#79 Siglent SDS1204X-E Oscilloscope 📈 Full review 🗣, should you buy it 💰💰? (Chapterized 🧾)

[@mineown1861]

Got the 1104x-e a year ago , learned more from this video than I did in the last year . Thanks for a very concise explanation of the features .

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Thanks for your nice comment! Much appreciated 😃

[@timsalfarlie651]

I have the 4 channel 100MHz version. The probes are limited to 100MHz. They're called PP510. I'm watching this video because I'm trying to learn more of the features which will be common to both models. Very good video. I'm learning stuff five minutes into the video.

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Hi Tim! Thanks for your awesome comment 🙂

[@hightttech]

Well Done 👍. Quick, concise, no fluff.

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Thanks! Much appreciated :-)

[@Gosha_Khabarovsk]

Отличное видео! Даже несмотря на трудность перевода на русский язык, я все понял и это было полезно для меня! Спасибо!

[@carapov]

Yeah, the chances are big I will order the 100MHz version very soon 🙂 Thanks for the hands-on

[@M3e36-99]

3:40 Offset does more than adjust the vertical position. What it does is it changes the zero offset so when you adjust the vertical scale it doesn't scale relative to 0-V but relative to your offset-V. Unfortunately this does not work on the 1202 model and I'm hoping to get that update otherwise I'm going to return it. I work with signals with a DC bias and it is a real pain to keep scooting the vertical position and putting into AC mode which defeats some measuring functionality.

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

I don't think a software update could fix it, if there is one. They seem to have stopped updating this device, or I have missed something

[@M3e36-99]

​@@TimsElectronicsLab I would expect this to be uniquely a software issue. It is just graphics on how data shifts on the screen. I went to their website and got update 1.3.27 dated 4/25/2023 (originally 2019). It did not fix the problem so I filled out their customer support form. In the mean time I started the process to return the scope and ordered Rigol DS1054Z.

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Is the Rigol comparable to the Siglent?

[@M3e36-99]

​@@TimsElectronicsLab it is in the same price range.

[@M3e36-99]

​@@TimsElectronicsLab I got the Offset to work: Utility > Page 4/4 > Reverence Position > Vertical Fixed Position | Vertical Fixed Offset. I'll be getting a RIGOL DS1202Z Thursday. The documentation does not say the scope has an Offset feature. But the KZbins I watched on it shows the RIGOL is more mature than the Siglent but the KZbin could be old. I find it strange the majority of these scope reviews are all around 4 years old. I guess that is when all these inexpensive scopes came out. But I have not seen one that explains what are the important features the expensive scopes offer and the drawbacks of the cheaper scopes.

[@TheVorst]

Nice presentation by the way. Especially since you can go straight to link in the video that describes a certain topic. I have a question. You model 1204X-E has FFT that also measure the different peaks of the harmonics. If I see the KZbin’s from the 1104X-E, you can’t see those peak measurements. Siglent only document this feature for the cheaper 1104X-U model (which only provide 128kpts instead of 1Mps). I just wonder what is going on. Is there a firmware upgrade that enable this FFT peak detection feature?

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Thanks for your comment! I think there is, FFT got tweaked multiple times within updates. I'm not sure if peak measurements are displayed in the manual of the 1204X-E, but I'd be surprised if the 1104X-E doesn't have it since they are basically the same

[@TheVorst]

@@TimsElectronicsLab Tim thanks for your response. I can’t find it in the manual, but I looked at the firmware history from Siglent. And yes they added the FFT peaks with a firmware update in 2019.

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Thanks for letting me know!

[@hlacadie]

This ia a very good video dude. I just bought the Siglent SDS2202X-E (200 MHz) scope and its coming on Tuesday. This is a good instructional video for me.

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Thanks a lot! Let me know what you think of the scope!

[@biogons14]

Thanks for your video. At 16:45 we can see that it´s not posible to zoom-out from a single captured waveform at a fast 5nS/div (only 70 points!). But in the user manual talks about a pre and post trigger deep memory. How to access (activate) that buffer memory; roll, slow acq mode, trig delay?

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Does the manual list the pre and post trigger memory?! I guess that you can just scroll out of the capture region, but I haven't noticed it yet. Let me know if you found it out!

[@biogons14]

@@TimsElectronicsLab I can read in page 34 of the user manual; "Everything to the right of the trigger point is called post- trigger information. The amount of delay range (pre- trigger and post- trigger information) available depends on the time/div selected and memory depth." And in the pages 54 to 57 some comments and graphs about the pre-post trigger FIFO buffers.

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

I'm going to take a look! Thanks for letting me know

[@TzOk]

The trigger is by default in the middle of the screen, so half screen is pre-trigger, half is post trigger. Unlike many other oscilloscopes, this one vastly oversamples in the time domain, so you can't zoom out, but you can zoom in, without loosing resolution. If you need to observe period of let's say 100ms, after the trigger, just set the time base, so 100ms is visible on the screen. After you capture your sample in single shot mode, you may zoom in, to see 1ms without loosing quality.

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Wow! That is amazing, I think I noticed this behaviour before and I didn't knew if it where a bug or a feature. Thanks for sharing!

[@joy-di2ur]

What kind of applications are you using it for ? Audio ?

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

I mostly use it to check if my electrical signals are what I expect them to be.The decoding option allows you to view what the contents of various protocols are in realtime.

[@bodzio_stawski187]

Tim, have you considered buying the cheaper SDS1104x-e? :)

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Yes I did, but the bandwith was a thing for me. The 200MHz versions also come with the 200MHz probes, instead of the 100MHz probe that come with the 100MHz version.

[@bodzio_stawski187]

@@TimsElectronicsLab As I suppose, the decisive factor was the poor quality of P510 probes compared to P215 probes :)

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Well yes, but to be honest the probes that come with the 200MHz do feel cheap sometimes. But nevertheless, it is a good scope! Are you going to buy the 200MHz version?

[@bodzio_stawski187]

@@TimsElectronicsLab I was honestly wondering about this 1104x-e, because in my case even those 100 MHz would be enough. My only concern is the PP510 probes which have 1dB attenuation/frequency flatness. It is a bit worrying that I would have to pay extra and buy the PP215 probe to avoid this drawback, and in my country a set of 4 PP215 probes costs 1/3 of the price of the oscilloscope itself. :c

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Oh wow! Well I might have look into aftermarket probes anyway, I once left my probe on a PCB I was using my hot airgun on and it didn't like that very much.

[@jp040759]

I appreciate the effort. I wish you would have separated each channel to see all of them to make out what your were doing more clearly with many of the features you quickly demonstrated..

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Thanks for your feedback! So for my understanding only, you are basically saying that I'm relying too much on one's pre-knowledge about the scope, right?

[@jp040759]

@@TimsElectronicsLab Sort of, Partially yes but I could see you had all 4 channels on at some point but you could not see each channels trace. You should have had them separated on the screen so folks could see they were all or partially on for the various functions you were showing.

[@chrisnurse7658]

@@TimsElectronicsLab I'm a total novice - like almost zero experience of oscilloscopes. I will be certainly consuming any of your videos that convey how to best use scopes. But in the case of this video, I think the intention was to give people confidence if this scope is worth it's money, and I came away feeling it would be a sound investment for a startup. My application is audio, actually hexphonic / MIDI guitar pickups, where my input will be very low voltage, so I need a scope with a sensitive input of a few millivolts. I found the scope on eBay, saw that it would be able to do this (if I read correctly), and then your review was most welcome. Thank you for spending so much time on this. Very informative.

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Hi Chris, Thank you for awesome comment

[@chrisnurse7658]

@@TimsElectronicsLab Just received the scope last week. My dad saw it, he has like 60 years experience in electronics, and he was blown away by the specs of this scope. Really happy with it. Took just a few minutes to run the self calibration process, then less than a minute to callibrate the probe. It's just superb!

[@vladimirperez8070]

Exelente.

[@espenbgh2540]

Why did you make this video?

[@TimsElectronicsLab]

Thanks for your comment!

[@mineown1861]

Why are you ?