Heads-up - this is where my "it's not a review" starts, but there are parts of this that are confused and confusing as it relates to decoding, and there are more confused and confusing posts I made that follow; if you want to follow my confusion - read them all; if you want to get closer to the conclusion read this post (#25) and then jump to reply #48 and continue from there. (In between where you see posts from other members - those are worth reading; mine maybe not so much unless you are really into watching a new guy learn decoding.) Just trying to help readers navigate and use their time effectively. Thx, EFOk, here is where the rubber has met the road.
Attached are some photos from my new Rigol DS1104Z. (I passed on the S version as I have a function generator that does some of what I need/want and I figured if I like the scope enough maybe I'll go for a DG4062).
First - Thanks! to the many EEVers here who have provided so many great posts. If it wasn't for this site I might not have discovered Rigol and/or I might not have had the confidence that Rigol could build such a great scope.
This purchase represents about a half year of product research and anticipation. (Somewhat thorough, maybe; quickly decisive on this, not so much.) What had me thrown for a loop was my strong desire to find the intersection between DSOs and Logic Analyzers without having to jump too far up the food chain on a somewhat pricey MSO. Anyway, today the 1104Z arrived - so my impressions are very preliminary - but I can also say the impressions are (knock on wood) very positive!
The Rigol packaging includes a nice double box. The unit itself stuck me as compact in a good way and the construction appears solid with good workmanship.
Coming from an analog Tektronix (2247A) scope that I've loved using there was some possibility that I could have plugged-in and turned on the DS1104Z and said "so what's the big deal?" but I am happy to say I immediately recognized the big deal when I saw it.
As soon as it booted up I had my first serious "I get why this is very cool" impression. I guess I should have expected that the difference between a vintage green screen and a color display would be notable. A friend of mine who worked many years ago for Xerox said they taught him that color has "impact and distinction." Indeed!
The next thing is that the screen is sharp. While some of the lettering rendered on the screen is on the small side it is clear. Overall I'd say my impression of the screen is "gorgeous" - but again my beloved (nearly vintage) Tek scope is the reference. Speaking of relative, the fan on the DS1104Z sounds pretty close to whisper quite (or at least it's very minor backgroud noise) compared to the fan on the 2247A. I don't know if I got an especially good fan in the Rigol or if other users were hoping for no fan sound whatsoever, but of all the things that would bug me the sound of this fan isn't one of them.
I just started pressing buttons and turning knobs and my first reaction is that the controls are in very reasonable locations on the front panel, they have nice enough action, and the scope is very friendly overall. I've already found a few menu items here and there where I could probably come up with a reason to change this or that but nothing serious at all - and I'm so new to the scope that I'm willing to forgo any judgments until I can better understand what might have been the reasoning behind the design.
So, without further ado I hooked up a PC with up my favorite HyperTerminal ASCII file consisting of all upper case Us so that I could observe some 1s and 0s. (Thanks again to ALM for turning me on to the extra nice square wave pattern generated with the capital Us.) In addition to being nearly blown away by the modern day advancement of color I found that a digital scope is MUCH easier for triggering and especially navigating signals than an analog scope. Hello this century!
Moving further into modern technology I worked my way through the decoder options, and low and behold I was able to get the scope to decode my alternating high and low voltage waveform into ASCII U’s! Next I was able to press the Format soft menu key to select BIN and what did I get? 01010101 Well, this might be really good or it might be a wif. According to the documentation I have regarding ASCII characters, it appears that a capital U is in fact alternating 1s and 0s, but it should be 10101010 (not 01010101). I have played with the soft menu to try various combinations of polarity and MSB and LSB but so far I haven’t been able to figure out what’s up with this. It is possible that this is a software/firmware bug (this might be along the lines of some issues reported by AndyC_772) or this might very well be (probably is) my own user error. On the other hand, when the U character is displayed under Format as a DEC setting it shows 85 which in fact is the right number according to the ASCII table I am using. So unfortunately, I think it might be a firmware error. My take on this is that if it is my error, shame on me; if it is a Rigol error no big deal – I’m sure they can and will fix it.
Zooming out (figuratively), I am ecstatic that what I imagined was doable on an oscilloscope – the ability to observe waveforms and decode characters in ASCII, Binary, Hex and Decimal is not only doable, but it is pretty straight forward and easy (and fun) to use – and it is doable at a very nice price point with a very good looking scope.
I haven’t gotten around to finding a reason yet for why I had to have 4 channels (instead of getting a bigger display with better performance on the DS2000 series) but hey, it’s my first couple hours with the scope. My initial reaction is that by the time I get 4 channels displayed at the same time the display might be kind of small/cramped but maybe the idea is that you can have all 4 channels hooked up and ready to observe and then you can turn each channel on and off as needed. My guess is that with all 4 channels doing something useful (SPI?) it will be cool.
So far (knock on wood):