Rigol DS1104Z - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: eurofox
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 02:09:51 pm
content: Hi guy's,Today I got my Rigol DS1104Z, I bought because it is a "cute oscilloscope", a lot of features in a small box for the price of a dinner in an exclusive restaurant for 2 personsI test all the main features:Bandwith: -3db better than the 100Mhz from datasheet, estimated at 130 Mhz at -3dbTrigger: up to 250 MhzOscilloscope calibrator: all spot onTime marker: all okVery responsive command, I'm really surprisedAnd yes I enable all optionsVery surprising by playing with the probe magnifier, when I have more time I will check with a calibrator.I can only advise someone who is on a budget to buy this scope, I bought last week the DSA815-TD and I will update my power supply with the 832.eurofox

author: cybermaus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 02:39:29 pm
content: Quote from: eurofox on January 31, 2014, 02:09:51 pmYou treat your lady better then most. Its a good price, but that sure must be a fancy restaurant you are taking her.It could be a little quieter, and if you start doing math or stuff, the gui is sometimes a little slow, but I am quite please with it myself.What do you mean with "probe magnifier" ?

author: 8086
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 02:44:31 pm
content: I agree, I bought one last week. It seems to be the best value and best quality entry level oscilloscope on the market.

author: eurofox
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 02:53:03 pm
content: Quote from: cybermaus on January 31, 2014, 02:39:29 pmWell you got in your country a famous exclusive restaurant in Sluis (closed end of 2013), I was born just a few kms from there but on the other side of the border, I'm sure you know the manager Sergio .... well you pay this kind of price for a dinner for twoWith respect to the probe magnifier when you click on the probe button it start at 0,01 till xxx, if you put there 0,1 you multiply the input by 10, on 0,01 I get 10µV/Div, maybe I miss something but it look like that.eurofox

author: eurofox
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 02:57:40 pm
content: Quote from: eurofox on January 31, 2014, 02:53:03 pm

author: npelov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 07:35:31 pm
content: I have the feeling I made a mistake with DS2072A. I should have bought DS1104Z... Serial decoding is not the best, it doesn't work on recorded data and well I'm not sure if high-res is available on DS1104Z, but when you switch to high-res it's slow, you loose intensity grading and a lot of the high-freq stuff disappears. The recording function doesn't work well because first frame doesn't get time assigned - you don't know the time between first and second frame. So the additional controls are not worth the money yet... I hope they fix it.Is intensity grading good on DS1104Z? can you post a few screenshots?

author: eurofox
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 07:42:07 pm
content: Quote from: npelov on January 31, 2014, 07:35:31 pmHere you get the answer to your question about gradingeurofox

author: sync
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 07:55:34 pm
content: Quote from: npelov on January 31, 2014, 07:35:31 pmIf you want a good record function then forget the DS1000Z. It's only good for occasional use. Using it is cumbersome because there are no dedicated buttons for it. You have to use it through the menus. And there are no time stamps on the frames at all.

author: npelov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 09:16:48 pm
content: @eurofox thanksQuote from: sync on January 31, 2014, 07:55:34 pmYes, but with DS2000(A) you don't get much of a benefit. The big knob is pretty nice in fast forward - you control the speed easily. However if you want to watch records one by one the rotating part of the big knob doesn't do the job well. It skips numbers and sometimes doesn't notice a click, the clicks are not that clear - you can't be sure if you rotated one step ... it's pretty bad. It's good that for a frame forward you can use "Signle" button which makes it a lot easier. But there is no button for backwards. Well, it's still better than DS1000Z. However you give up 2 additional channels, some money and if you are me - 30 MHz of bandwidth (I should have bought DS2102A) for still not that good record controls.But I'm asking just out of curiosity. It's not like I'll sell the DS2072A and buy DS1104Z. It's still a great scope. But they could have done few things better.P.S. I shouldn't have watched that video. I'll try to dig an old camera and try the video signal. Maybe they fixed it in software for the DS2000A series.

author: iDevice
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 09:44:47 pm
content: Quote from: eurofox on January 31, 2014, 02:53:03 pmWell, sorry to disappoint you but it's not a "magnifier" or gain adjustment of any kind.It's just the scaling factor for the measurements which depends on the probe attenuation factor.So this menu is meant to tell the scope which kind of probe you are using so that it can correctly display the magnitude of the input signal.Obviously, you can use a low noise "amplified" probe so it allows you to go to 0,01, but selecting that without the appropriate probe will just display an incorrect value.

author: npelov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 10:22:43 pm
content: ...it still works that way if you put amplifier between the probe and the device though. You just have to set the correct value.

author: Mark_O
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2014, 07:43:02 am
content: Quote from: npelov on January 31, 2014, 07:35:31 pmI wasn't aware that serial decode did not work on recorded data. There's really no reason it wouldn't, since Decode runs from on-screen data. I'd be pretty disappointed if I bought one, and found this didn't work. That's the kind of senseless limitation that get's people upset.QuoteYou do realize that all these constraints apply toanyscope in HR mode, since it's a result of the oversampling process? Same as Averaging.QuoteReally? It was my understanding that every frame had a date/time stamp. There's no reason the 1st frame would be special, and not have a time-stamp. If this is the case, then that's a bug. But I haven't heard anyone else ever comment on it.And as has been pointed out, the 1000Z has no time-stamps at all, on any frame. And not just on-screen. There's no time data retrievable via SCPI either.

author: npelov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2014, 09:17:20 am
content: About HR - well yes, I guess my frustration about the other bugs came over HR, which actually doesn't behave that bad. You can't expect full bandwidth on 14 bits + averaging.Here is the timestamp tests I did:In auto triggering mode a frame is recorded regardless of the trigger. Because I wanted to record only triggered frames - like Agilent's sparse memory I've put the trigger in normal mode and it did what I wanted. It recorded the frames and didn't miss any. However I noticed that the first frame starts at 0.0000s and the next is at 2.xxxx s. That's a bit strange for 3 bursts that have 20 ms gap between them. I captured everything in one frame and measured it to be sure - bursts are 3, separated with 20ms gap and they repeat ever 1 second, so I'm not seeing the next burst. Now here is the interesting thing. I desided to wait a bit before starting the first bit. So I press record button and I start the data 11 seconds later. The result is - first frame 0.000s (I've got confirmation from rigol that they assign 0.000 on first frame instead of just putting timestamp. chinese programming), second frame 11.xxxx seconds. They start the timer when button is pressed, not on the first trigger. And I sent this to the EU office of rigol. I had the feeling that he got tired of my complains. I hope that he forwarded the bugs to china for fixing... I tried before to talk directly to china but it was impossible. they understand completely different thing.The biggest problem is that I wanted to buy the serial decoding ... not that I have excess of money (probably hack will be soon there for 2000A too), but because I believe that if a product is good it's worth buying. But now the trial will expire and I'll never know if they fixed it.And I did't even mention cursors. You'd expect with all the big memory that they would do cursors that are attached to the signal so you can zoom in 2 distant places of the waveform and make precise measure. Nope, the cursors are still relative (attached) to the screen, not to the signal. If you move horisontal, triggers do not stick to the signal (relative to the trigger point), but stay on the screen. In delayed sweep mode you would expect that triggers will show on zoomed region as well as on the whole signal. No, you can just switch between them - useless.

author: iDevice
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2014, 02:24:31 pm
content: Quote from: npelov on February 01, 2014, 09:17:20 amThis is expected in non tracking mode.In tracking mode, it does work on my DS4K, so I guess it should as well on the 2K, unless there is no tracking mode which would be strange knowing it is already like that on my 21 years old Tek 2247.

author: npelov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2014, 08:01:24 pm
content: Well, thank you!I didn't know that. I tried it and it works fine. Even though it's not the best experience (because when you zoom to place the cursor in the right spot the measurement doesn't work untill you zoom out to get the two cursors in the screen again) it does the job. It's a bit annoying, but I can get used to it. I just needed a way to accurately place cursors and I have it now. I'm starting to love this oscilloscope.I'm not sure if the wrong measurement while zoomed in with only one cursor on screen is a bug or a design issue. Or maybe a feature. I didn't play with it enough to understand it. What I do is place the two markers near the spots I want. Then push the horizontal knob to go into delayed sweep mode (if I remember the name exactly) then move around and zoom in-out to accurately put each of the two cursors. However while zoomed in on one of the cursors and the other one is not on the screen the measurement shows strange numbers - like 72.99 kHz on the reference signal for probe compensation. Then I zoom out to have both cursor on screen and I see 999.8 Hz. The time is also not correct and tracking voltages show ***. In theory the whole upper window is stored in memory (it shows 14Mpts) so it should be enough to make the measurements. Well whatever I just zoom out for the reading and then zoom back in to change the cursor.

author: marmad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2014, 08:07:15 pm
content: Quote from: npelov on February 04, 2014, 08:01:24 pmAll low cost DSOs do measurements ondisplaymemory, notsamplememory. If what you're trying to measure isn't fully on the display, the measurement will be incorrect. Not only that, but since they are measuring display memory, the amount you're scaled or zoomed in can impact the measurement.

author: iDevice
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2014, 08:45:16 pm
content: Quote from: npelov on February 04, 2014, 08:01:24 pmLike Marmad just wrote, you have to take into account that measurements are made on what you see.For instance, if you want to measure frequency, you have to display at least one full period, so if by zooming you end up with only a portion of one period, you will get a wrong reading.

author: echen1024
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2014, 12:13:51 am
content: Quote from: iDevice on February 04, 2014, 08:45:16 pmNot with the hardware counter.