Farnell are off-loading their remaining stock of entry level generators and having bought one I thought I would share some thoughts/findings noting that some other forum members may have seen the offer online (UK £82 incl. VAT and delivery) and weighing it against other budget options like Feel-Elec etc.
It's an own brand equivalent of Uni-T UTG9005c-ii (which is also discontinued). The specifications are not going to get anyone around here excited but it can do basic things:
125MSa/s, 14 bit DDS.
Single channel. Up to 5MHz out on sine/square, 1MHz on arb and 200kHz on ramp.
20V p-p output or 10V p-p into 50 ohms. DC offset within these limits.
Linear or log frequency sweep.
AM/FM modulation. Can use internal or external modulation source.
50 ohm output and also low impedance amplified output, at the rear.
The display is a traditional fixed format, sort of reverse contrast calculator style. Backlit, not especially bright, but at least it is big (NB I had to use some IPA to get the glue residue off from the protection film).
Good:
Fast, near instant startup time. From cold it remembers the settings, apart from the 'output' button.
There's a square wave synchronisation output. When outputting fixed frequency, this can be phase offset. For a sweep output it pulses at the sweep frequency, so you can trigger an oscilloscope on that.
The integrated output amp is an unusual feature -- this convenience of being able to directly drive some current is what sold it for me.
Bad:
Does not support user-supplied waveforms. You just have the (pointless) built-in arb examples. This is a real downer!
Has USB port, but supplied software doesn't install properly. Barely worth it if you can't upload waveforms, however I did find that the more recent software for the Uni-T UTG932/962 was able to 'remote control' this unit. I know there are people making python tools etc for the later machine and you might be able to adapt these if you were desperate to control it from software.
Hope that helps and I'll try to answer 'can it do xyz' if anyone has questions. Farnell have about 80 of these units left in UK stock as of today, not sure about other distribution points.
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