Been playing with my new Oscilloscope !
I’ve a Rigol DH 802 - the manual is over 250pages , lot of learning !
Very impressed tho, just managed to decode UART signals , these things are so clever .
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Congratulations...... and ENVY. 
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Nice!
On the DH-802 with 2 channels you can do UART and I2C decoding so it should be quite useful for messing with microcontrollers. The 4-channel DH-804 would have provided SPI decoding as well, but all depends on budget of course. Oscilloscopes have progressed quite a bit from the days of the old analogue types with a mono trace. Decoding can be done on a cheap logic analyzer as well, but the oscilloscope is definitely a useful tool for visualizing what's going on with a pin or in a circuit - are there any pulses, is there any unwanted noise, is a clock signal present, is it low or high, is there a voltage of any kind etc.
Congrats on your purchase. Hope it serves you well.
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- I think @hammy should buy us all one too.
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I’ll have to look back to see who has been nice to me ..
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Woah I also want an ocsilloscope
i think there's a library for Arduino that makes the ATmega ADC into an ocsilloscope
I just need to figure out how to make it so the audio goes fast
Oh wait baud speed
I found 100MHz Kingst logic analyzer with it 16channels much more useful to decode complex digital signals than most advanced oscilloscopes. And way cheaper:)
My hoppy is reverse engineering of new HUB75 LED panels driver protocols. Most of them do not have a datasheet publicly available and we need recreating the protocol logic from it oscillogrammes. The drivers has up to 14 control lines needs to analyze simultaneously.
- I hurt myself a few times carrying those old HP1740s up and down the stairs.
- The Tektronix 465s weren’t mutch better.
- These RIGOLs are so nice and light !
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@LarryD
Aaah yes .. you must be near the top
- still using the two you sent me !
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The higher Rigol models feature a 16 ch digital input for such analysis … and there are hacks for mine
I used to have a couple of Tektronix scopes including the 468 storage oscilloscope a while back, but, yes, they are quite heavy. I also swapped mine for a Rigol which was much easier to carry and to connect to a PC and take snapshots!
The 465 storage oscilloscope could be connected to a PC via its GPIB interface and screenshots captured, but they were fairly low resolution and bandwidth was limited to 10MHz I think and that was pushing it. In analogue mode you had 100MHz. Of course, there were no protocol decoders but it did have cursors and measurements.
It was just unfortunate that the year after I purchased my Rigol, they started selling the 12-bit scopes, so mine is still and 8-bit scope, although it does have the built-in 16-channel LA. I also purchased a 3rd party probe which was much cheaper than the Rigol one but well designed and works just as well. The number of decoder protocols is limited to a handful. Its fine for decoding UART, I2C or SPI in realtime. However, if one needs to decode a protocol that the scope does not support, or a snapshot over time or for comparison is required, then this much easier accomplished with the LA software on the PC. Sigrok + Pulseview support quite a wide assortment of decoding protocols which is quite useful.
That's interesting to note. I haven't kept up with the latest 12-bit ones, but I know there were hacks for the older 8-bit ones such as the DS1052 and DS1054Z for example. As I understand it, Rigol have used that as a bit of a marketing ploy aimed at hobbyists, but I believe there are also hacks for the Siglents.
Rigol?
Siglent?
Rigol?
Siglent?
They both look excellent.
Which is best 
Hi Hammy,
Congratulations on getting your new toy.
I'm glad to see that you've got it networked, it makes it so much easier for saving traces.
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Harry Hill probably has an answer… Fight!
(My Rigol scope is about the same depth as the transport cover on my old analogue Tektronix)
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As a person who has oscilloscopes of both makes, I can tell you my opinion.
I first got an 8 bit Siglent SDS1204-XE oscilloscope back in 2019. I was really pleased with it's performance.
I particularly liked the fact that the wide screen had 14 horizontal divisions (It's the oscilloscope equivalent to having a guitar amplifier that goes up to eleven.)
A few months later whilst viewing their website, I noticed that Teledyne LeCroy were selling an identical, 'badge engineered' version: T3DSO Series Oscilloscopes.
After getting one of these at work to evaluate, we started buying them as our 'standard' oscilloscope instead of their previous >£10,000 models. (We were a Teledyne company too.)
Rigol were the first to bring to market a really low priced 12 bit oscilloscope.
In 2023, I bought their DHO814. (It's the 100MHz, 4 channel version of Hammy's.)
It has a really small form factor, as noted above by notthesharpestspooninthedrawer.
I like their web interface, which allows you to save the trace as a video, as well as a stationary trace.
When Siglent brought out their 12 bit SDS824X-HD (late 2023) I got one of those as it's appearance matched the 8 bit one (except for being a darker grey colour).
I was slightly disappointed with the display reverting to ten horizontal divisions.
This is the oscilloscope that I currently use the most, followed by the 8 bit Siglent.
The Rigol being the smallest and lightset is on the top of the stack of three, and hence it is easy to push it over when operating the controls.
I have all three networked, and they all have their own web interfaces.
I prefer the 12bit oscilloscopes now that they have become more affordable.
Both Rigol and Siglent have similar performance. The Siglent ones are slightly more expensive, but I was glad to pay the extra for the Siglent(s).
Unfortunately the Power Supply for my Rigol has failed, and I have not yet got round to repairing/replacing it. The two Siglents have not given any trouble.
The Rigol has an external laptop style power supply. The Siglents both have internal power supplies, and an IEC mains led.
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