Hantek Scopes, Any Good?

[MrAl]

Hi,

Think this brand is any good, or some problems?
Anyone have one of these?

 

[Mikebits]

I have a Hantek MSO5102 100MHz scope. For the money it is pretty good scope. The manual is somewhat crappy so you have to figure out things by trial. The logic analyzer has been tricky for me to figure out the trigger functions, for example trigger on a pattern, but I am sure I just have not figured it out yet. Looks like they tried copying a tek scope in looks and function. For the probes they are adequate. I made a post on ETO some time ago on this scope, I will see if I can find it, and post the link.

 

[DerStrom8]

I've heard mixed reviews. Most are good, but they've had a few bad batches with the cutouts for the front panel that weren't centered correctly and the plastic used for the housing was cheap. I bought a Rigol instead.

 

[Mikebits]

Here is a scope screen shot. I been working on a IQ modulator using a Cypress PSoC. Here is a simple AM signal. Awhile back I looked at the BW using a sig gen, and it does go past 100 MHz but cant remember where the 3 dB point is. What I discovered is that I would really prefer a 4 channel scope, I may be upgrading some time at a later date.

 

[MrAl]

Hi again,

Mikebits:
What kind of signal are you feeding into the top yellow channel? Was that a clean sine wave? I ask because it looks a little bit choppy and i wonder if that is because of the 8 bit vertical sampling resolution.

DerStrom:
Thanks, i'll have to check those out too next. I wonder if the prices are comparable.

 

[Mikebits]

The top waveform is generated by a DAC on my PSoC device. I was just using it for testing. Saved me from having to grab a function Gen

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

The top waveform is generated by a DAC on my PSoC device. I was just using it for testing. Saved me from having to grab a function Gen

Just wondering how smooth it looks with a true sine wave input.

 

[Mikebits]

I will dig out my old function gen, and take a few screen shots. I will post later.

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

Oh ok well thanks, will be interesting to see.

 

[Mikebits]

Here is a screenshot of a cheap function gen output. The function gen is homemade from a XR8038 function gen IC. I also included a split screen view showing the sinewave on top and FFT on bottom. Hope that helps. I wonder what is causing that ugly blip on the negative peak of the waveform.

 

[MrAl]

Here is a screenshot of a cheap function gen output. The function gen is homemade from a XR8038 function gen IC. I also included a split screen view showing the sinewave on top and FFT on bottom. Hope that helps. I wonder what is causing that ugly blip on the negative peak of the waveform.

View attachment 96924 View attachment 96925

Hi,

Thanks much for posting that, it's interesting to see an actual screen shot of the scope output.

For the 8038 chip, offset adjustment unless there is a non symmetrical upper and lower transistor set in the chip. The lower set controls the negative half cycle wave shape, the upper set the positive half cycle.

For the scope, wow, that looks pretty hairy
Is that noise we are seeing with the sine wave? What frequency is the sine wave itself, is that 47kHz? What is the peak amplitude of that sine wave?
Can you set the sample rate to higher than 5MSPS or does it automatically select it based on the input waveform?

 

[dr pepper]

Yes I have a usb one, 60mc with a built in sig gen.
It comes in a nice ally case and so far it works well.
Not fantastic quality but more than acceptable for the cost.
The sample rate does change automatically with sweep rate, but on mine you can force the sample rate to what you like, I turn it up when looking at ignition waveforms so you can see the spike voltage.

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

Yeah that sounds good. I was hoping to be able to adjust that manually too. I dont know about the Hantek though, that would be good to know.
How does the basic waveform look when you input a regular clean sine wave, does it look very hairy or fairly clean?

 

[Mikebits]

I just found a link for a 200 MHz BW hack on the Hantek. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testg...e/?PHPSESSID=3ff2b94418e8218bb45fe3e2a3952506

I want to try the hack but I am afraid of breaking my scope.

 

[Mikebits]

Mr.Al, It is hard for me to show an example of a good sinewave since all I have is a very old 8038 home made generator. But you have peaked my interest, and it just so happens that I had placed an order for a function gen from ebay prior to your post and it should arrive on Tuesday. I have been helping my son the starving musician with some audio projects so I ordered a dual channel function gen. It probably is using the DDS AD9851 chip.
So when I get the generator I will take some screenshots. I also ordered a AD9833, and the AD9851 breakout boards to play with. My son wants a few devices to use with his rack mount audio synth gear. I want to make him a audio generator, a modulator etc. So this will be useful for me to check my scope as well. Will update this post next week if your still interested.

With that said, here is my opinion concerning scopes.
MSO or DSO?
In the past, logic analyzers were indispensable tools for design debug, but it seems now that 2-4 wire serial buses are more common place, and I have had very little use for my 16 channel Logic analyzer function of the scope.
In retrospect I would be better served if I had purchased a Quad scope instead of dual channel with hardly ever used logic analyzer. Make a long story short, 4 channel scope is the way to go in my opinion.

P.S. I am currently looking at quad scopes, and the DPO scopes look slick. I have been thinking of getting a quad scope, so I may have a Hantek scope 4 sale. The prices for good scopes is still pretty high so I really have to shop smart

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

That function gen looks like the one a friend of mine has. The software isnt very good, but the function gen itself works pretty nice. Price was about 75 dollars USD. Top end is 20MHz i think, which is good for most things, but bottom end is much less than 1Hz, like 0.01Hz or something so it has a really good range.

What kind of Hantek might you sell in the future? Also, how old is it and how much you think you would ask for it?

 

[dr pepper]

Sine waves are clean to about 5mc, after that a little grainy, still useable to about 10mc, its a 60mc 'scope.

 

[fezder]

I was pondering between rigol and hantek, but bought rigol due reviews...haven't regretted decision . (ds1054z)

 

[Mikebits]

Mr. Al, as for the scope model, see my first post, The scope is only about 6 mo. old and I paid around $300, so I would probably want $225. Well, I got my new function Gen and it is pretty nice. I went ahead and captured some wave forms. I will post them below. All waveforms measured into 50 ohm.

1MHz Sine wave
FFT of sine wave
1MHz Square wave
FFT of Square wave
Risetime of Square wave
Triangle wave
FFT of Triangle
AM signal preset in function Gen

Let me know if there are any other test you would like me to perform. Have a nice day

P.S I did see a small amount of fuzziness which I could filter out using Averaging on the scope. There seem to also be some jitter.

 

[MrAl]

I was pondering between rigol and hantek, but bought rigol due reviews...haven't regretted decision . (ds1054z)

Hi there,

You have any screen shots of some waveforms you can show by any chance?