Have you seen all the TDS2xxxx knock-off oscilloscopes coming on the market lately? I'm surprised by all the different brands and how similar they all seem to be. We've seen some discussion about the Owon series, but here are some new brands (to me) to consider:
I've known about Rigol and Uni-T as long as I've known about Owon. Their scopes are all over Ebay. But I found Rigol to be more expensive than Owon, so I bought an Owon.
How does the user interface/interaction compare to the Tek scopes? I have some experience with Lecroy scopes and I hated the user interface... Like if you change the V/div of a waveform, it would move the ground location on the screen and you'd have to move the trace around. and the cursor knobs were real touchy too.
I need to get the boss to buy a nice scope for work. I'll have to look into these other manufacturers. I had some nice Tek 4Ch. 1GHz scopes at my old job. I'd love to get another one of those, but the $30K is a bit much.
The way things are these days, many of those scopes that appear similar, are probably built in the same Chinese factory and just have different names on the front plate.
I think that Rigol is actually an American company from the video I saw
on Youtube. Search for Rigol on Youtube to see some kind of
video with the president of the company.
Many American companies actually have their products made in China.
When I worked for Rockwell, they were outsourcing most of their products overseas.
Things work the other way also.
IE:
The Honda Accord is assembled in America and probably has more U.S. made parts than cars made by General Motors.
I think that Rigol is actually an American company from the video I saw
on Youtube. Search for Rigol on Youtube to see some kind of
video with the president of the company.
Yeah, that's OK though, for me anyway. The video did not say that they were an American company, I don't think, but it looked like the president was maybe American.
Doesn't matter.... The Rigol scopes we have bought work great and the price is very good. Unfortunately, the way that American business goes, we just can't do as good of a job as Rigol can for scopes like this at that price.
A lot of times, Chinese equipment can be real crap, but in this case, they have evidently taken some care.
Also, things made in China can be very good if you hand-hold the company that is making your product or parts of your products.
The one thing people have ignored to my horror is the awful SMPS interferance these have, yes the very model in the blog ! I have one of these and have interference on all V/div settings, the voltage of it goes up as you increase the V/div keeping it the same size on the screen, using the scopes own digital filter i have identified this as being around 100-120 KHz, so yes its interferance from the inside (no probes attached or shorted) and its bypassing the V/div circuitry, I plan on screening my scopes PSU off from the rest of the unit, I'm not sure though about air flow. It certainly is good value for money though but for that horrible inteferance
I have finally purchased a new Rigol DS1052E and used it for a few days. I am very impressed with this product and now can recommend it to others.
This scope actually has a nicer "feel" than I expected, as it has a nice weight giving an impression of substance, the controls have very good feel to them, and the screen format and menus are well done.