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Recommendations for an Oscilloscope

interested1

Hello Everyone,

  I am in the market for my first oscilloscope.  I have used oscilloscopes before but not really taken to writing down the specs of the device or constructing exactly what I want in a scope.  To date I have gotten by without the device, but I now am in a good financial spot and the purchase of a sub-$500 'scope is reasonable provided I obtain some guide.  My requirements are rather vague, but can be generalized as a desire to purchase a scope that provides enough data sampling for robotics projects --I currently work with the Raspberry Pi and the Beagle Bone Black.  I am confident that the previous curtailment didn't reduce the field all that much, so I reiterate, I am willing to spend ~$500 on a scope, so please no suggestions of thousand dollar scopes.  I want something, which in the breadth of product offerings is probably quite basic, but nonetheless I would like to be able to have a scope to test my robotics and embedded Linux boards with...

 

A friend of mine suggested that I purchase something akin to the Instek GDS-1052-U Digital Storage Oscilloscope, 2 Channel, Color LCD, 50MHz, 250MS/s with USB or a less expensive USB Oscilloscope - MSO-19 Considering his knowledge of what I might be using the scope for, likely an intimacy more than I am expressing in my description for usage, I remain inquisitive for advice.  I mention these products and provide links only to better aid my previously vague explanation for my prospective usage.

 

As a final curtailment, I would really love to get a scope that I could use with Linux rather than Winblow$ as I really only use Linux or OSX boxes these days.  I am confident there are products that are not Winblow$ only, but the two scopes my buddy suggests both seem to urge my adoption of a OS that I want not part in!

 

Thank you for your responses and if I can better explain what I hope to accomplish with a scope please explain to me what I can provide to better resolve the specification I (unwittingly) desire in a scope.  I apologizes again for being less than committal or precise, but you have to begin from somewhere and my point of departure is that I would like a scope... thanks for working with me on a request that is perhaps an incomplete formulation.

 

David

 

P.S. I did try to search for a discussion on this topic; however, I couldn't find anything within the last year or two.  I figure this is a question that everyone has at some point and so why not posit the issue and revisit.

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  • Hey David (Scheltema -> Dutch roots?)

     

    I've been using the Rigol scope for a few years now, and -for its budget- it's really great. A few fellow engineers bought USB scopes years ago, all of which ended up in the closet, except for the one where the owner wrote a completely new acquisition program image

     

    I've used a lot of scopes for work (Tektronix, Agilent, Fluke, Philips, from old CRT-based ones to modern 12"TFT based scopes that run on a popular desktop OS), and have also used things like picoscope and cleverscope USB scopes, and nothing beats a 'real' scope with 'real' buttons. The DS1052 is a nice little thingy; fits in my backpack, offers a lot of measurement options, and works quite OK. I do miss 'deep memory' functions (acquiring a large set of data, and zoom in on an interesting piece) found in more expensive scopes, and of course the display resolution quite crappy. User interface is OK most of the time.

     

    I second Drew's opinion on the Saleae device; I've bought it for my job and for our local hackerspace, and it's been an instant hit at both locations. Really easy to use and setup, easy waveform viewing, and decoding of data. However, its usage is different from a 'scope': the Saleae doesn't offer a 'live' view but opposes that with the possibility to capture many minutes of data and store it for later viewing. It has saved me many, many, many hours during debug sessions! If you're just going to analyse digital signals, and you're not interested in having a direct 'live' view, skip the scope and get the Saleae logic analyser. Then you can still buy the scope if you need it....

    Greetings,

    Victor

     

    EDIT: I've used some 'budget-line' scopes from big manufacturers aswell. They were very cumbersome in usage, slow in response and even worse in measurement options. Seems like the engineering / marketing just cut away functions, instead of making a new device with a lot of options, but done cheaply.

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  • Hey David (Scheltema -> Dutch roots?)

     

    I've been using the Rigol scope for a few years now, and -for its budget- it's really great. A few fellow engineers bought USB scopes years ago, all of which ended up in the closet, except for the one where the owner wrote a completely new acquisition program image

     

    I've used a lot of scopes for work (Tektronix, Agilent, Fluke, Philips, from old CRT-based ones to modern 12"TFT based scopes that run on a popular desktop OS), and have also used things like picoscope and cleverscope USB scopes, and nothing beats a 'real' scope with 'real' buttons. The DS1052 is a nice little thingy; fits in my backpack, offers a lot of measurement options, and works quite OK. I do miss 'deep memory' functions (acquiring a large set of data, and zoom in on an interesting piece) found in more expensive scopes, and of course the display resolution quite crappy. User interface is OK most of the time.

     

    I second Drew's opinion on the Saleae device; I've bought it for my job and for our local hackerspace, and it's been an instant hit at both locations. Really easy to use and setup, easy waveform viewing, and decoding of data. However, its usage is different from a 'scope': the Saleae doesn't offer a 'live' view but opposes that with the possibility to capture many minutes of data and store it for later viewing. It has saved me many, many, many hours during debug sessions! If you're just going to analyse digital signals, and you're not interested in having a direct 'live' view, skip the scope and get the Saleae logic analyser. Then you can still buy the scope if you need it....

    Greetings,

    Victor

     

    EDIT: I've used some 'budget-line' scopes from big manufacturers aswell. They were very cumbersome in usage, slow in response and even worse in measurement options. Seems like the engineering / marketing just cut away functions, instead of making a new device with a lot of options, but done cheaply.

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