Low budget oscilloscope

[stern0m1]

What do you think of the OWON VDS1022i USB oscilloscope based on its specs (attached) as a low cost option?

Thanks

[perky]

Often you'll find the memory depth low on the budget entry level USB oscilloscopes, 5K depth in this case is very low and you'll only be able to store small waveforms. As soon as the memory depth goes up, so does the price. Personally I'd go with a Rigol DS1102e rather than a USB 'scope - it's double the price but you get a 100MHz, 1GS/s  2 channel 'scope with 1M memory depth. TEK and Rigol are practically the same with Rigol somewhat cheaper.

Mark.

[Felix]

May I suggest the Rigol DS1054, it's 50Mhz stock but easily "hackable" to 100mhz bandwidth. It's essentially the replacement of the venerable 1102e. It's 4 channel, a nice large screen and has ultra vision, and tons more memory than the owon.
I happen to own one and EEvblog did a good review on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETCOhzU1O5A

[stern0m1]

These start at like $300...
None of the budget USB ones from owon instrustar Hantek are worth much? These range from around $60-$100.

[Felix]

I got my 1054z for $350 +tax with prime, not bad considering I paid more than $400 for the 1052z back in summer of 2011.

[stern0m1]

I found a gould instruments 4050 used on ebay for $70 what do you think of it?
35MHz/100Ms/s Digital Storage
Supposed to be working.
http://www.powerelectronics.itu.edu.tr/files/dso400.pdf

[Felix]

Are you really on such a tight budget?
Those specs are very marginal for today's digital electronics. I suppose you could do some measurements on most slow circuits with that...
You will quickly realize you need more bandwidth and as much memory as you can get. Not to mention other fancy features that are now common on even entry level scopes. I doubt $70 will get you any of that...

[perky]

The Hantek DSO5072P apparently is quoted at 70MHz but comes pre-configured to 200MHz (and is hackable to 200MHz if it doesn't).  I'm not sure if this is still current or whether Chinese clones also do it, but might be worth investigating. Only 40K memory depth unfortunately. Sells for about £155 free shipping on AliExpress:
http://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hantek-tekway-dso-hack-get-200mhz-bw-for-free/2925/

[LukaQ]

I will never go back to Owon, was such bad experience compared to Rigol, and it was much more expensive also

[stern0m1]

Does the memory depth make a difference if you plug in a usb drive?
Thanks

[Felix]

With USB scopes they might use the PC memory, so maybe not.

[stern0m1]

Would the speed of USB reduce the effective bandwidth?
The Hantek DSO5202P is $275 now at circuitspecialists.com 200mhz 40k memory.  1 GSa/s
Im just concerned that for non repetitive signals it wont be to accurate as usb will slow it down.

[Felix]

Wait, I might have misunderstood your question.
I assumed you meant a USB scope.

Most contemporary scopes have USB connection, either as hosts (for USB drives to save stuff to) or clients (to interface to a computer where you can do other control/logging).
So my answer was for USB-only scopes.

Otherwise I am not sure what to say, but I dont think just having a USB connection on a scope affects its performance.

[stern0m1]

Sorry I meant a scope with a display just a usb connection.
My point is to use usb memory or the pc memory to capture longer signals then the internal memory can hold.
If it only has 40k memory it wont be able to capture the full 1 GSa/s for to long. usb 2.0 is only 480 Mbit/s.

[Felix]

Well the question is too broad then, I will recommend reading the datasheet of your scope to see what it can do and what it can't.