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$320 DSO. 100Ms/s

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Interesting, but for some reason, I'd want the real thing in front of me. I actually prefer analog scopes to begin with! It says 2lsb of noise, so really its a 6 bit system.
 
It's the knobs. One little arrow on a screen doesn't compare against 10 fingers and a bunch of knobs.
 
dk: Funny how that works... I would not sell my old scope. Just saw the 100MHZ scope $320 and said, too good to be true..

Then it was, sample is 100Ms.. And I thought, that is not 100Mhz.

Thought I would see if anyone had one. And I would never trust todays digital over analog.

But I could carry it in my laptop bag and pull it out when I am bored. That is rare.. But I got your point.

Lots of deals on Ebay but I never seem to get one.
 
Nigel Goodwin said:
It's something to have as well as a real scope, it's not a replacement for one!.

I sort of had that feeling. But the higher speed (the article said 100Mhz) than my 20Mhz and sort of low price compared to others I have seen. But looks like they have cut some corners on this one. Looked 45volt for one.

Oh, and portable is nice too.

I imagine for most of what I do (digital) I would like it if it was a quality product.
 
I'm guessing the probes are 10X, which would raise the maximum input voltage to 500V, making it more versatile. I sent them an email with this question.
 
Take it from a guy who bought a bitscope BS310U a few years back:
**broken link removed**

The software can completely make or break the whole thing. If the software interface is a pain to use, you're probably not going to like your scope. My bitscope sits on a shelf and I only use it a couple times a year despite frequently working on projects where it would come in handy - and it's largely because of the terrible software interface. The software for the scope you linked looks pretty cheesy at first glance, so I would be wary if I were you.

Their specs also sound shady as you guys have noticed... Having always worked with nice expensive DSO's at school and work, I didn't take a close look at the specs when I bought mine, and I realized quite quickly how bad an 8-bit ADC can be in an oscilloscope, especially when you're stuck spreading that 8-bit resolution over too large a voltage range for what you're measuring because of the hardware. A nice clean square wave at 5v can end up looking really noisy. I'd also recommend making sure that that scope can capture on both channels simultaneously. I was very disappointed when I discovered that mine can't, it makes it much less useful for one-shot captures which I use a lot.

And of course, be wary of their 100MHz claims. It is not clear if they are confusing 100Ms/s with 100MHz signal capability (which would be wrong), or if they're saying it has a 100MHz analog input bandwidth, which is just the bandwidth of the analog buffer/amplifier/etc circuitry between the probe and the ADC's.
 
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evandude said:
It is not clear if they are confusing 100Ms/s with 100MHz signal capability (which would be wrong), or if they're saying it has a 100MHz analog input bandwidth, which is just the bandwidth of the analog buffer/amplifier/etc circuitry between the probe and the ADC's.

But in either case, it's dishonest advertising, designed to mislead you!.
 
I suspect the reason for the discrepancy is more due to incompetent marketing than anything else. Still, that calls into question the entire spec sheet. did they write it to sound good (radio shack marketing) or to communicate the specifics of the product?

Try to find people that actually use that specific scope model. User reviews can be extremely telling. But be wary of extremely glowing reviews - a good engineer always has some complaints about his tools.

Finally, take a look at this http://www.ganssle.com/microscopes.pdf it's a decent review of several usb scopes.
 
Nigel Goodwin said:
Claiming 100MHz and 100Ms/S.
OK. I didn't see any discrepancy there, but I guess that someone unfamiliar with Nyquist might think it means they can sample a 100MHz signal at 100Ms/sec and get a meaningful display. I think it is pretty common for digital scopes to spec the analog bandwidth out past the Nyquist frequency. Maybe they should have said 100MHz input bandwidth.
 
Ron H said:
OK. I didn't see any discrepancy there, but I guess that someone unfamiliar with Nyquist might think it means they can sample a 100MHz signal at 100Ms/sec and get a meaningful display. I think it is pretty common for digital scopes to spec the analog bandwidth out past the Nyquist frequency. Maybe they should have said 100MHz input bandwidth.

Assuming that's what it means?, that's what we seem to have decided - but we might be smarter than their advertising copywriters? ;)
 
It states "100Mhz DSO - Dual channel".

later 100Mbs/s 2 channel ...

So I posted about it ASAP..
 

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Why don't you email them at the address on the poster and ask them about this discrepancy?
 
Ron H sent off an EMAIL.

I just wanted to know if someone had one. I will look for a review later and see what I find. My concern is if they start off this way. Are they trying to unload junk or just a mistake, no room for the word input on the title line.
 
mramos1 said:
Ron H sent off an EMAIL.

I just wanted to know if someone had one. I will look for a review later and see what I find. My concern is if they start off this way. Are they trying to unload junk or just a mistake, no room for the word input on the title line.
But my email was just about the probes.
 
100mhz DSO. That can easily be described as saying the DSO itself runs at 100mhz, which it does, no false advertising there. I'm more concerned about the fact that it doesn't tell you how much capture memory it has. A 1 terahertz DSO is going to do you just about absolutling nothing useful if it only has enough memory to store a k or two of sample points.
 
Another link

https://r4systems.com/

No reviews so far. It is a dual 8 bit, no mention of buffer size. Software has round knobs, that might be OK. But as mentioned, the software if the key to this thing. Be nice if they had a software demo to try the interface.
 
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