Siglent SDS2000X Plus

[tautech]

Tried it yesterday, today the same problem.

The problem is that i cant reproduce the issue, its mostly the first boot of the day and after a reboot it works flawless for hours.

Things to try:
Secure erase to clear any hidden settings. (Save/Recall menu)
Factory Default then reboot then Self Cal.
Reboot.
Use normally.
Note settings at finish of day and if these have an effect on the next day instrument hang.

After above.
Just maybe we need connect you with a Siglent engineer so to get info from the scopes Debug menu so they can analyse what's going on.

I dunno about that... it almost sounds like it needs to be heated before it starts to work which implies a broke connection, maybe a bad solder joint.. if its still in its return window i'd get another

Yeah VanBudd's unit isn't right but it maybe a result of the OS not being gracefully shut down due to these freezes.
The steps I outlined should get it behaving properly and if not I agree it might be better returned however these units are in demand so getting an instant replacement could be a concern.

[VanBudd]

Ill try your suggestions today.
If they dont help i will return it.
In Germany they are in stock, so should be no Problem to get a new unit.

Thanks for your help!

[VanBudd]

Heres a viedo of the behavior.

In the end it changes channels slowly, but i cant do anything.
Looks like a kind of emergency failure protocol or self testing.

(deleted)

[tubularnut]

Not good 

The lights on all buttons should have off immediately, and then cycle through the self test. But none of that happened.

[tautech]

Heres a viedo of the behavior.

In the end it changes channels slowly, but i cant do anything.
Looks like a kind of emergency failure protocol or self testing.

As tubilarnut says it's not good however we can test if it's a HW problem by running the recovery software on it.
If that recovers it to how it should work you will need to install the latest firmware.

PM me your email and we'll do it by email.

[tautech]

PM received from VanBudd and email sent.
Fingers crossed for him !

Now we wait for the outcome.

Ponderings while we wait.....
The observant may remember a very few early units had problems with a freeze after updating with the first public release of firmware so a recovery package was rapidly constructed to fix this issue. Later FW was supposed to correct any problems and this is the very first issue I know of since then.
Hope it's not a HW problem............

News !
Apparently it's fixed ! 

[VanBudd]

So far so good, had to try recovery two times.
Second try it boot up normaly and everything looks fine.

Time will tell if the problem is solved.
Stay tuned 

Special thanks to tautech for the very fast and kind support!

[kde]

Hi!

I originally considered purchasing SDS2000X-E, but then accidentally found this thread. And now I really don't know what to do - SDS2000X+ seems much more interesting model, but it's more expensive than a base-level used car in my country... As I see from this thread, one can purchase SDS2104X Plus and upgrade it up to 500 MHz using just an ethernet cable, web browser and a python script, right? Also it seems to be possible to unlock the arbitrary waveform generator this way, right?

Unfortunately I cannot afford this scope right now, so I have to wait a while. What do you guys think, is it possible that Siglent is reading this thread and will change its private key in future so no more free upgrades will be available? Also, does the lowest 100 MHz model really have the same high-frequency path as the highest 350 MHz one? It's said on official sites that only one upgrade level is available - from 100 MHz to 200 MHz. Could it be that Siglent builds their scopes then tests its capabilities without BW limit and sorts them according to test results - the best ones are marked as 350 MHz, the middling as 200 MHz and the worst scopes as 100 MHz? In this case one can formally upgrade 100 MHz unit up to 500 MHz but won't get the same gain frequency characteristic as upgrading the 350 MHz scope.

[tautech]

Hi!

I originally considered purchasing SDS2000X-E, but then accidentally found this thread. And now I really don't know what to do - SDS2000X+ seems much more interesting model, but it's more expensive than a base-level used car in my country... As I see from this thread, one can purchase SDS2104X Plus and upgrade it up to 500 MHz using just an ethernet cable, web browser and a python script, right? Also it seems to be possible to unlock the arbitrary waveform generator this way, right?

Unfortunately I cannot afford this scope right now, so I have to wait a while. What do you guys think, is it possible that Siglent is reading this thread and will change its private key in future so no more free upgrades will be available? Also, does the lowest 100 MHz model really have the same high-frequency path as the highest 350 MHz one? It's said on official sites that only one upgrade level is available - from 100 MHz to 200 MHz. Could it be that Siglent builds their scopes then tests its capabilities without BW limit and sorts them according to test results - the best ones are marked as 350 MHz, the middling as 200 MHz and the worst scopes as 100 MHz? In this case one can formally upgrade 100 MHz unit up to 500 MHz but won't get the same gain frequency characteristic as upgrading the 350 MHz scope.

FYI all options except MSO are now free as part of a promotional package.
https://www.siglenteu.com/news-article/save-up-to-e1464-with-a-new-sds2000x-plus-oscilloscope-and-option-bundle/

Study the BW upgrade options available here:
https://www.siglenteu.com/digital-oscilloscopes/sds2000xp/
100-200, 200-350 and 350-500 MHz for 2 channel 500 MHz capability only.

[Martin72]

FYI all options except MSO are now free as part of a promotional package.

At this point, everybody must decide for himself what further hacking concerns.
Do I really need more bandwith for my work with it or leave it to 100Mhz to provide having the warranty for the next 3yrs...

[tautech]

FYI all options except MSO are now free as part of a promotional package.

At this point, everybody must decide for himself what further hacking concerns.
Do I really need more bandwith for my work with it or leave it to 100Mhz to provide having the warranty for the next 3yrs...

Exactly however as the proven BW of the 100 MHz SDS2104X Plus is ~185 MHz there is little need to hack them for most requirements.

[rf-loop]

FYI all options except MSO are now free as part of a promotional package.

At this point, everybody must decide for himself what further hacking concerns.
Do I really need more bandwith for my work with it or leave it to 100Mhz to provide having the warranty for the next 3yrs...

Overall this is important question. Not just related to this scope model here but overall.
It was some years ago some ask more BW using some tricks etc. More and more BW and also mod analog front for more and more BW.  Just very narrow looking just more and more MHz... just like in digital camera things more and more pixels like it is only what matter.
In some bad day I give out "best hack or physical mod is reject maximum freq instead of mod it for higher".

Of course if we really need higher freq and system is ok for this, including also many things in practice and also adverse effects..
Higher BW rise noise.  Higher BW without rising samplerate and result is propability to alising problems rise (what is still highly misunderstooded, forgotten and underestimated thing. One reason is perhaps that many trust what they see on screen and other problem is that many peoples like only playing fun with scopes, just for playing... and if they use known simple signals under scope all limits... they do not hit this problem at all)

It need tightly remember and keep in mind that oscilloscope is also for analyze unknown signals to find out what they really are. Unknown signal may have what ever frequency components. For trust even some amount about to result you need know aliasing based things did not visit and did not corrupt result.

What if we use an oscilloscope with FFT. Oh damn what a mess if we don’t know what and how we do. Then we present miraculous nonsense FFT pictures with nothing but "I just don't know, maybe".
 FFT user’s best - very best - friend is set of low pass filter and a good ones as well as a steep enough for the required sample rates. Who can separate from FFT  image  peaks and say with certainty what is a harmonic alias and what is the correct harmonic of the signal. Specially when there is possible n*fNyquist things.

And here’s exactly the same thing as on the scope’s normal screen but in a different format. Frequency components that produce aliases. But now it is like... no matter, we want more MHz.
Who is interested in a modification where the frequency response of the front end of the oscilloscope is better limited!
Do not ask more MHz, ask better analog side filters. After ADC implemented filters do not know what is alias and what is not.

So, really,peoples need think carefully if want more MHz with this way here.
Of course 2GSa/s can easy solve over 500MHz sinewave. But if not need this, what it give. Just "nice to have"
and same way some other extra..... "nice to have bit more noise" ... "nice to have bit more room for aliasing"

Imho, this Siglent  promotional offer for free Options is nice.

[uski]

]
I originally considered purchasing SDS2000X-E, but then accidentally found this thread. And now I really don't know what to do - SDS2000X+ seems much more interesting model, but it's more expensive than a base-level used car in my country... As I see from this thread, one can purchase SDS2104X Plus and upgrade it up to 500 MHz using just an ethernet cable, web browser and a python script, right? Also it seems to be possible to unlock the arbitrary waveform generator this way, right?

I was/am in a similar situation recently. Scopes are a rabbit hole and the upper bound is multi-GHz units at $100'000+ prices. Before you know it you will be looking at units well above your means.
The only way to stay grounded to reality is to buy what you NEED.

So my advice is to think about your use case and what you are likely to work on in the next few years (yes, a scope is expected to last for years).
Then do your purchase based on that, and not on whatever is available on the market.

As noted above the 500MHz upgrade is available only on 350MHz base models, so be careful with that. But do you NEED so much bandwidth ?

[2N3055]

]
I originally considered purchasing SDS2000X-E, but then accidentally found this thread. And now I really don't know what to do - SDS2000X+ seems much more interesting model, but it's more expensive than a base-level used car in my country... As I see from this thread, one can purchase SDS2104X Plus and upgrade it up to 500 MHz using just an ethernet cable, web browser and a python script, right? Also it seems to be possible to unlock the arbitrary waveform generator this way, right?

I was/am in a similar situation recently. Scopes are a rabbit hole and the upper bound is multi-GHz units at $100'000+ prices. Before you know it you will be looking at units well above your means.
The only way to stay grounded to reality is to buy what you NEED.

So my advice is to think about your use case and what you are likely to work on in the next few years (yes, a scope is expected to last for years).
Then do your purchase based on that, and not on whatever is available on the market.

As noted above the 500MHz upgrade is available only on 350MHz base models, so be careful with that. But do you NEED so much bandwidth ?

500MHz upgrade is officially available only on 350MHz base models.
For "other methods" there is no limitations.

[Major]

Hey guys, filthy zero poster here.

I have been investigating which scope I should get for some time now and the SDS2000X+ series is a candidate.
But I do not fully understand the decoder specs listed in the datasheet (top of page 13) where it states that it has 2 decoders of full duplex type.

What does this mean in practice?

Scenario example 1: it can at most decode two different pairs of MOSI+MISO, originating from two different  SPI busses at the SAME time <-- i think this should be okay
Scenario example 2: it can at most decode four different MISO lines, originating from four different SPI busses at the SAME time  <-- i think this is out of spec?

Am I understanding this correctly?

- Does anyone have a screenshot of maximum decoder usage in action?

[2N3055]

Hey guys, filthy zero poster here.

I have been investigating which scope I should get for some time now and the SDS2000X+ series is a candidate.
But I do not fully understand the decoder specs listed in the datasheet (top of page 13) where it states that it has 2 decoders of full duplex type.

What does this mean in practice?

Scenario example 1: it can at most decode two different pairs of MOSI+MISO, originating from two different  SPI busses at the SAME time <-- i think this should be okay
Scenario example 2: it can at most decode four different MISO lines, originating from four different SPI busses at the SAME time  <-- i think this is out of spec?

Am I understanding this correctly?

- Does anyone have a screenshot of maximum decoder usage in action?

Yes that is correct. That is different from how  R&S counts one signal decode as decoder. So with R&S, for 2 full SPI buses you have to get scope with 4 decoders.... 

[uski]

]
As noted above the 500MHz upgrade is available only on 350MHz base models, so be careful with that. But do you NEED so much bandwidth ?

500MHz upgrade is officially available only on 350MHz base models.
For "other methods" there is no limitations.

OH! Thanks for the correction ! 

[kde]

Thank you for answers. I currently have 100 MHz 2-ch Rigol oscilloscope (and it's been my good friend all these years), its real bandwidth is about 170 MHz (without significant amplitude loss), and it's not enough for some of my projects. So I started looking for some upgrading. Yes, I may not need the 500 MHz BW, 95% of time I even may not need anything more than 100 MHz, but sometimes I really need something like 350 MHz. That's why I am finally looking at this model. To say nothing of its excellent features and capabilities comparing to my current Rigol.

BTW, I don't think that aliasing @500 MHz could be a serious problem for a 2 GSa/s channel. It uses four samples per oscillation and it's twice the Nyquist frequency. I.e. the scope will correctly show 500 MHz signal (considering software interpolation) independently of its phase. Here I just think of 500 MHz scope as of a scope that simply can show faster edges. And this is really good if you are going to check HF harmonics. But if you need to narrow the BW down, there is the corresponding menu option (as I understand). Or just a standard cheap 200 MHz probe.

Yeah, probably this scope is above my budget, but as it was correctly stated here you are not going to purchase a scope for just this moment and your current needs. You are going to purchase it for some years ahead. And that's where you may need additional BW.

The free options pack is really excellent, but the offer will last until the end of March. Probably if I finally end up with this model I should purchase it until that moment. Regarding unofficial BW upgrading and warranty policy - is it true that one will lost the warranty if upgrades BW himself? On the other hand, I'm living in Russia, there is no official Siglent store here, so I don't know whether I'm able to use Siglent warranty anyway. Instead of Siglent we have an АКИП-4129А here: https://prist.ru/catalog/ostsillografy_tsifrovye/akip_4129a/. And it must be noted that Russian translation of its front panel is just awful.

P.S. Here I'd like to specially state that I really appreciate the hard work that Siglent does designing their oscilloscopes, and if it was possible for me to buy the BW officially, I'd definitely do it, but it's just too much for a simple hobby projects (I'm a software engineer myself, so I don't need it for work).

[kahuna0k]

I've just got my SDS2104X Plus. Everything is working pretty well except for the calibration signal, it seems that it is internally bad soldered or something as it will change all over the place as I move the probe connected to it. Tried with another scope and get the same issue. I don't care much about the calibration issue, but this is making me think that the scope could have other problems. I don't want to send it for RMA and have to wait a month for it to come back, anything I could be missing?

[tautech]

I've just got my SDS2104X Plus. Everything is working pretty well except for the calibration signal, it seems that it is internally bad soldered or something as it will change all over the place as I move the probe connected to it. Tried with another scope and get the same issue. I don't care much about the calibration issue, but this is making me think that the scope could have other problems. I don't want to send it for RMA and have to wait a month for it to come back, anything I could be missing?

Try setting the AWG to 3Vp-p 1 KHz square wave and probe that as a sanity check. There is a chance it's a dicky probe although its been a long time since I had a dud PP215 probe.
Maybe the grabber isn't making a good contact with the probe tip.
Double check this using different probes.

[kahuna0k]

Try setting the AWG to 3Vp-p 1 KHz square wave and probe that as a sanity check. There is a chance it's a dicky probe although its been a long time since I had a dud PP215 probe.
Maybe the grabber isn't making a good contact with the probe tip.
Double check this using different probes.

Clearly the calibration connector is not properly connected internally. I've tried with other source of signal and the probes are perfect, also tried with other probes that also work without problems and fail to get a proper signal from the cal points in the SDS2104X Plus. And if I just make a bit of pressure to the right on the signal connector I'll get a proper signal.

I suppose I'll wait a month or so just to see if there is anything else broken and send it for RMA after the holidays. The worst part is that I've just sold my old scope and waiting a month for the new one to be replaced it is going to be hard

[tautech]

Try setting the AWG to 3Vp-p 1 KHz square wave and probe that as a sanity check. There is a chance it's a dicky probe although its been a long time since I had a dud PP215 probe.
Maybe the grabber isn't making a good contact with the probe tip.
Double check this using different probes.

Clearly the calibration connector is not properly connected internally. I've tried with other source of signal and the probes are perfect, also tried with other probes that also work without problems and fail to get a proper signal from the cal points in the SDS2104X Plus. And if I just make a bit of pressure to the right on the signal connector I'll get a proper signal.

I suppose I'll wait a month or so just to see if there is anything else broken and send it for RMA after the holidays. The worst part is that I've just sold my old scope and waiting a month for the new one to be replaced it is going to be hard

OK thanks. So this seems like it could be a manufacturing fault where the probe Cal inserts have not solder wetted properly resulting in a dry joint or there just isn't enough solder for the joint to be physically strong enough.
Will pop an email to the factory about this but you should pop a message to the chaps in Ohio or your supplier also.
Pop them a link to this series of posts also.
Of course the solution will be to resolder the Cal fitting or replace the mainboard or replace the scope.
Ohio will decide the best way forward.

[kahuna0k]

I bought it from Saelig, should I contact the distributor or just talk to Siglent America directly?

[tautech]

I bought it from Saelig, should I contact the distributor or just talk to Siglent America directly?

Let Saelig handle it and/or advise you on the best method to get it addressed.
Which are you closest to ?

[kahuna0k]

Let Saelig handle it and/or advise you on the best method to get it addressed.
Which are you closest to ?

I've opened an RMA with Saelig, and of course, now, after having applied a bit pressure to the right on the connector, I'm unable to reproduce it and now it is working ok. I'm going to send it anyway, as probably is going to be easy to see if disassembled and the "apply a bit of pressure" doesn't seem like the proper fix