Try before you buy?

[james_s]

I doubt you ever bought a piece of test equipment for serious use otherwise you'd known that Youtube is a far cry from a good source of information for test equipment. Youtube only helps to find out what is out there. Nothing more. And a teardown says absolutely ZERO about the useability of a piece of test equipment for a certain purpose.

I can't speak for him, but I've bought several pieces of test equipment for serious use and as far as I can recall I only returned one once and that was because it was defective. In the rest of the cases I researched what I wanted, acquired one, and then learned how to use it for the task I wanted to accomplish. Have you seriously had to try out a handful of oscilloscopes in order to find one that worked for you? I've never had that problem, every scope I've ever owned does what a scope is supposed to do.

[nctnico]

I doubt you ever bought a piece of test equipment for serious use otherwise you'd known that Youtube is a far cry from a good source of information for test equipment. Youtube only helps to find out what is out there. Nothing more. And a teardown says absolutely ZERO about the useability of a piece of test equipment for a certain purpose.

I can't speak for him, but I've bought several pieces of test equipment for serious use and as far as I can recall I only returned one once and that was because it was defective. In the rest of the cases I researched what I wanted, acquired one, and then learned how to use it for the task I wanted to accomplish. Have you seriously had to try out a handful of oscilloscopes in order to find one that worked for you? I've never had that problem, every scope I've ever owned does what a scope is supposed to do.

I have returned several function generators that didn't do what they where supposed to do. In addition I have tested the lab PSU I have before buying it. Ditto for the function generator I ended up with. I don't buy test equipment without test driving it first.

Where it comes to oscilloscopes, I need things like protocol decoding to work well in order to do my job efficiently.

[dorkshoei]

I have returned several function generators that didn't do what they where supposed to do ...  I don't buy test equipment without test driving it first.

You realize these are two mutually exclusive statements.   Maybe you meant "keep" instead of "buy".

[BeBuLamar]

Actually long time ago before I am at a postion where I can manufacturers lend me instruments to evaluate it was back in 80's that test instruments like a DMM was something I had to buy sight unseen. There were no store front that sell them.

[joeqsmith]

Looks like Siglent offers a 30day return policy.   So when I decide to buy one of these fancy new DSOs to replace my old relics, I can at least make sure the encoders work as they should. 
 
https://siglentna.com/service-and-support/return-policy/

[dorkshoei]

Looks like Siglent offers a 30day return policy.   

If you read the terms, buyer is responsible for return shipping.    I sense in this scenario a lack of such responsibility is desired :-)
 

[joeqsmith]

Looks like Siglent offers a 30day return policy.   

If you read the terms, buyer is responsible for return shipping.    I sense in this scenario a lack of such responsibility is desired :-)

Correct and also note that it states direct purchases only.  Shipping wouldn't be a major concern for me.   More that there's no restock fee.   For a home hobby trial for the $58nn scope tautech mentions, it may be the best solution. 

Now, which model to get.   I may have to start one of those "help me pick my first modern DSO" threads. 

[tautech]

For a home hobby trial for the $58nn scope tautech mentions, it may be the best solution. 

I may have to start one of those "help me pick my first modern DSO" threads.

So you're so bored you need some entertainment do you ?
Run outta DMM's to nuke ?

[jasonRF]

I do agree that the budget sellers do a poor job of describing their products on Amazon.    I don't think Siglent would however fall into this category plus as already said,  there is Youtube (and EEVBlog) where you can watch detailed product tear-down and eval videos.   

I doubt you ever bought a piece of test equipment for serious use otherwise you'd known that Youtube is a far cry from a good source of information for test equipment. Youtube only helps to find out what is out there. Nothing more. And a teardown says absolutely ZERO about the useability of a piece of test equipment for a certain purpose.

Yup.  For serious work even the detailed documentation from places like Agilent sometimes need some explaining by their applications engineers.  And when you buy expensive gear for serious work, you get those conversations with the engineers as well as other support.  I have even had vendor engineers show up at my company and reprogram the FPGA inside a piece of equipment to make it do what we wanted at no extra charge.  No return required!  I am guessing that when you need to buy budget gear for serious work that you end up with more headaches and returns.  I don't see any way around this. 

jason

[joeqsmith]

For a home hobby trial for the $58nn scope tautech mentions, it may be the best solution. 

I may have to start one of those "help me pick my first modern DSO" threads.

So you're so bored you need some entertainment do you ?
Run outta DMM's to nuke ?

nn = two place variable amount.    See attached for your OP that I referred to. 

On the meter front, all was fine until viewers wanted to see that high end Keysight.  Things went downhill fast for it.   We kinda knew when they handed one over to defpoms channel to do a review at the same time, it was all about damage control.  Such a contrast and not at all what I was expecting from the Keysight brand.  Certainly not at that price point.       

Based on several of your comments, I'm interested in seeing how a brand new Siglent compares with my used repaired vintage DSOs.  I've never damaged any of my scopes from normal use so no stress testing  but I do expect the encoders to work.  The 30 return policy should be more than enough time to compare them.    I assume with your mentioning hacking them,  it doesn't effect the return policy. 

Yeah, even the low cost 1GHz scopes are still ~$7K+. 

Correct, officially. 
In reality you can get the same HW in a 500 MHz version for $ 5890 and hack it.
I had one for several years until a customer wanted it earlier this year.

But with still a few days of 2022 left you can get the 500 MHz model on promotion with a free BW upgrade to 1 GHz.

[BillyO]

I assume with your mentioning hacking them,  it doesn't effect the return policy. 

They are just as easy to un-hack.

[tautech]

For a home hobby trial for the $58nn scope tautech mentions, it may be the best solution. 

I may have to start one of those "help me pick my first modern DSO" threads.

So you're so bored you need some entertainment do you ?
Run outta DMM's to nuke ?

nn = two place variable amount.    See attached for your OP that I referred to. 

Gotcha !

I had that scope hacked to 1 GHz for some years until earlier this year a customer wanted it so it went to them as I had the new 2 GHz model.
It should stack well against your LeCroy but it also has the new (for Siglent) fixed mem mode introduced in a recent firmware to align capability with both SDS6000A and SDS2000K HD models.

Based on several of your comments, I'm interested in seeing how a brand new Siglent compares with my used repaired vintage DSOs.  I've never damaged any of my scopes from normal use so no stress testing  but I do expect the encoders to work.  The 30 return policy should be more than enough time to compare them.    I assume with your mentioning hacking them,  it doesn't effect the return policy. 

If, and if a latest SDS5000X still uses the Python script to generate licenses they are as easy to hack as unhack.
Regardless, if the licensing scheme has changed as it has for SDS6000A hacks have been found for these too but as yet they are not public.
The great Toy Wonder can help if/as required.

You're welcome to PM if required.

[joeqsmith]

I was looking at Siglent's matrix for their higher end products and first thing I noticed was a lack of a metric for Ethernet.   Looking in more detail, it seems some of the products support it.  So I went hunting for a programmers manual and found this from 2014

https://siglentna.com/USA_website_2014/Documents/Program_Material/SIGLENT_Digital_Oscilloscopes_Remote%20Control%20Manual.pdf

So it seems that the newer products should all support it.  I think to sort out  some of the basics,  I just need to DL the manuals and dig in.  For my 20 year old WM, I had added a 1Gb Ethernet card to get the transfer speeds up.  Hard to believe anything made today wouldn't run circles around it.   I'll spend some time doing some research on them in the next few weeks.  Arb encoder firmware first....

[tautech]

I was looking at Siglent's matrix for their higher end products and first thing I noticed was a lack of a metric for Ethernet.   Looking in more detail, it seems some of the products support it.  So I went hunting for a programmers manual and found this from 2014..............

SDS5000X:
https://int.siglent.com/u_file/download/22_07_25/SDS_ProgrammingGuide_EN11C.pdf
SDS6000A:
https://int.siglent.com/u_file/download/22_07_25/SDS_ProgrammingGuide_EN11C.pdf
And if the quite nice 12 bit SDS2000X HD is sufficient for your needs:
https://int.siglent.com/u_file/download/22_11_18/SDS2000X%20HD_ProgrammingGuide_EN11C.pdf

Between the top 2 series, 6000A uses a 5GSa/s ADC for each channel whereas all other current models do the interleaving thing, sharing 2 channels on each ADC.
SDS5000X has individual controls which suits some older users not willing to adopt multiplexed vertical controls.

[tautech]

Arb encoder firmware first....

Now why did I think you had SDG2042X ? 
I linked you the wrong firmware for SDG1032X that I saw in your video. Which have you got to put me outta misery wondering which ?

[joeqsmith]

Arb encoder firmware first....

Now why did I think you had SDG2042X ? 
I linked you the wrong firmware for SDG1032X that I saw in your video. Which have you got to put me outta misery wondering which ?

That's a SDG1032X.  The second video shows the version number.  Current at the time we purchased it.  Still, I reprogrammed it for the peeps who felt the firmware would fix it. 


Scopewise,  I would be looking for something similar to my 15 year old Waveblunder 64Xi.  I got it used in rough shape.    I melted the cheap plastic case back together, LeCroy provided a new set of knobs that don't fall off every time it's used,  it got an SSD upgrade (that the experts claimed would be  problematic) and I straightened that cheap stamped metal case.  Then there's the poor rework from the factory which was claimed to have been caused from the higher operating temperatures and poor mechanical design.  It's PC based and has a coin cell battery buried deep inside.  I've had to change it since I put it into service which is no fun. Best to keep your screw gun charged.    It's easy enough to control over Ethernet but it's not very fast at moving data.  Sadly they only support 100Mb and I can't drop in faster Ethernet card like I did with my fast scope.  It throws off a lot of heat which isn't too bad in the winter but can be a problem in the summer.     

The best part about this scope is how it recals.  Use normal trigger, wait an hour for that signal you want to capture and what's it do?  Recals.  You turn off the auto cal and whats it do?  Recals.   I hate to say how many times I have lost the data I wanted to capture due to the recal.   

It's not all doom and gloom.  It's been my primary scope over the last several years.  It has decent bandwidth, sample rates, memory depth and update rates.  Screen size is also good.   Brochure is here if you want to recommend something similar:   
https://www.atecorp.com/atecorp/media/pdfs/data-sheets/lecroy-waverunner-xi_series_brochure.pdf

Any idea what the Ethernet connection speeds are and sustained transfer rates are for higher end Siglents?  Is there any benchmark data available?     

[tautech]

Scopewise,  I would be looking for something similar to my 15 year old Waveblunder 64Xi.
Sadly they only support 100Mb and I can't drop in faster Ethernet card like I did with my fast scope. 

Looking at SDS5000X and 6000A datasheets they each state 10/100M LAN also.

The best part about this scope is how it recals.  Use normal trigger, wait an hour for that signal you want to capture and what's it do?  Recals.  You turn off the auto cal and whats it do?  Recals.   I hate to say how many times I have lost the data I wanted to capture due to the recal.   

SDS6000A and SDS5000X both have a 'Quick Cal' feature for the warm up period that can be disabled. (and does !)
All I've ever seen it do was pause the scope momentarily however I don't know what effect it has when the scope is doing something really challenging.

It's been my primary scope over the last several years.  It has decent bandwidth, sample rates, memory depth and update rates.  Screen size is also good.   Brochure is here if you want to recommend something similar:   
https://www.atecorp.com/atecorp/media/pdfs/data-sheets/lecroy-waverunner-xi_series_brochure.pdf

To match these specs, especially sampling only SDS6000A can do whereas matching the memory spec these days is a doodle. 
https://siglentna.com/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2022/08/SDS6000A_Datasheet_EN01C.pdf
SDS5000X on promo shares two ADC's to cover 4 channels therefore drops to 2.5 GSa/s when 3 or more channels are active.

Any idea what the Ethernet connection speeds are and sustained transfer rates are for higher end Siglents?  Is there any benchmark data available?

   
As mentioned only 10/100M as per datasheet however to attempt to give some reference point I've just looked up LAN spec for the diminutive 4ch X-E and darned if the LAN spec isn't listed but I'll still point you to what I had in mind as when member lundmar developed LXI-Tools it wasn't so much the port speed that mattered but how efficiently the requests were managed.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/open-source-lxi-tools-and-liblxi-v1-0-released-for-gnulinux/msg1394796/#msg1394796
I can't see the 5kX and 6kA DSO's being any more sluggish when in fact these later scopes not only offer a webserver too but also remote server file management.

SDS6054A is the best fit however no specials on this currently and list is ~$8k which makes the SDS5054X at under $6k on promo with 1GHz free BW upgrade and free optional decodes I2S, FlexRay, 1553B, CANFD, SENT and Manch look quite attractive.

[tautech]

Joe, PM incoming.

[dorkshoei]

Nice thread tangent.   When can we return to picking on the OP 

[BillyO]

Nice thread tangent.   When can we return to picking on the OP 

Since my intent was a hypothetical discussion you can "pick" on me all you like. 

[tautech]

Thanks for the PM.  First thing I need to do is some research.  This will take some time. 

Odd they would use 100Mb now days.    Here's the old WM after installing the 1Gb card.  Looks like it was around 200ms to transfer 10MB of data at 420Mbps.   Old tech. 

To your point,  I am not attempting to get the screen to update fast, just move blocks of memory into the PC for post processing.  It may be a case where I just need to get one and write some software for it.   

Using source CSV files ?
If so Siglent now have a smaller BIN file format that reduces download times and when it's on your PC there is a small BIN to CSV executional you download from within the scope to convert back to the more normally used CSV.

IDK what normal file size reductions are obtainable with BIN downloads other than for most captures it's a significant and worthwhile step to go through. Been a while since I used it but it's darn simple IIRC.
https://siglentna.com/operating-tip/oscilloscope-binary-data-format/
This obviously reduces the need for blindingly fast LAN connections.

I have some other bits to maybe share in a PM later.

[joeqsmith]

Using source CSV files ?

If so Siglent now have a smaller BIN file format that reduces download times and when it's on your PC there is a small BIN to CSV executional you download from within the scope to convert back to the more normally used CSV.

IDK what normal file size reductions are obtainable with BIN downloads other than for most captures it's a significant and worthwhile step to go through. Been a while since I used it but it's darn simple IIRC.
https://siglentna.com/operating-tip/oscilloscope-binary-data-format/
This obviously reduces the need for blindingly fast LAN connections.

I have some other bits to maybe share in a PM later.

For the network analyzers, scopes and arbs, I stay with binary.   ASCII would be far too slow.   Someone had asked about running an FFT with a PC using the data from a scope.  From what I remember they had provided some constraints and were basically looking for how fast it could run.   I think I joined the fun with the WM.  Looking for the code, I don't see it.    I could certainly toss something together if you would like to try an A/B comparison.   I'm pretty much limited by that 400Mbps transfer rate.   

[tautech]

Looking for the code, I don't see it.   

Sorry, try this:
https://siglentna.com/operating-tip/binary-to-csv-program/

Let me tap a couple of our Beta testers for better knowledge that I have about LAN transfer rates and maybe drag entice then into this thread.

[joeqsmith]

I meant the software I used when I demo'ed the FFT.

[nctnico]

About network interface speed: don't stare yourself blind on that. A DSO won't be able to use 100Mbit to the limit