RIGOL DS1074Z Plus 4-Channel Digital Oscilloscope, 70MHz, 1GSa/s, 24Mpts

I'm still learning how to use this scope and if you really want to know how this thing works, guts and all, then you're better heading off to find a video review from someone who knows these things well. There’s a certain Australian chap who doesn’t just do reviews, he tears these things down and figures out what makes them tick. I just needed one to supplement my ageing shop-brand 40Mhz scope, which still works, but ... 40Mhz and no storage right? Now let’s be clear, this is no Keysight or Tek scope but it’s also nowhere near in the same price bracket as said devices. But the real question is what are you going to get for your hard-earned? When it arrived, I was surprised at how light this thing is and even more surprised at how compact. After years of lugging around a CRT encased in a hefty steel box, this felt as light as a feather and that worried me. Any sense of dread was quickly dispelled when I switched on and after a few seconds of self-testing and clicking of relays, the Rigol burst into life. The screen is clear and visible from fairly severe angles although not as much as my older CRT. This isn’t really an issue for most of us as we need the instrument in a position where we can operate the many controls; and there are a bewildering amount for a machine that didn’t come with a manual! It’s online of course but I would have liked a paper booklet that I could annoy my wife with by thumbing it relentlessly while she tries to watch soaps on the TV. Oh well. Help does come in the form of a context sensitive help system which is fairly comprehensive and describes the myriad functions with words and pictures (like a real manual) accessible at any time. You can tell this is all rather new to someone whose previous experience has been with more pedestrian affairs. While there are really far and away too many functions to go over in an Amazon review, there are a few stand out features that are worth mentioning. The scope comes with a complement of four compensated x1 and x10 probes with a fairly thin coax, so that’s something serious hobbyists might want to consider worthy of an upgrade. It’s fairly straightforward to set the machine to compensate for the x10 (the mode you should be using for most work since it’s more accurate due to capacitive effects at frequency). It doesn’t have an option for smart probes (differential, current, high-tension) such as are found on higher-end machines but at this price I’ll forgive them that because I wouldn’t have expected them anyway. It does, however, come with the full complement of software features for decoding all manner of different digital signals such as RS232, TWI/I2C and SPI which is a massive bonus for hobbyists working on microcontrollers which seem to be everywhere now. I’ve seen these things demonstrated but I haven’t personally had time to do these tests. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way before moving to what’s good. The controls. It’s not that the rotary encoders are bad, it’s more that the idents are soft and imprecise. Many important functions (including complex menu selection) are achieved using these and it’s all too easy to click once too often and pick the wrong thing. This applies even when pressing the knob to make a selection – it’s just a little too finicky. Many other functions accessible by buttons are supplied with those horrible “Sinclair Spectrum” or pencil eraser rubber things. Once again, these lack the feel of a decent button but given the price and feature set of this, frankly astonishingly specced machine, I’m prepared to overlook these shortcomings. What will be noticeable for people coming from CRT-based scopes like me or even if you’re new to them is the apparently noisy display. Where a traditional scope might display a crisp, attractive sine wave right out of your $12 XR2206 (clone) function generator this scope, like all digital scopes, will probably have a lot of nasty looking noise riding atop of it. It’s easier to see than describe but it looks bad. The first time I saw this, in my ignorance of what I was seeing, I was horrified. I checked some of the professional channels on the usual video sites and sure enough, all the digital scopes from the lowliest to the high-end ones all shared this disturbance on the display. Is this some for of weird mistake on the ADC (analogue to digital convertor) I pondered? Is it bad design? Surely not on a Tek – and that has the same issue. It turns out that the noise is an artefact of digital scopes having a much higher frequency performance and lacking a phosphor-based display. Such displays have a natural decay time. To explain, electrons are fired down the through the long vacuum tube (steered along the way by electrified plates) and strike a special chemical on the display. At the quantum level these electrons blast electrons in the material temporarily out of their “orbit” (energy state). This isn’t a natural position for the electron and as they fall back to rest, they release that energy in as light – but they don’t do it instantly and this creates a small delay (actually called decay). Televisions, computer monitors and even fluorescent lamps have employed this effect for about a century now and it’s well understood. LCDs as used in modern digital oscilloscopes don’t have this decay – the pixels switch on and off instantly (well, fast enough so our eyes don’t detect it). But this causes a problem because it exposes something that CRT scopes with their slowly decaying phosphor displays have been hiding all along. Noise! In addition to being able to read and measure much higher frequencies than ever before, modern scopes like the Rigol are also “hobbled” because they display all that nasty HF rubbish that was hiding in the slowly decaying phosphor delay. And here’s me thinking this was just a case of it being a low-end scope. But the clever folks at Rigol have even found a way to send me on a trip back to the bad old days when men were men and oscilloscopes had slow-decay phosphor CRTs. It’s hidden in the menus but the designers have incorporated a step-adjustable decay which effectively simulates an old phosphor screen. It’s not quite the same as having a “real” CRT but it goes a long way if the desire takes me. I could wax lyrical for hours about how utterly delighted I am with this purchase but I think the machine should speak for itself. Sadly, they haven’t included that just yet… maybe having it talk via the an Alexa would be bit too much? Given that the machine has an Ethernet port though, I suppose anything is possible if a hacker were to get in there. Highly recommended.

Bonjour, premier avis RIGOL DS1074Z plus, après quelques heures : Avis court : Ergonomie pas des meilleures ; failli le renvoyer avant installation du logiciel ULTRASCOPE. Vrai 8 bits, je cherche les 4 autres ? même en hires ou average. Semble fonctionner correctement (endurance 16 h) Avis long : Reçu rapidement avec Prime et double emballage bien fait. Fourni avec ses 4 sondes x1 ou x10. Il est assez léger, 4 pieds rabattables. Menus parfois déconcertants (après environ 8 h et pas d’oscillos au moins 10 ans) certains menus effacent tout (settings courbes, sans confirmation). En particulier, je n’ai pas trouvé de suite le « return » (le bouton déroulant qu’il faut pousser 😉 ) je ne comprend pas que sur certains sites, il est réservé aux pros mais pas le matériel de leur marque (je n’ai pas téléphoné) Documentation assez complète sur site RIGOL (En pas cherché en Fr) Sur écran, on ne peut effacer la partie mesures à gauche dont je n’ai pas besoin pour le moment. Le logiciel ULTRASCOPE nécessite l’installation de driver et logiciels NI (le tout sur la partie download du site RIGOL) ça prend pas mal de temps avec mon vieux PC portable (en Win 10 pas d’origine). Il nécessite aussi une prise en main, il y a un petit guide aussi bien pratique. Je n’ai pas encore tout exploré mais les photos jointes donnent une bonne idée. Il permet aussi quelques maths et FFT, de sauver les courbes en csv y compris math (ouverture directe XL), plus pratique que de sauvegarder (par exemple pour choix répertoire/nom) puis rebrancher sur PC. Je l’ai acheté aussi car annoncé 12 bits (je suppose, pas à fréquence max dont je n’ai nul besoin) j’ai essayé un peu tout hires moyenne 1024 points, c’est dans tous les cas à l’écran ou en csv du 8 bits ; la seule chose est de choisir en entrée des V/divisions plus petit, ça ne sature pas (je ne connais pas la limite) si on veut zoomer, shifter en Y après acquisition, on est très vite limité et le bipbip (peut être déconnecté) retenti. Assez bizarrement pas de date (pas de pile ?). Dans l’ensemble pas trop mal sachant que à ce prix pour les performances et 4 canaux, ça ne se bouscule pas ou les produits ont une vie très courte… Il y a aussi quelques avis sur les forum, et plutôt (comme moi) on le recommande maj 26/08/2022 mon application est en single shot 4 canaus et fréquence 10-100 khz. comme indiqué les sous menus qui effacent tout, c'est un vrai problème ! la math division si un canal est inversé, on ne peut recentrer la courbe, alors que avec le siganl négatif (non inversé) ça marchait. Si par malheur on a poussé sur une des touches qui reset les paramètres , il faut TOUT reconfigurer et recommencer; comme dans mon cas mesure U et I fusion fusible, il faut changer le fusible de l essai; lors de l'acquisition si un canal a saturé, de fichier csv est incorrect (voir copie xl) ici j ai fait ma "math" en rouge (R fusible augmente jusque fusion et écrêtage en haut. je vais donc le RETOURNER ! chez Amazon, c'est super facile, assistance étiquette imprimable à la poste etc ! Cela me fait penser à un oscillo pour une démo marketing pour des étudiants, signaux répétitifs, mais pas pour mon besoin; je joins quelques photos en plus, après les 5 premières (l ordre sera t il conservé ?)

funziona molto bene, manuale chiaro. è un buon prodotto