Hello everyone,
This is my first post here so welcome everybody, I'm glad to be here as this board is very often suggested by uncle Google.
Don't kill me please for this question as I know it's very often here but AGAIN - just another newbie is looking for scope advice.
I've read some topics here but I decide that maybe my case I more unique
What I will be doing mostly:
- LA
- Raspberry Pi projects (and using gpio, pwm, etc) and debugging them
- programming and debugging microcontrollers (stm32, arduino, esp32), I do not rule out making some small projects for profit (I'm a professional programmer)
- some electronic reverse engineering (eg. decoding some protocols like remote control for garage doors, etc - just for fun)
- EDIT: I have plans to work on FPGA in near future
Only on special occasions or rarely:
- repairing some electronics stuff (old laptops, radios, pcbs, etc)
- maybe one day I will try to understand car electronics and diagnose this (just for fun, nothing special)
I'm a passionate and like electronics. I have some mid-school theory and practical background (soldering, measuring, etc). Generally I like measuring staff, plots. numbers - sometimes just for nothing, sometimes for specific purpose. I know, kinda odd, but that's me. I just want to have better fun from this passion and sometimes very useful devices.
My budget can stretch to:
- Siglent SDS2104X (full option for same price as below)
- Siglent-SDS2104X Plus + some staff for LA (with hack possibility)
- Rigol MSO 5000 (5074 + hack possibly)
- ? (I don't know other good options like maybe keysight? I'm green here)
I completely don't know what about pure USB scopes like PicoScope, there are not too many opinions about them, monitor as scope screen seems attractive if provided software is good (I don't know if it's - that's assumption), but they are expensive considering parameters.
Important note which may affect some recommendations: I already have LA DSLogic Plus 16ch
I've watched many movies and articles about "Siglent vs Rigol", so my question is (assuming one of them will be recommended): which is better for my profile (mostly LA stuff). I know Rigol has noisy frontend but allegedly is "more digital oriented" (whatever it means). Noisy frontend does not seem to be a big problem as I won't be working with small mV scales (correct me if I'm wrong). On the other hand Siglent frontend looks much more polished and fluent, firmware updates are more frequent (my impression) and it's generally better for analog stuff but more expensive of course. This is what I know from my amateur research.
Thanks in advance, appreciate any comments and suggestion from more experienced folks!