Hi Got an interesting question for you. Is this 800 oscilloscope? Overkill For a hobbyist? Now this question was raised on the EV blog. Forum In fact. uh, almost similar question twice in a last couple of uh days.

And it is actually an interesting question. if you're a hobbyist. uh, you know you're a beginner. You've got to be interested in electronics and you want to buy.

Escape You want to equip your lab. You're all excited because you discovered Arduinos. and you want to, you know, equip your lab and everything. And you want to buy an oscilloscope? How much is overkill now? obviously if you filthy rich, of course.

Well, you know there was a thread years ago on the EV blog. Forum everything's on there. It's test equipment. Central Um, where somebody was going to spend like I don't know.

Like how much was it? Like tens of thousands. like five digits for an oscilloscope or something like that. It was that. like like it's oh.

I'm buying my first oscilloscope and it's oh. I have to dig out the archives anyway. I'm not going to look for it now, but yeah, you know some people don't think anything about spending. You know, a couple of thousand of them need an entry level oscilloscope.

I'm going to spend a couple of thousand dollars on it and well, no, you don't have to. I'm gonna right off the bat. I Am gonna say that once you enter the four digit price category. I.E Over a thousand dollars.

That is overkill for a hobbyist, or even for you know, just setting up any general purpose. Electronics Uh, Lab? Really? Now of course. totally dependent upon what you're working on. so we're talking about just a general purpose daily use oscilloscope.

You just want to look at some signals. You know you want to debug some stuff and you know you might want to do some serial decoding on it. And yeah, you might want a logic analyzer built in to do some mixed signal analysis. You might want a couple of hundred megahertz bandwidth to get some.

You know a faster Edge signals and you might want to do some FF T's on it. You might want to do some, you know signal measurement and Analysis and stuff like that. but then in general speak in a general purposecope. You don't have any specific Niche requirements like you're not going to be looking at one gig signals.

You don't need your one gig bandwidth and your active probes and everything and go off into you know, crazy land. So I would say that this Rygal MSO 5000 is about the upper limit of what I would consider of where I would start considering overkill for a hobbyist or a general purpose lab scope. I Mean look at this for 800 bucks, right? You're sure it's only ended. This is the entry level model of course.

70 megahertz bandwidth, four channels, but it's eight gig samples per second. You get 100 Meg memory depth that's got, uh, a touch, a high Reservoir higher resolution. Uh to, you know, nine inch touchscreen on it um mixed signal and Analysis logic analyzer. You don't get the active probe inputs and stuff like that, but you generally don't in sub thousand dollar.

Um, you know three digit price category Scopes and stuff like that, it's got HDMI out and it's got LXI Lan and all sorts of stuff. although most Scopes have that these days. you know 41 measurements. You know 450 000 waveform updates per second or whatever, right? It's a you would be hard-pressed to outgrow this scope, so I'll put this at the upper limit.

Now the poster on the Um EV blog Forum The original poster actually already has a Rigol DS 1054 Zed And it's got a budget. you know, about 800 bucks. so he's kind of like iron off um the Uh MSO 5000. It's pretty much the cigarette ones.

like yeah, you can get the signal ones. For example this SDS uh, 2000 X Plus scope like really nice scope, but you know you're talking a different price. You know, a different price bracket here. significantly more coin and stuff like that that does have um, not active probe interface, but it's got Auto times, 10 detection and stuff like that.

but that one's outside the price category and price categories are everything when you're talking about Scopes But what is overkill? Okay, like the 1054 Zed that he's already got now, right? Perfectly usable scope and right at like at the low end. I would say that it's the right goal. You know everyone asks me all the time which scope should I buy? I say either the 1054 Zed or it's the uh, sigilant um SDS 1104 XE um here which is, uh, siblings equivalent? uh one. although this one is a bit more, um, expensive.

so the Rye goal is a little bit cheaper than that. You can actually get the two channel model here for only 379. This is all. uh Yankee prices.

All Us prices. Okay, I know they prices vary in different uh regions around the world. I'm not even going to bother uh, covering those. So my advice these days.

As I said back when the 1054 Zed was released. Uh one. Once you've got a four Channel scope for 400 bucks, you don't even think about buying a two channel just like I I wouldn't even unless you had some really Niche requirement where you wanted the extra features for in squeezing under some budget thing. But yeah, I can only afford two channels? Well, maybe.

But in general, don't buy a two channel scope anymore Now interestingly price brackets. Okay, um, it started out when I bought my first scope. Okay, it was 800 bucks Aussie bucks. But you know, work with me right? it was pretty close back then.

I think uh, parody to the US dollar. Anyway, this was a Kikisui COS 50 20 20 megahertz dual Channel um analog Crow as we call them here in Australia None of that dual time-based rubbish either. single time base I Kind of like lusted after this one which was the 40 Mega Is this yeah, this is a four? No, that one only had the single time, but it sells a dual time based model as well and you know I eventually get the got the COS 6100m. um which is like a 12 Trace oscilloscope.

Oh hang on 6100m. Oh yeah, here's this bad boy. look at that 100 Meg um yeah it. you could actually get 12 traces on it with the expanded time bases and stuff you you could like.

yeah and Trigger View and all sorts of stuff anyway. I eventually got one of those. but anyway, yeah, that's right, was the entry level uh, price. and then the first affordable digital scope on the market for like the entry level like hobbyist thing was actually the Rygold DS 1052e and surprisingly you can still buy it 389, but it was actually introduced at around about the 800.

uh, price point? not many people know that. but way back, um before I started the blog. um when this thing, uh came out it was yeah, it was. You know it was groundbreaking.

You can for under a thousand bucks you could get a decent dual Channel You know it was only 50 meg and it was. you know, primitive and like the user interface and it was slow and also but it was just amazing that you could even get a two channel um, you know, digital scope like a proper bench scope for under a thousand bucks. But then it eventually became dropped to the 400 uh, price point. And then that's when they came out with other models in The Zed and then Sigilant came along and all sorts of others.

Um, yes, there are cheaper oscilloscopes on the market, so let's just talk about that for a second. Um, yeah. like you can get them for less than 400 bucks. You can go check, buy one of those cheap ones from AliExpress then no name.

You know you get the hand techs or the you know, whatever. Like there's lots of weird and wonderful ones. You can probably even get them for as low as like just over 200 bucks. Oh okay, here it is.

Look here's like a hand. Tech Uh, you know, two channel one for yeah, 200 bucks. Like just as I said just oh, look at this right. you can get this thing right? Oh, it's a nursery Versi one right? Um, if it's as bad as their little handheld ones, No right, you can get these for 150 200 bucks.

I I Wouldn't recommend it. It is a it's worth. Actually just been climbing up that ladder a little bit to get. um, something you know around about the 400 350 to 400 price point I Think that's worth it.

But the question is, is it Overkill to go from something like this to buying something like this I Don't think so I Think it'll be a decent upgrade because the uh original poster on the Forum he could of course sell this because they, um, they keep their prices. You know reasonably well, you can get a couple hundred bucks for this Easy by reselling this and then the price of this and upgrading to this. But I Don't think this is overkill and this is. uh, you know this wouldn't last you as a general purpose scope.

What? Last year, the rest of your life? Really? as long as it doesn't break down. Um, it'll pretty much last you forever. unless you've got some specific Niche requirement for an everyday use oscilloscope in your lab. Like, you can't beat having four channels like this.

And remember, this thing can be hacked to the full 350 megahertz bandwidth uh with uh and four No. 200 Meg points and you can get the logic analyzer, you get all the serial decoders and you get everything else. It can be hacked to 350 Meg And really, for a general purpose scope, you're not going to need anything more than that. And also the good thing about this is that it has separate controls here.

Okay for the four channels. Once you start going over to your, you know you're sort of like higher end Scopes Like this one, they tend to. Yeah, you'll get your four channels but then they combine them all in the one vertical controller something. people prefer that but like for an everyday use scope, it's just it's nice if you can like it's just a bonus.

I think if you get this separate uh controls like that, it's just nice so you know and it's got the arbitrary waveform gen as well built in as this dual channel uh which I I can't remember I don't have uh, this model anymore, but I did a video on it like four years ago or something when it first came out. So unless you have some specific Niche requirement, this is going to last you a very long time. you'll never need more than 350. Meg Who needs more than 640k a ram right? Um, but no.

like the thing is with bandwidth, once you get over like you know, 300 Meg or something like that, you can push it to 500 right from Once Let's just say 500 Meg is kind of like the upper limit of where passive probe technology regular like 10 to 1 probes. You can't get switchable ones like that. you'll get fixed. Uh, tender one? uh, probes.

but passive probes? That's pretty much where they die out. Yes, technology still make a one gig passive. Pro But once you're up in that frequency range, you really start talking about active probes and prop. And your probing solution costs more than your scope sometimes, right? right? you start getting into serious territory.

So really, Um, even at 500 Meg right? it's it's really. Probing becomes really, uh, serious business. So like 300 300 Meg bandwidth for example, even 200 Meg bandwidth is pretty decent. It's going to last you for almost all general purpose um, requirements.

So yeah, one of these are four Channel jobbies. Either of these is gonna be a, you know, a very useful I Would say this is like if you're going to start equipping an Electronics lab I'd consider this a minimum and then maybe step up. Yes, there are other models, but uh, it's been argued in the Forum that this is at this 800 price point. The MSO 5000 is probably the best, best value and I don't necessarily disagree with that.

Um, so I'd leave it in the comments down below if you've got a better choice. But yeah, um, yeah, you could step up for this. But and anything over this I think yeah is overkill and you're just wasting your money. You're better off saving that money and spending it on other stuff that you need for lab.

like a decent, uh, soldering iron. you might want a rework system, a fume extractor you might want a thermal camera you might want like nice EST Madden and nice side Cutters and all sorts of tools and weird and wonderful things and power supplies and all sorts of you know, tons of other any specialized test equipment you need. uh for your Niche stuff. So it's worth saving the money to like equip your lab with that extra stuff instead of having a good 500 Mig band with scope.

So yeah, I see the value in stepping up from something like this 400 price point to the 800 price point. You know the bigger screen and the mixed signal analysis and you know the uh way, uh yeah, it's because this doesn't have a wave genever you know it's got the wave gen and it's got the higher bandwidth goes up to 350 Meg and little deeper memory and the more a signal analysis stuff and you know Also, you know the user interface is going to be nicer and more flexible and all sorts of stuff right? So I can see definitely the value in getting um, you know, like an 800 price point scope for hobby use. Um now once again, it depends on your budget, right? Some people think oh geez, 400 bucks is a lot of money and fair enough, right? So you know you may need a cheaper solution than that. But um, yeah, I can't see the value proposition for hobby use for going above the 800 price point I just can't see it.

I can't see it. leave it in the comments down below if you disagree. But what extra do you get when you step above this 800 dollar price point? More bandwidth? Okay, but as I said, then you start getting into how are you going to use this bandwidth right? It's it's just a waste of money if you just oh yeah I want a one gig scope but then are you ever gonna use it? Oh, but I'm into RF and it's like no, you're probably going to be using RF Imagine you're not going to be measuring RS signals direct and stuff. Very few people do that.

Sure, there are Niche requirements and stuff like that, but and like, no, right? Generally, you don't need a, you know, like over three or even. you know. let's say 500 Meg uh bandwidth scope for example. For you know most general purpose uses so you're just wasting your money going for extra bandwidth.

Okay, it might have if I mean 8 gig samples per second I don't know the next price point above this where you get better than that. Of course this will have uh for channels and stuff like that, you might get a better user interface you might get. you know you might not like the Rye gold brand. for example, you might not like the Sigilant brand.

You might want to go for a key signer or an RNA RNA s or something like that, right? Because you might like the user interfaces better and you know, fair enough. But I'm not seeing the value proposition there. It doesn't really get you any extra like major features. really, it's just.

you know, nice little bells and whistles maybe. but is that worth going into the five digit territory? four I'd say no. So I would draw the line right here and say this is eight now I'm going to say 800 bucks 800 bucks is the limit of overkill for a hobbyist oscilloscope. But leave your thoughts and comments down below because, well, it's You know, it's a contentious thing and of course we're talking about benchtop Scopes Here, we're not talking about like, uh, you know, here's the lowest price ones here.

um, of course, not the lowest on the market, but we're just using uh, this website as a convenient base. You know you can get these uh, picoscope ones. you know, 429 bucks and picoscope make pretty good uh Scopes although I haven't used the Pico scope software in a long long time. but uh, yeah.

like and there's digilens, Zed mods and whatever they are and stuff like that. But yeah, no, we're talking bench top skirts right when you once you start talking the benchtop one, you know, like here's the Signal 2 channel for example, 289. As I said, if you can afford 289 bucks I think you should probably Pony up for the you know, jump up to the 400 price point and get that four channels because that four channels is going to be way more useful I Sorted these by uh price here and get the four channels right? Sure! Look, you can get this in stack one. Here's an instac.

Um, oh no, it's two channels. It shows four channels there. Oh I Ripped off. Now the cheapest four channel here is the Uh Sigilant SDS 1104 XU I think that's that is a different I cigarette have so many like little variants on the ends of them I think the XE is the one that everyone Um, yeah.

I Don't think the XE is better than the XU. But anyway, look, there's a uh four channel instec one there if you like the Instax uh user interface. uh for example, but around about that 400 price point. Um, the singlet.

The XE segment of course, is a bit more, uh, expensive than that. It's 4.99 but I would like start at that four hundred dollar price point as a minimum and get that bench top scope. So yeah, I'm going to draw the line at 800 bucks. I'm not even going to extend it to a thousand bucks.

So I'm going to say that if you spend more than 800 bucks on a hobbyist oscilloscope, it's Overkill and you've wasted your money. No, seriously, like yeah, you might have Niche requirements and stuff like that. You might just prefer a different brand. and like, yeah, fair enough.

Okay, but yep, anything. I bet you can get a really Kick-Ass scope for 800 bucks these days. It's absolutely incredible. And as I said, you can hack this to 350 Meg Dual channel is it? yeah, dual Channel arbitrary waveform gen mix signal analysis and it's got all the LXI land stuff and it's got all the uh, you know, fast waveform updating and it's got all the signal analysis capability, touch screen and you know, like it's come on right? It's absolutely amazing.

but yeah, that would last you forever. pretty much unless you have some Nisha higher bandwidth or some other uh, weirdo requirement because I don't see more expensive scopes. add in any really, you know, just small little bells and whistles. They don't add any like extra thing unless you went to some obscure like six or eight channel scope or something like that.

but yeah, no, leave it in the comments down below If you disagree, that's my limit. over 800 bucks Overkill Catch you next time.