Owon SDS6062 and Rigol DS1052E

[BruceF]

There seems to be a consensus around here that the Rigol DS1052E is a pretty decent hobbyist scope. I see Owon has recently come out with a competitive looking SDS6062, and the prices on both have dropped in the last week if I'm not mistaken. The specs are ballpark similar as far as I can see, but I like that the Owon has separate vertical controls for both channels.

I saw one post on some other forum (that I can't seem to find again) saying this new Owon was pretty good, (better than older PDS Owons, and maybe better than the Rigol) but I'm curious if anyone around here has tried one? Are there any obvious holes in the Owon's feature set that the Rigol has covered?

[BruceF]

I'm just going to keep thinking out loud here in case this is useful for anyone else, but of course don't be shy if you have any opinions on these (or suitably similar) scopes.

The first thing I figured out after my previous post was that even though the Owon claims higher bandwidth (60MHz vs 50MHz) the Owon has a sampling rate of 500MS/s single channel or 250MS/s dual channel, where the Rigol samples twice as fast at 1GS/s or 500MS/s single/dual respectively.

That contrast of higher bandwidth and lower sample rate finally got me off my backside on figuring out exactly what those specs mean, and I found a good explanation of bandwidth and sampling rate. Almost all of my quality time spent with oscilloscopes time was back before digital scopes were common, so reading that document was a bit of an aha moment for me.

I think I'm still inclined to get the Owon, but I'll have to gut-check my budget a bit more. If buying it would be a horrible mistake, I hope someone lets me know.

[adafruit]

seems like its pretty clear that the rigol is a better choice, you want more resolution, 10MHz more bandwidth isnt something to write home about :/

[flapjackboy]

seems like its pretty clear that the rigol is a better choice, you want more resolution, 10MHz more bandwidth isnt something to write home about :/

Especially when the Rigol can be flashed with the DS1102E firmware, essentially giving you an extra 50MHz for free.

[BruceF]

Hmm, I thought I'd read that while you can flash the DS1052E with the DS1102E firmware, you weren't really getting the full benefit of it because the hardware between those two units actually is different. I can't remember if it was the sample rate or bandwidth that was hardware limited. If I come across a link, I'll post it up.

And anyway, the DS1052E is no longer available. The competition today has moved on to the DS1102E at $399 and the SDS6062 at $329. Still that doesn't change the fact that the Rigol looks to be winning by a fair margin, unless you're quite certain you will never be caring about faster signals. Maybe if you're only interested in analog sound hacking, for instance.

It's too bad though, because I like those dual vertical controls and the bigger screen on the Owon.

[kscharf]

The explanation of bandwidth vs sampling rate given in the link to national instruments was a bit simplified. Nyquist specifies that a minimum sample rate of twice the input frequency is required, but this only meets the need to sample a pure SINE wave at that frequency. The Fourier analysis of any wave form can break it down to the sum of a large number (infinite in the case of a square wave) of sine wave functions. A digital scope must sample at twice the frequency of the highest frequency sine wave component of any input signal determined by the Fourier analysis of that signal (if it is to correctly display the wave form). This explains why high frequency square waves will appear rounded on a low frequency analog scope, appearing as a sine wave in the most extreme cases. The same thing will happen when a digital scope under-samples a high frequency wave form.

[Hello Out There]

I 've seen both the Owon scope and the Rigol scope. In the end I bought a Rigol DS 1052E from MCS Test Equipment who are an authorized distrbutor for Rigol.

I wasn't impressed with the Owon. The resolution wasn't very good and it was slow compared to the Rigol scope.

I've had my Rigol for awhile now and have been pleased that I made the decision to buy the Rigol over the Owon scope.

I haven't tried the hack to 100mhz but I believe the newer models are designed so the hack won't work.

[kscharf]

It seems that while Saelig has decided to discontinue the 1052E in favor of the 1102E the 1052E is still available (Adafruit carries it). Owon also makes a 100mhz scope with 1g/s sample rate (SDS7102) http://www.saelig.com/PSBE100/PSBE100008.htm and a 100mhz scope with a 2g/s sample rate (SDS8102) http://www.saelig.com/PSBE100/PSBE100007.htm You can get this model a little cheaper if you don't need the external VGA and NET interfaces http://www.saelig.com/PSBE100/PSBE100009.htm I'm still comparing the features myself. The Owen's have a built in battery and the Rigol does not. I think the Rigol might have better filtering and math options, most of the other features are the same. I do like the larger high resolution screen on the Owen's though. I will say that Aglient is getting a quite a markup on their versions of the same instruments (the styling and control layout is different and Rigol doesn't seem to make four channel verisons under their own name).