Rigol DHO804 Test and Compare Thread

[Fungus]

I have not yet found this function in the rigol, there you can only switch the labeling on or off.

How do you switch it off?

[ebastler]

I have not yet found this function in the rigol, there you can only switch the labeling on or off.

How do you switch it off?

See reply #649 from Martin just above, in response to your previous comment.

[Fungus]

How do you switch it off?

See reply #649 from Martin just above, in response to your previous comment.

Nice.

But it turns it off on the FFT as well. 

Oh, well. At least I have the option.

[Martin72]

But it turns it off on the FFT as well.

Not with Siglent scopes, which I find inconsistent.
Although it is actually logical that the scaling is then also missing with the FFT, because scale is scale...

[rpro]

Not talking about FFT here, just regular display of waveforms. The grid labels (µs on the horizontal and V/mV on the vertical axis) take on these awkward, odd values as soon as you move the trigger delay or the channel's vertical position around. 

For a Multipurpose Knob to become associated with a vertical channel offset, etc., you first have to open the respective channel menu window. E.g., by default, knob 2 becomes associated with Offset once the window opens (as indicated by the small yellow "2" hexagon), and you can just press the knob to set it to 0V. (Also, from there, by tapping the up/down buttons adjacent to the input field, you can quickly change it by integer values as needed...)...I am also getting used to just entering 0-OK quickly on the keypad for this purpose.

[ebastler]

Not talking about FFT here, just regular display of waveforms. The grid labels (µs on the horizontal and V/mV on the vertical axis) take on these awkward, odd values as soon as you move the trigger delay or the channel's vertical position around. 

For a Multipurpose Knob to become associated with a vertical channel offset, etc., you first have to open the respective channel menu window. [...] I am also getting used to just entering 0-OK quickly on the keypad for this purpose.

Oh, I was not talking about the multipurpose knobs. Rather about the dedicated "single purpose knobs" for controlling the horizontal and vertical position of traces on the screen.

I use these all the time to position traces on the screen such that I can tell them apart, see correlations between them, see the relevant section. While my current scope does not have a touch screen at all, I would still expect to use these knobs a lot with the DHO800 or another touch-enabled scope.

But as soon as you move your trace and trigger positions to odd values (i.e. practically all the time if you use these "analog" knobs), the on-screen scale labels for the horizontal and vertical grid will turn into rather messy, odd numbers. Hence my suggestion that there should be a quick way to snap these continuous position adjustments back to the grid.

Not a bug, just a feature or usability suggestion. As it stands, it seems to me that the axis labels do more harm than good in most situations, by taking up screen space and confusing the user with odd values. So switching them off is the workaround of choice, I guess.

[2N3055]

Not talking about FFT here, just regular display of waveforms. The grid labels (µs on the horizontal and V/mV on the vertical axis) take on these awkward, odd values as soon as you move the trigger delay or the channel's vertical position around. 

For a Multipurpose Knob to become associated with a vertical channel offset, etc., you first have to open the respective channel menu window. [...] I am also getting used to just entering 0-OK quickly on the keypad for this purpose.

Oh, I was not talking about the multipurpose knobs. Rather about the dedicated "single purpose knobs" for controlling the horizontal and vertical position of traces on the screen.

I use these all the time to position traces on the screen such that I can tell them apart, see correlations between them, see the relevant section. While my current scope does not have a touch screen at all, I would still expect to use these knobs a lot with the DHO800 or another touch-enabled scope.

But as soon as you move your trace and trigger positions to odd values (i.e. practically all the time if you use these "analog" knobs), the on-screen scale labels for the horizontal and vertical grid will turn into rather messy, odd numbers. Hence my suggestion that there should be a quick way to snap these continuous position adjustments back to the grid.

Not a bug, just a feature or usability suggestion. As it stands, it seems to me that the axis labels do more harm than good in most situations, by taking up screen space and confusing the user with odd values. So switching them off is the workaround of choice, I guess.

On my scopes one brand have two display modes. In one you move grid and static numbers... In other mode grid stays static and then you get these fractional numbers.
On other it you get only fractional numbers.

I prefer moving grid and static numbers. That one is intuitive to me because that is how you plot data in math...

[Martin72]

Axis labeling is a good thing, but I had gotten by for 20 years before that.
You don't have to count boxes anymore, that makes the scope for you.

[Mechatrommer]

Axis labeling is a good thing, but I had gotten by for 20 years before that.
You don't have to count boxes anymore, that makes the scope for you.

it wont help much if your signal offset is like 1.054887V try it and look at label and your signal is in between. if you familiar with interpolation, you'll have fun finding "points in between", esp for metrologists and tea'ism.

[2N3055]

Axis labeling is a good thing, but I had gotten by for 20 years before that.
You don't have to count boxes anymore, that makes the scope for you.

it wont help much if your signal offset is like 1.054887V try it and look at label and your signal is in between. if you familiar with interpolation, you'll have fun finding "points in between", esp for metrologists and tea'ism.

On scopes I have here, offsets are not completely "analog", but in some discrete steps. It won't be completely bonkers like your example.
More likely "1.09V"  with a step of 10mV... But still confusing a bit. That is why I said I like the moving grid better. There scale stays fixed, nice round numbers and you move the whole thing up and down.

[ebastler]

On my scopes one brand have two display modes. [...]

On scopes I have here, offsets are not completely "analog", but in some discrete steps.

I appreciate the effort to avoid triggering people. But I hope we are back on a healthy track where we can mention "the brand which must not be named (in a Rigol thread)".   

Right -- having the position control work on an even sub-division of the grid, say steps of 1% or 2% of a division, would already help. Then one can adjust the position to an exact grid line with limited knob-tweaking, and the numbers on odd settings inbetween do not look too messy.

[2N3055]

On my scopes one brand have two display modes. [...]

On scopes I have here, offsets are not completely "analog", but in some discrete steps.

I appreciate the effort to avoid triggering people. But I hope we are back on a healthy track where we can mention "the brand which must not be named (in a Rigol thread)".   

Right -- having the position control work on an even sub-division of the grid, say steps of 1% or 2% of a division, would already help. Then one can adjust the position to an exact grid line with limited knob-tweaking, and the numbers on odd settings inbetween do not look too messy.

 

A hint...
Rigol imitates Keysight in concept how they implemented this feature.
But they didn't pay attention to how Keysight display numbers.

[Fungus]

Not a bug, just a feature or usability suggestion. As it stands, it seems to me that the axis labels do more harm than good in most situations, by taking up screen space and confusing the user with odd values. So switching them off is the workaround of choice, I guess.

Yep. I've never had them on other 'scopes and they don't add much IMHO.

They're useful on the FFT so I guess I have to enable them manually there. It would be nice if they could fix that.

[tautech]

On my scopes one brand have two display modes. [...]

On scopes I have here, offsets are not completely "analog", but in some discrete steps.

I appreciate the effort to avoid triggering people. But I hope we are back on a healthy track where we can mention "the brand which must not be named (in a Rigol thread)".   

2N3055 also own HPAK, would you take offence if he told you all he thinks about it ?

[2N3055]

Not a bug, just a feature or usability suggestion. As it stands, it seems to me that the axis labels do more harm than good in most situations, by taking up screen space and confusing the user with odd values. So switching them off is the workaround of choice, I guess.

Yep. I've never had them on other 'scopes and they don't add much IMHO.

They're useful on the FFT so I guess I have to enable them manually there. It would be nice if they could fix that.

Scales are very big improvement if done right. I would not buy a scope without it anymore once I got used to it.

[ebastler]

Rigol imitates Keysight in concept how they implemented this feature.
But they didn't pay attention to how Keysight display numbers.

Just using proper rounding would go a long way...

In the screenshot below (courtesy of Fungus), I think we can ignore the scales in the FFT windows, since these are set by the user via the FFT dialog. Just look at the table entries and the vertical scale of the yellow trace.  

[2N3055]

Rigol imitates Keysight in concept how they implemented this feature.
But they didn't pay attention to how Keysight display numbers.

Just using proper rounding would go a long way...

In the screenshot below (courtesy of Fungus), I think we can ignore the scales in the FFT windows, since these are set by the user via the FFT dialog. Just look at the table entries and the vertical scale of the yellow trace.

Example of how it looks. On Keysight it is same as Fixed, including number formatting.

[ebastler]

Example of how it looks. On Keysight it is same as Fixed, including number formatting.

Yes, that looks about right. It's really not so difficult and I hope Rigol can get it right in an upcoming firmware release:

• Use a meaningful number of significant digits. Three is probably a good choice in most cases; more might be required when zoomed far into a certain part of the scale. (Say when displaying a total range of 1.10 to 1.11, I would expect to see labels like 1.104.) Six significant digits, as used on the lower end of the yellow scale in the screenshot I shared, is certainly absurd.
• Use proper rounding. 4.99999 displays as 5.00, of course, not 4.99.
• Don't change the units half-scale. If the scale includes 2.30 V, write 0.30 V as such, and don't switch to 300 mV (or worse, 300.00 mV).

Hmm, this might be a pet peeve of mine. I'll shut up now. 

[Mechatrommer]

On my scopes one brand have two display modes. [...]

On scopes I have here, offsets are not completely "analog", but in some discrete steps.

I appreciate the effort to avoid triggering people. But I hope we are back on a healthy track where we can mention "the brand which must not be named (in a Rigol thread)".   

2N3055 also own HPAK, would you take offence if he told you all he thinks about it ?

we admit drawbacks and bugs in rigol, thats why we very out loud on bug and wish lists. do you believe i wish all this bashings and complaints from you people will reach rigol? so they can do something about it to improve. we very welcome "constructive critisicm" (as long as its within "academic sanity"), there are many good things in siglent if you still remember my post, in fact i believe in this compare siglent vs rigol, siglent will win in most aspects, they have very good color grading, manual sampling rate etc. now rigol opted to enforce Sinc is a bad thing imho. and with this new android multi windows thing, there are certain things still can be improved, surely hope they listen. if only they have the spirit of "aeronautic engineering" that everything automatic must be able to switch back to "manual" (by default everything automatic for education/newbie purpose).

imagine if Rigol enforce "proper design" according to our friend's definition, that requires probing at 1MSps need to cutoff analog BW to 500kHz, that will be a total screw up imho. we have things to go back to "manual" such as Peak Detect feature, dots etc. anyway to cut short, we are certain new rigol cheap 12bit provide much improvement compared to its predecessor, except the things that we cant do anymore. the more things we cant do the more hate we will have. comparison thread, be it old vs new rigol, or siglent vs rigol should be seen by manufacturers themselves for improvement to take place. we dont have much hope rigol will see. we just wait, maybe they only care about sales figure and dave's review. if they not see this thread, we are just mumbling around. we love toys, any brand of toys, but our pocket limited so we choose based on what we really need based on reviews made. cheers.

[ebastler]

we admit drawbacks and bugs in rigol, thats why we very out loud on bug and wish lists. do you believe i wish all this bashings and complaints from you people will reach rigol? so they can do something about it to improve. we very welcome "constructive critisicm" (as long as its within "academic sanity"), there are many good things in siglent if you still remember my post, in fact i believe in this compare siglent vs rigol, siglent will win in most aspects, they have very good color grading, manual sampling rate etc. now rigol opted to enforce Sinc is a bad thing imho. and with this new android multi windows thing, there are certain things still can be improved, surely hope they listen. if only they have the spirit of "aeronautic engineering" that everything automatic must be able to switch back to "manual" (by default everything automatic for education/newbie purpose). imagine if Rigol enforce "proper design" according to our friend's definition, that requires probing at 1MSps need to cutoff analog BW to 500kHz, that will be a total screw up imho. we have things to go back to "manual" such as Peak Detect feature, dots etc. anyway to cut short, we are certain new rigol cheap 12bit provide much improvement compared to its predecessor, except the things that we cant do anymore. the more things we cant do the more hate we will have. comparison thread, be it old vs new rigol, or siglent vs rigol should be seen by manufacturers themselves for improvement to take place. we dont have much hope rigol will see. we just wait, maybe they only care about sales figure and dave's review. if they not see this thread, we are just mumbling around. we love toys, any brand of toys, but our pocket limited so we choose based on what we really need based on reviews made. cheers.

Could you please try and add the occasional paragraph break (two carriage returns)?

It would make your posts much easier to read, by indicating where one train of thought ends and the next one begins, and also by giving the eye some orientation marks. Otherwise it's hard to do your posts justice and read them diligently.

Oh, and for even better orientation: Capitalizing the first letter of each sentence does help the reader too. 

[dmulligan]

Just using proper rounding would go a long way...

This!  What human can really see the difference between the scales we are taking about.  The slight reduction in displayed, not recorded, accuracy can't be seen and would be much easier to read.

Wait.  What is proper rounding?  There are so many choices!  Round up, round down, half up, half down, even up... What about negatives, which way is up?  It wasn't that many years ago that my mind was blown when reading a Javadoc which listed and explained the available rounding options.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounding

[2N3055]

imagine if Rigol enforce "proper design" according to our friend's definition, that requires probing at 1MSps need to cutoff analog BW to 500kHz, that will be a total screw up imho.

I presume this was addressed to me. This is again you saying something completely invented and then blatantly lie I said that..

I will repeat again what I said:
While any scope can be made to undersample by user driving it wrong/ without proper knowledge, there is no 4 ch + MSO scope out there (including Hanteks and Owon and UNI-T) that will try to sell you 200Mhz scope that samples at maximum of 156.25 MS/s when all channels are on.

My problem is not that DHO900 will sometimes undersample (like the rest of the scopes). Problem is that unless you use it like you have bought 2 ch scope, it CANNOT satisfy Nyquist at any setting of memory and time base.

That is either bad design (which it cannot be because Rigol does know better) or deliberate, very unsavoury, marketing scam.
You know ones that tell you something with big letters on first page, followed by 3 pages of disclaimers explaining how it applies in only certain special cases...

EDIT: This undersampling problem does not apply to DHO800 in it's factory form 100 MHz. They did that one right as far as sampling goes. It is still a bit marginal with more than 150MHz front end BW, but that is probably OK. It should work OK. Except short memory in 4ch mode that will also drop sampling rate very quickly as you go longer timebases.

[Mechatrommer]

...
My problem is not that DHO900 will sometimes undersample (like the rest of the scopes). Problem is that unless you use it like you have bought 2 ch scope, it CANNOT satisfy Nyquist at any setting of memory and time base.

That is either bad design (which it cannot be because Rigol does know better) or deliberate, very unsavoury, marketing scam.
...

nope! there is no one in the sky telling it must satifies Nyquist at 4 channels, its even mentioned in datasheet (4 channels 312.5MSps) and we have no problem with that, sometime we need 4 channels for low freq debugging, for max freq, turn them all off like 1 channel. the fact that there is no telling much about the 16ch LA, prepare for anything, get used to that, thats how china's metric works in general. cheers.
https://beyondmeasure.rigoltech.com/acton/attachment/1579/f-c2b704a4-c02c-4b09-9748-7e41815c1fa9/0/-/-/-/-/DHO900_DataSheet_EN.pdf

[2N3055]

Just using proper rounding would go a long way...

This!  What human can really see the difference between the scales we are taking about.  The slight reduction in displayed, not recorded, accuracy can't be seen and would be much easier to read.

Wait.  What is proper rounding?  There are so many choices!  Round up, round down, half up, half down, even up... What about negatives, which way is up?  It wasn't that many years ago that my mind was blown when reading a Javadoc which listed and explained the available rounding options.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounding

Appropriate rounding here would be rounding away from zero, with 2 decimal places. And no switching of units on same display. Those are only axis values for visual orientation.

[Mechatrommer]

Could you please try and add the occasional paragraph break (two carriage returns)?

It would make your posts much easier to read, by indicating where one train of thought ends and the next one begins, and also by giving the eye some orientation marks. Otherwise it's hard to do your posts justice and read them diligently.

Oh, and for even better orientation: Capitalizing the first letter of each sentence does help the reader too. 

You could be a good Language Teacher no offense, but thanks for advice.

Sometime i'm lazy arse on capitalizing, except tech short term.

I break paragraph when i change subject.

Anyhow i separated them for your eyes. I think you are not going to read all that through anyway all my mumbling above.

Savvy?

Just using proper rounding would go a long way...

you cannot satisfy everybody...

Is there possibility to show freq like 4.43361875 Mhz, my dho804 only shows like rounded to 4.4444 - only 4 digits after dot