Owon Handheld HDS1021M DSO - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: R_G_B_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 27, 2013, 11:45:24 am
content: Is this a new budget scope meter:http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Owon-Handheld-HDS1021M-DSO-Digital-Oscilloscope-Scopemeter-/190878087027?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Test_Measurement_Equipment_ET&hash=item2c71387773and is it any good?http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Owon+Handheld+HDS1021M&ei=UTF-8&fr=chr-greentree_ff&type=380920

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 27, 2013, 12:09:54 pm
content: That's a very old model - you do NOT want that version as the UI is a total dog - the -N versions are much better, not brilliant but probably still the best size/performance ratio on a handheld scope

author: IDEngineer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2016, 05:22:43 pm
content: I know this scope is an older unit, and some people give it low marks for its user interface. But I recently had a chance to get one for $150 and since I've been watching for a *truly* portable scope for a while, I took the chance.After spending some time with it, I'm quite pleased. Granted it's only 20MHz bandwidth, but keep in mind there's a generally inverse relationship between frequency of signal and how often we encounter them. 20MHz probably covers 95% of the analog and 80% of the digital stuff I work on every day. For the exceptions I'll still have to drag along a bench scope and find AC power somewhere, but 20MHz is sufficient for the vast majority of everyday signals.This is a reasonable DSO. You can do the usual DSO things with it: Move the trigger point, capture the signal, zoom in on the captured data, etc. Like most DSO's its view of the world is its screen, so anything that happened before or after the screen display (time), or above or below it (voltage), isn't captured. But as with a bench DSO, if you set up its conditions properly it will capture a screen's worth of data and then you can zoom in and around - within the limits of its 100M sample rate, of course.Navigating the user interface is a challenge, but come on - this is a portable. It's small and doesn't have a lot of room for dedicated controls like a bench scope. Some thought seems to have been given to making this easier. For example, the prominent elliptical "OSC OPTION" button scrolls through various configuration options, such as the sensitivity and timebase, triggering, vertical offset, etc. If you're playing with one group of those settings, it's likely you'll twiddle with them for a while... so the last choice on the OSC OPTION button remains in effect even after its screen overlay times out. I didn't realize this at first, and kept using the OSC OPTIONS button to switch the arrow keys to the function(s) I needed, but once I realized how it worked it actually became pretty intuitive.There's a point with a new piece of test equipment where you stop thinking about the equipment... where the equipment becomes an extension of YOU, and it's like the probes are your own fingers. You stop having to think about HOW to use the tool, it's just an automatic thing, and your brain can stay focused on the task. That took about 20 minutes with this little scope. It will take a few more sessions before it's completely second nature, but I'm confident that I won't be lugging (and risking travel damage to) my big expensive bench scopes nearly as often anymore. That alone is well worth $150.Bottom line: I'd buy one of these again. Especially under $200. There are better handheld scopes out there, but they cost a LOT more. For the small percentage of the time you might need their extra bandwidth or features, I'm not sure it's worth the extra money.Hope this helps someone!

author: Fungus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2016, 06:27:25 pm
content: How does it compare with a DSO Quad?(prices are similar)