pascal_sweden]

Not having a decent intensity grading today on your scope, is like going back 10 years in time

Really?, intensity grading is a natural artifact of any CRT phosphor screen(this is according to Dadler and others), how far back do CRT screens go?

We are all trying to replicate CRT display behavior using digi scope software.

Why you need intensity grading? Really?
Please see the video below! Hopefully you now get why it is important to have a decent intensity grading!

And can you check this on your new GDS-2000E model? Hopefully it does a better job

Intensity grading is very simple.

Say you have a sampling rate of 6,000 waveforms per second and you are displaying them on the screen at 60Hz, well if a pixels is hit 100 times then you leave that pixel at 100% intensity, if never than 0% and in between, well you can go linear or logarithmic. Then give the user access to contrast and/or brightness adjustment.

If intensity grading is that simple to implement, how come GW-Instek did such a lousy job in the GDS-2000A series? =)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cRe9b7iV6Kc#t=2558

Hopefully this has been improved in the GDS-2000E series. Apparently it is easy to implement

If Rigol can do proper intensity grading on a 300 USD scope, then GW-Instek should be able to do it on a 750 USD scope as well!

Rigol and GW-Instek is like day and night in feature/quality difference. And Rigol is even cheaper.

BTW:
- The screen seems to have a 4:3 aspect ratio?
- Most of the turnable buttons on the GW-Instek scopes don't have a secondary function (they are not pushable). Rigol scopes have a secondary function on most buttons.
- The cursors on the screen have the same color as the waveform. This can be disturbing.
- The scope seems louder than Rigol (even louder?)

[dadler]

Instek has been around a long time, but the brand as a whole is not known for anything other than cheap/low-end products today. They are like Rigol and Siglent. No idea why they didn't implement it (if that indeed is the case), but it's not totally out of character for a low end device to be lacking a piece of expected tech.

[commie]

Instek has been around a long time, but the brand as a whole is not known for anything other than cheap/low-end products today. They are like Rigol and Siglent.

The world's pecking order designed by the United States with regards to quality of equipment goes, USA no.1, Europe no.2, Japan No.3 then South Korea(4) then Taiwan(5) and then China(6) and lastly India(7).I merely want to point out that there is a clear distinction between  Chinese and Taiwanese designed equipment's, i.e., Taiwanese stuff is usually good, e.g., look at Brymen/greenlee DMM. these are right up Flukes Ass in terms of quality and spec.

As far as intensity grading is concerned, the GDS2202E does implement it and you can set with up to about 8 levels with a 120 000wfs/sec throughput  rate, it can see the most elusive infrequent glitch anytime. I notice both Rigol and Keysight have special offers on their respective 2000 series scope models no doubt because of the introduction of the GDS2202E on the market.When Dave reviewed the Keysight 2000X, its a great pity he didn't test its persistence  with a 120% mod. AM wave like he did with the GWInstek scope.

[Hydrawerk]

Hi Fella's,
GW Instek have recently introduced a new line of digital oscilloscopes the GDS 2000E series, not to be confused with the older GDS 2000A series.I searched the forum for this new scope and came up zero, so I thought I'd start a thread.

There is another old thread.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/gw-instek-gds-2000e-released/

[Hydrawerk]

The GDS-1000B is strange as expected. No Trigger Output. No fine vertical or horizontal scale control. No built-in signal generator. No serial decoding. The bus, search and arrow buttons seem to have no function???
Rigol DS1000Z-S is more feature rich, that's for sure.

[commie]

There is another old thread.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/gw-instek-gds-2000e-released/

Thanks Hydrawerk!, Like I said I did search first but couldn't find anything, your thread makes for very insightful reading.BTW, you appear to be concerned that there are no Vertical/Horizontal fine controls, well there is, but you need to select them in software via a softkey.
What I like most about this scope is it is massive, about 1/3 bigger than my Rigol DS1104Z.
The GDS2202E is both boring(lovely), very easy to use and quality feel to it.

Cheers
Commie

[pascal_sweden]

What I find a bit odd is that the buttons on the right of the screen are round, while the buttons on the bottom are flat.
Would have been more consistent to have them both flat for the vertical strip on the right of the screen, and the horizontal strip on the bottom of the screen.

The round buttons on the right of the screen seem also a bit big. If they would have been made smaller, there could have been more space between adjacent buttons.