That's a nice starter project. There are lots of "turn your PC into an oscilloscope" USB devices, starting around $50 for a 200KHz sampling rate.[1] For $269, you can get a 2GHz sampling rate.[2] It's hard to justify getting a dedicated scope any more, unless you need something exotic.
I second this, as the proud owner of a Rigol 1102E (and several other scopes), it's amazing what $400 gets you there. A good scope is about so much more than just the bandwidth, it's about having a good front end with low noise, and things like AC coupling, and an easily readible screen. I think if I were to only be able to own one scope and do it on a budget, Rigol 1XX2E series is really the only way to go sub-$1000.
Exotic needs like listening to any major serial bus invented in the last 20 years or peeking at full-speed IO on a hobbyist ARM chip? 60MHz of analog bandwidth doesn't go very far these days.
It's an improvement, sure, and full scopes certainly don't compete on price. I'm thankful for their efforts. But somehow I can't help but feel that it should be possible to do significantly better.
Comments
That's a nice starter project. There are lots of "turn your PC into an oscilloscope" USB devices, starting around $50 for a 200KHz sampling rate.[1] For $269, you can get a 2GHz sampling rate.[2] It's hard to justify getting a dedicated scope any more, unless you need something exotic.
[1] https://www.bananarobotics.com/shop/Educational-PC-Oscillosc... [2] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9263
Oscilloscope #2 is $269 and has a 60 MHz bandwidth. How on earth is that good value?
I would like to recommend the Rigol DS1052E in that price range, or a used HP/Tektronix analog scope for the sub-$100 market.
I second this, as the proud owner of a Rigol 1102E (and several other scopes), it's amazing what $400 gets you there. A good scope is about so much more than just the bandwidth, it's about having a good front end with low noise, and things like AC coupling, and an easily readible screen. I think if I were to only be able to own one scope and do it on a budget, Rigol 1XX2E series is really the only way to go sub-$1000.
Exotic needs like listening to any major serial bus invented in the last 20 years or peeking at full-speed IO on a hobbyist ARM chip? 60MHz of analog bandwidth doesn't go very far these days.
It's an improvement, sure, and full scopes certainly don't compete on price. I'm thankful for their efforts. But somehow I can't help but feel that it should be possible to do significantly better.