[time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

Marvin Gozum Marvin.Gozum at jefferson.edu
Mon Apr 16 19:08:58 UTC 2012


Alas, those are the UI issues I suggested in my post, fonts is one of them, there aren't any others in the 1000s series.  You can change the 'skins' in the utility menu.  Fonts are one advantage of Owon or Hantek, plus they offer larger LCDs.

The flicker is from the slow sampling rate at slower horizontal time bases.

One user actually timed it, here as a pdf:

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog-specific/rigol-ds1052e-sample-rate-vs-timebase-setting/

FWIW, the human eye can detect < 15 fps [ movies are at 24 fps] so the flicker becomes very obvious below 1 ms/div and at higher, it depends on your eyes and if you have fluorescent lighting, which highlights update rate gaps.

Another interesting finding is they overclock their DACs, to further shave off on cost.

The good news, as shown in multiple tear downs, they use quality electronic components.  The only other quibbles are the quality of the plastic in the knobs vary [ some have spontaneously cracked] and a few units have installed rotary encoders dirtier than others; methinks this is the fault of their Chinese subcomponent suppliers.


Best Wishes,


Marv Gozum, Philadelphia Pa

[ sent via Outlook webApp]

From: John Ackermann N8UR [jra at febo.com]
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 2:27 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement

I got one of the 50MHz Rigol scopes last year as a "toss in" when I
bought one of their arbs.

It works well, but one thing that annoys me is a flicker on the screen
at fast (less than a few microsecond) sweep speeds. I emailed Rigol US
about it, but never had a response so don't know if it's normal or not.
My Tek 2012 (almost identical form factor as the Rigol, by the way)
doesn't show the flicker.

The other notable thing about the Rigol is that the on-screen text uses
that not-very-attractive, Times Roman-ish, serif font that seems
ubiquitous in Chinese documentation. Anyone know why they use that
versus something more pleasant on the eyes?

John





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