I have been trying to find tutorials like these for years - finally as a hobbyist i can understand how to operate an oscilloscope. Thank you sincerely - your presentation is fantastic - Sieby from Australia
Thank you for this video. You have an outstanding ability to articulate difficult-to-understand specifications, so that 'normal' people can grasp the often convoluted meanings.
Tthis video is the best pratical evaluation of oscilloscopes I have seen.The author has an in depth apprecation of his subject both on the bench and off.The explanations are crystal clear even to a novice with some basic digital knowledge.I was around when the superhetrodyne was a novelty and when the valves could double up as a room heater but this presentation is very informative and professional
I learnt how to properly use a multimeter off you and now a couple of years later I’m learning how to use an oscilloscope. I think you’re the only channel that doesn’t presume any knowledge. Which for someone like me, who has none, is a very good thing. I did have a Hantek 6022BL but I really don't recommend the usb oscilloscopes for the totally uninitiated, even with alternative software. I now have a RIGOL DS1102Z-E Digital Oscilloscope, 2 Channels, 100MHz, 1Gsa/s, 24Mpts, 30000wfms/s. With the Hantek I found it difficult not knowing what I needed help with, but with the Rigol the help is much easier to find. Having physical buttons and knobs really helps. Now after watching your videos thus far I feel far more confident all round. I only play with Arduinos, ESPs & Raspberry Pis so I have plenty of power. I can't begin to thank you enough, genuinely & from the bottom of my heart.
Watched a few from your videos. I won't write much now, since I am writing this from my phone but, I really feel the need to say You are absolutely AMAZING ! Please don't stop. Your videos are better than classes that I took at an engineering university a few years back, and your teaching skills are way above everything I've seen. Not to mention your nice shooting quality, the voice tone, and the "coolness" effect ! Keep it up ! I hate that australian's accent with a similar channel (not that he's a bad guy) but I still prefer you :)
Great teacher . I wish I have such a good, clear & patient presentator in oscilloscope in my younger days in secondary school. Then I will be an expert in handling oscilloscopes.
The bandwidth specification denotes at which point a high frequency signal is attenuated by 3%. you can still dump in a 1GHz signal and measure 1GHz frequency, but all bets are off regarding the signal amplitude.
This video was quite confusing for me. But only the part where you were comparing the two affordable scopes. My Siglent SDS1202X-E doesn't work like that. It's a "zoom" type of scope. So the whole capture lenght is on the screen. This means 'zooming out' still shows the same lenght. I thought my scope had a problem but after reading on eevblog forum, I learned about it. Great video. You know a lot about scopes!
A very thought-provoking video Martin, thanks. Forgive me if this point has already been raised; it concerns the update rate. If the timebase is say 1us/div and the screen is ten divisions wide then a screen's-worth of data represents 10us. That means in one second there are 1/10e-6 screens of data, or 100,000. In other words, an update rate of 100kHz is theoretically possible. Clearly this is a maximum rate which could only be achieved if each screen's-worth of the signal could be digitised and displayed instantly. Similarly, for a timebase of 1ms/div a screen represents 10ms, thus there are 100 screen's-worth of data in one second, so the maximum update rate is 100Hz. So by definition, as the timebase slows so must the screen update rate, regardless of 'scope performance (or specs). Of course, how close a given 'scope gets to the theoretical update rate can be used as a measure of performance.
A good scope for the money is the Hantek dso5xxxp series $212 for 200 MHz 1 Ga/s. It doesn’t loose very much gain at 200 MHz at all. But I still love my Tektronix analog scope. My go to is the Hantek for obvious reasons. It’s not as “cool” as dialing in a analog. Plus there’s a few applications that I prefer the analog vs the digital. Especially looking at an am Siginal. It looks a million times better on a crt analog vs the digital. I have used the expensive dso and their performance looking at an am Siginal was still subpar to my Tek. Great video. Very good explanation and video. 2 👍👍.
I'm very happy with my rigol ds1054z. It's a 4 channel scope with 50MHz bandwidth and 24M of buffer and 1G samples per second. However you can upgrade it via software options to 100MHz and unlock nice features like automatic decoding. Software unlocks are open source by now, so you can hack your scope for free. you get reduced sample rates if you use multiple channels of course, but that's fine. I only need it for low speed busses like i2c which works more than fine. the reason why one scope might drop the sample rate at a certain time base over the other is likely not performance but a design choice by the software developer. do you want more of the signal in the buffer (lower sample rate) or do you want more samples (less total signal time in buffer).
@28:00 the "stall" you see on the Siglent is because you have the scope in "Auto trigger" mode. With auto-trigger the scope has to figure out every time if it has to trigger off the edge or auto-trigger due to no edge. Switch it to Normal Trigger and you'll see the changes in time base are substantially faster. Click TrigMenu button and select Mode->Normal.
Good show Martin. This was a lot of help to me as I am at the crossroads of another scope purchase and now I am better equipped from a feature and specification viewpoint to make a good decision. Cheers!
Great clip Martin. I learn a lot.\ Please can you make a clip about -FFT function- on a scope? I'm interested in audio signals.I find It hard to use the FFT function on mine Owon sds7102V cope well.
Regarding the update rate decreasing, at some point there is just no enough data ... Like when you're at 10ms/div you only get 8.3 waveform per sec, but that's mostly because each screen is 100 ms worth of time (10 div * 10ms/div). So getting 8.3 capture per second mean the scope is displaying/processing 830 ms out of 1s which is very good, not much dead time between captures.
Yes, there are hints of aliasing on 500 KS/s, but it does not get worse when sample rate is further reduced. My guess is that it hits there some weird spot due to sample decimation ratio between the actual ADC sample speed and one that is displayed...
It's because all the samples fall at the peaks. If you hit stop and zoom in it will be a triangle wave alternating at every other sample. Useful to prevent noobs falling into a trap, but not much else.
A lot of talk to show off your new scope ;) But seriously - a good overview of scope performance. Just bought a Siglent 1024CML based on reviews and price and as my first scope - I won't complain.
Thanks for this video Martin. One thing that would interest me is a side by side compare like this but with two similarly priced and spec'd scopes such as the Aglient and the corresponding Rigol model. There is a lot of talk on the web about one or the other, but what does it really equate to? This video really shows these two inexpensive scopes in their true colors!
GW Instek has auto memory management, that is why you can not get it to alias while undersampling. Siglent has manual memory modes, short memory for fast update and long for single shots. As Dave would say, trap for young players, set it to short memory with too long timebase and Alias City here we come:)
I think you would have a larger audience if you showed how to do actually useful stuff with a scope like tuning antennas, troubleshooting home electronics and so forth. While I really like most of your videos some are too long wounded (like this one).
My Oscilloscope HANTEK DSO15D display that shows voltage values on that voltmeter the values it shows are different in relation to the squares when I do the sum. why? Thank you friend
Ask in the comments of TheSignalPathBlog video about the $500K Agilent scope he has and how fast that updates. It's got crazy bandwidth and sample rate, but it still needs time to process the signal.
We get it, but maybe not to good to running down us newbies equipment, we are not going pay 1000 to 30,000 bucks for a higher end scope , make your point and move on , your not talking to electronic vets in here , if your were they already know this info as to why lower end scope's are not the best choices , your not making your class feel very good , if you keep saying buy the best, and the cheep stuff you own is junk , that's what your inferring with this one, just a thought , i still like the work your doing and thank you for it, ,
hi mjlorton ur videos are simply awsome...recently we encountered a problem with battery charger.It's a 220v battery bank due to some problem it is shooting upto 400v.We want to check the o/p voltage in a cro whether all the scr's are firing...But with the thin leads can we touch them to the o/p...
Hello. Very Nice vídeo. Can you teste a situation of Hight Frequency Transient with one of your less espensive oscilloscope? Like a mini-motor conect to the eletricity home net. I'm a geobiologiste and the so call "durty eletricity" it's an important matter of safety at home. I'm from Portugal and I'm already a fun. Thank you very much!!!
So if I were going to get into guitar amp repair and eventually mixing boards and other musical equipment what specs should I be looking at for an oscilloscope?
Hi Martin, is there any way i can see the waveform of a 433Mhz remote control transmitter used on my car door locking fob? no matter where I place my oscilloscope probes, I cannot see anything even at the lowest input volts of 5mV/div, so my point is if we can't see the actual transmitter wave, how can we know if the output is not distorted or other harmonics on it.
Hello, good question. This is not an area that I have any expertise in at this point in time. However, depending on the type of signal an oscilloscope may not be able to view it...and something like a spectrum analyzer may be required.Google: "can you view an rf signal on an oscilloscope"...there are some handy links that should provide more information.
There is clearly some aliasing present when it hits 500KSa/s. On most scopes you will find that you can prevent serious aliasing by putting them into peak detect acquisition, though that is not something you really want to have on all the time. There isn't really a solution to undersampling, except to have enough memory that you don't need to undersample in the first place.
Conclusion: 1. Martin, you're good guy. Itwill be a big pleasure for me to work with the guy as you; 2. Analog oscilloscopes are best. Thats why they are fuc..ng expensive. 3. If you are HAM, and you're working on HF equipment, you should buy analog oscilloscope. Yes, it's a little bit expensive to be a HAM, sorry!.. 4. If you're a newbee, and if you're working with digital models and devices like Arduino or s.l.t., welcome to the world of digital oscilloscopes! Greetings from Ukraine, Martin. Good luck!
I have been trying to find tutorials like these for years - finally as a hobbyist i can understand how to operate an oscilloscope.
Thank you sincerely - your presentation is fantastic - Sieby from Australia
Thank you for this video. You have an outstanding ability to articulate difficult-to-understand specifications, so that 'normal' people can grasp the often convoluted meanings.
Tthis video is the best pratical evaluation of oscilloscopes I have seen.The author has an in depth apprecation of his subject both on the bench and off.The explanations are crystal clear even to a novice with some basic digital knowledge.I was around when the superhetrodyne was a novelty and when the valves could double up as a room heater but this presentation is very informative and professional
My pleasure Tom, thanks for the feedback.
I learnt how to properly use a multimeter off you and now a couple of years later I’m learning how to use an oscilloscope. I think you’re the only channel that doesn’t presume any knowledge. Which for someone like me, who has none, is a very good thing. I did have a Hantek 6022BL but I really don't recommend the usb oscilloscopes for the totally uninitiated, even with alternative software. I now have a RIGOL DS1102Z-E Digital Oscilloscope, 2 Channels, 100MHz, 1Gsa/s, 24Mpts, 30000wfms/s. With the Hantek I found it difficult not knowing what I needed help with, but with the Rigol the help is much easier to find. Having physical buttons and knobs really helps. Now after watching your videos thus far I feel far more confident all round. I only play with Arduinos, ESPs & Raspberry Pis so I have plenty of power. I can't begin to thank you enough, genuinely & from the bottom of my heart.
Watched a few from your videos. I won't write much now, since I am writing this from my phone but, I really feel the need to say You are absolutely AMAZING ! Please don't stop. Your videos are better than classes that I took at an engineering university a few years back, and your teaching skills are way above everything I've seen. Not to mention your nice shooting quality, the voice tone, and the "coolness" effect ! Keep it up ! I hate that australian's accent with a similar channel (not that he's a bad guy) but I still prefer you :)
me too. I think personality does make a difference.
Great teacher . I wish I have such a good, clear & patient presentator in oscilloscope in my younger days in secondary school. Then I will be an expert in handling oscilloscopes.
This was good timing Martin as I am looking around for my first digital scope. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge. Excellent video.
I love connect the dots! Seriously though thanks for this video. I learned a lot and it's got me started in the right direction, I'm sure.
Great info and very helpful analogies. Glad you talked about the waveform update rate.
The bandwidth specification denotes at which point a high frequency signal is attenuated by 3%. you can still dump in a 1GHz signal and measure 1GHz frequency, but all bets are off regarding the signal amplitude.
nice presentation on scopes, very helpful, thanks for taking time to post this.
This video was quite confusing for me. But only the part where you were comparing the two affordable scopes.
My Siglent SDS1202X-E doesn't work like that. It's a "zoom" type of scope. So the whole capture lenght is on the screen. This means 'zooming out' still shows the same lenght. I thought my scope had a problem but after reading on eevblog forum, I learned about it.
Great video. You know a lot about scopes!
Very well explained. Thank you. Will help enormously when considering which scope to buy when I get around to upgrading.
Very informative ! Thanks a lot.
A very thought-provoking video Martin, thanks. Forgive me if this point has already been raised; it concerns the update rate.
If the timebase is say 1us/div and the screen is ten divisions wide then a screen's-worth of data represents 10us. That means in one second there are 1/10e-6 screens of data, or 100,000. In other words, an update rate of 100kHz is theoretically possible. Clearly this is a maximum rate which could only be achieved if each screen's-worth of the signal could be digitised and displayed instantly.
Similarly, for a timebase of 1ms/div a screen represents 10ms, thus there are 100 screen's-worth of data in one second, so the maximum update rate is 100Hz. So by definition, as the timebase slows so must the screen update rate, regardless of 'scope performance (or specs).
Of course, how close a given 'scope gets to the theoretical update rate can be used as a measure of performance.
Excellent Explanation Martin, Thank you very much.
Thank you for these! I can't wait to see your review video!
A good scope for the money is the Hantek dso5xxxp series $212 for 200 MHz 1 Ga/s. It doesn’t loose very much gain at 200 MHz at all. But I still love my Tektronix analog scope. My go to is the Hantek for obvious reasons. It’s not as “cool” as dialing in a analog. Plus there’s a few applications that I prefer the analog vs the digital. Especially looking at an am Siginal. It looks a million times better on a crt analog vs the digital. I have used the expensive dso and their performance looking at an am Siginal was still subpar to my Tek. Great video. Very good explanation and video. 2 👍👍.
I'm very happy with my rigol ds1054z. It's a 4 channel scope with 50MHz bandwidth and 24M of buffer and 1G samples per second. However you can upgrade it via software options to 100MHz and unlock nice features like automatic decoding. Software unlocks are open source by now, so you can hack your scope for free. you get reduced sample rates if you use multiple channels of course, but that's fine. I only need it for low speed busses like i2c which works more than fine.
the reason why one scope might drop the sample rate at a certain time base over the other is likely not performance but a design choice by the software developer. do you want more of the signal in the buffer (lower sample rate) or do you want more samples (less total signal time in buffer).
Thank you so much for this nice opening eyes video and looking forward to see more videos from you
@28:00 the "stall" you see on the Siglent is because you have the scope in "Auto trigger" mode. With auto-trigger the scope has to figure out every time if it has to trigger off the edge or auto-trigger due to no edge. Switch it to Normal Trigger and you'll see the changes in time base are substantially faster. Click TrigMenu button and select Mode->Normal.
Good show Martin. This was a lot of help to me as I am at the crossroads of another scope purchase and now I am better equipped from a feature and specification viewpoint to make a good decision. Cheers!
Great clip Martin. I learn a lot.\
Please can you make a clip about -FFT function- on a scope? I'm interested in audio signals.I find It hard to use the FFT function on mine Owon sds7102V cope well.
Regarding the update rate decreasing, at some point there is just no enough data ... Like when you're at 10ms/div you only get 8.3 waveform per sec, but that's mostly because each screen is 100 ms worth of time (10 div * 10ms/div). So getting 8.3 capture per second mean the scope is displaying/processing 830 ms out of 1s which is very good, not much dead time between captures.
Please scan your camera along the back drop. Looking to see if my post card is on display with the others. Keep the reviews coming. Thank you!
Yes, there are hints of aliasing on 500 KS/s, but it does not get worse when sample rate is further reduced. My guess is that it hits there some weird spot due to sample decimation ratio between the actual ADC sample speed and one that is displayed...
OUTSTANDING(LY) Interesting..... 2013 vintage and it's still on target. I learned :) Thank You my friend. Cheers!
Great video. I just ordered a Micsig MS210T (100mhz). It will be interesting to compare it's performance to my old Tektronix TDS350 (200mhz).
It's because all the samples fall at the peaks. If you hit stop and zoom in it will be a triangle wave alternating at every other sample. Useful to prevent noobs falling into a trap, but not much else.
A lot of talk to show off your new scope ;) But seriously - a good overview of scope performance. Just bought a Siglent 1024CML based on reviews and price and as my first scope - I won't complain.
@14:14- just a little bit confusing.
ppm = 2*10^6 - frequency = 40MHz - spp = 25
=> scope of memory (@ 2*10^6) = 2*10^6/40*10^6*25 = 2*10^-3 s or 2 ms
Hi Martin, when are you planning to do the full oscilloscope review?
Thanks for this video Martin. One thing that would interest me is a side by side compare like this but with two similarly priced and spec'd scopes such as the Aglient and the corresponding Rigol model. There is a lot of talk on the web about one or the other, but what does it really equate to?
This video really shows these two inexpensive scopes in their true colors!
Coming soon...Thanks for the post.
man is good
Wow, looking at this really makes my Tektronix 2431L at 250MS/s look like a slow boat anchor..
GW Instek has auto memory management, that is why you can not get it to alias while undersampling. Siglent has manual memory modes, short memory for fast update and long for single shots. As Dave would say, trap for young players, set it to short memory with too long timebase and Alias City here we come:)
I think you would have a larger audience if you showed how to do actually useful stuff with a scope like tuning antennas, troubleshooting home electronics and so forth. While I really like most of your videos some are too long wounded (like this one).
that very good teachingthank you
My Oscilloscope HANTEK DSO15D display that shows voltage values on that voltmeter the values it shows are different in relation to the squares when I do the sum. why? Thank you friend
Ask in the comments of TheSignalPathBlog video about the $500K Agilent scope he has and how fast that updates. It's got crazy bandwidth and sample rate, but it still needs time to process the signal.
Thank you!
We get it, but maybe not to good to running down us newbies equipment, we are not going pay 1000 to 30,000 bucks for a higher end scope , make your point and move on , your not talking to electronic vets in here , if your were they already know this info as to why lower end scope's are not the best choices , your not making your class feel very good , if you keep saying buy the best, and the cheep stuff you own is junk , that's what your inferring with this one, just a thought , i still like the work your doing and thank you for it, ,
thanks that sounds good. i wonder how much raw compute power would be required to reduce all dead time and have a perfect scope?
hi mjlorton ur videos are simply awsome...recently we encountered a problem with battery charger.It's a 220v battery bank due to some problem it is shooting upto 400v.We want to check the o/p voltage in a cro whether all the scr's are firing...But with the thin leads can we touch them to the o/p...
Amazing!
So hard to Find anything about TEXIO
Its possible travel with oscilloscope in flight please answare me
Sampling rate vs/and Bits?
Mjlorton can u share some information about how an single phase preventer and phase sequence relay works
how to calibrate IDS 6072AU can you help me? thanks
أنت فنان
You are an Artist my friend.
Thanks alot !
Hi Martin, I am very knew to scopes would you recommend digital or analogue? I watch few videos here and there on analogue but really confuses me.
Hello. Very Nice vídeo. Can you teste a situation of Hight Frequency Transient with one of your less espensive oscilloscope? Like a mini-motor conect to the eletricity home net.
I'm a geobiologiste and the so call "durty eletricity" it's an important matter of safety at home. I'm from Portugal and I'm already a fun. Thank you very much!!!
So if I were going to get into guitar amp repair and eventually mixing boards and other musical equipment what specs should I be looking at for an oscilloscope?
Sir i like to ask you which DSO i should take under 800$ which should have best performance and specification too.
Does someone know how god is Regol DS4024 from performance vs. specifications poit of view?
Hi Martin, is there any way i can see the waveform of a 433Mhz remote control transmitter used on my car door locking fob? no matter where I place my oscilloscope probes, I cannot see anything even at the lowest input volts of 5mV/div, so my point is if we can't see the actual transmitter wave, how can we know if the output is not distorted or other harmonics on it.
Hello, good question. This is not an area that I have any expertise in at this point in time. However, depending on the type of signal an oscilloscope may not be able to view it...and something like a spectrum analyzer may be required.Google: "can you view an rf signal on an oscilloscope"...there are some handy links that should provide more information.
can you buy a scope for say 30k that has no dead time?
Nice :-)
excellent... really helpful.
There is clearly some aliasing present when it hits 500KSa/s. On most scopes you will find that you can prevent serious aliasing by putting them into peak detect acquisition, though that is not something you really want to have on all the time. There isn't really a solution to undersampling, except to have enough memory that you don't need to undersample in the first place.
Does he keep saying obviously or offsetting or both
Or oscillating
Conclusion:
1. Martin, you're good guy. Itwill be a big pleasure for me to work with the guy as you;
2. Analog oscilloscopes are best. Thats why they are fuc..ng expensive.
3. If you are HAM, and you're working on HF equipment, you should buy analog oscilloscope. Yes, it's a little bit expensive to be a HAM, sorry!..
4. If you're a newbee, and if you're working with digital models and devices like Arduino or s.l.t., welcome to the world of digital oscilloscopes!
Greetings from Ukraine, Martin. Good luck!
*Echoo echoo, HUMMMMMMMM HUMMMMMMMM*
Cheesy scope is cheesy
lol, "analog digital storage scope". Contradiction much?
lol it cost too much money :)