I bought one of those and i have mixed feelings, i like the form factor, the screen, and some features, however the interface sometimes is not that obvious, mine sometimes freezes, and signal acquisition is a bit "mehhhh" it can have a "high" bandwidth but surely they are pulling some tricks to achieve it, even when compared to my Rigol DS1054z(with 100Mhz mod) it lacks a lot of detail in the wave forms and its very jittery. Instead of promising high bandwidth and a (useless)signal gen., they could have implemented way more useful stuff like, trigger hold off time (and possibly other triggers mode like AC and etc), roll mode, some basic protocol decryption (uart, i2c, spi, can...), etc. My biggest complain is the memory depth which is only 8K or so, you can't capture a chunk of signal to then analyze it. But overall for my uses and intents, keeping in mind the limitations i'm kinda of happy with bang for buck, i paid about 112€ delivered.
That seems a pretty reasonable price for what you are getting, it looks to be a lot more useable than most of the toy scopes. Triggering issues seem to be a constant problem for these cheapies though.
Well, it doesn't look bad for that price. I certainly wouldn't expect this to be very accurate but looks accurate enough to do some quick field testing. I certainly like the fast boot of the device and the very quick response which can be handy for the "oups let me quickly see what's happening here". But you make a great point mentioning protocol decryption. If that scope would support protocols like UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, ... it would make it 10 times more valuable and I would probably order one myself only for that.
One of the major issues with these scopes is their firmware can't be updated. Surely some issues could be fixed in the firmware, but since you can't update them, you are stuck with the buggy mess and you eventually discard them. That sucks.
@@ferrumignisDigital trigger, this means that there cannot be a trigger point between the samples. That pad won't even respond to impulses. This is a bad feature of FNIRSI oscilloscopes.
@@matthewf1979My 453 is 13kg and does 60Mhz Max and is fully transistorized (A model) imagine just those specs but with 1970's tech, no need to go to valves for it to be ridiculous 😂
It's not a measurement instrument! Take Owon HDS2102(s) instead. You lose probe calibration on switching from DC to AC coupling, signal jumps all over the place depending on hand position, offset, amplitude (nonlinear frontend).
I'm an auto tech --> college --> mechanical engineer and I'm grateful for these types of devices. They are perfect for filling that gap between me and you. 10-15 years ago that gap was too expensive for me and not enough money for you. I can afford to be an amateur EE now, great for pressure sensors, piezoelectric, etc. Or even for auto techs, etc. Being able to measure a cars alternator current over duty cycle can is helpful. This isn't for your bench, this is to go in someone's toolbox between a multimeter and a set of ratchet wrenches.
I actually bought this and I'm rather impressed for the price. Once you take the time and figure out the interface, I find they've done a lot of things well. I've found it rather convenient and useful for my hobby electronics work. My verdict after a month of usage is to buy it if you're in the market at this price range or you're just looking to get started - it's a decent, slightly flawed but overall satisfactory scope for like half the price of a high-end probe. If you've got a lot more cash/experience, then of course it's better to splurge for a proper bench scope.
One of the nice things is not having to worry about the non ground on most new equipment being tested . Due to switch mode power the actual ground isn't the ground on the outputs of power supply rails so using a ground clip shorts the virtual ground to real ground and can blow up oscilloscopes and test leads and devices being tested .
The waveform copy and paste function is actually a really cool idea from a troubleshooting perspective, if you're working on equipment in the field and need to figure out if it's handling signals properly it can be a pain sometimes to get the real signal to test with. I work on a lot of equipment that has to be locked out prior to maintenance, so you have to shut it down, lock it out, try your fix, unlock it, power it up, then see if it worked, rinse and repeat, being able to simply spoof the signal with a copied real signal would be a huge time saver!
@@EEVblog yeah that's the only minor drawback, full marks if it actually worked haha. However now I know that's a feature some products actually have, I'll have to see if I can find a functional one to convince my work to buy for me 😆👍
Half of your problems you had with this scope is because you didn't read the manual, also going negative biased into a review is a bad starting point for a reviewer
These little fun-sized cheap scopes are excellent for automotive use. Super easy and practically disposable price, compared to lugging a laptop or paying giant money for professional mechanic equipment.
The uscope is incredible and about double this price but comes with a lot of automotive attachments and a nice amp clamp plus attenuators and filters and a COP attachment. Its missing a second channel but you can't really go wrong with one.
agreed. i bought a hantek usb scope for automotive use and it ended up sitting in a box. too much effort and space to setup and put away just for a quick check
I have one of the multimeters with a basic oscilloscope built in. For both building wiring and automotive, it's excellent. Sensitive enough that I can see the neighbors earth leakage current by touching the probe to the basement wall.
I use a cheapo handheld scope regularly and it's been most useful. But yesterday broke out the Tektronics for a better look at things and yeah, it's way better. However, these handheld cheap scopes are definitely useful. I have never needed more than 50MHz so I have to agree that making a solidly performing 50MHz scope would probably be a better tool for the market FNIRSI are aiming their products at.
There's a lot of use cases where a hand held battery scope is just the thing. Sometimes you just need an idea about waveforms and whether there's actually any data flowing, something tricky to do with a DMM, but not in an environment conducive to hauling out a nice expensive scope (outside, in the rain, no AC plug, no table to put a scope on, etc etc). I actually just bought the 2 channel version of the ZT702S - the ZT703S - there's one place that seems to have them for sale now. I wonder how that compares - $80 for 50Mhz 2ch vs this one for $123 for supposedly 180Mhz 2 ch
Oh man good timing! I was just looking at MiniWare's mini scopes literally an hour ago! I would just go for a used full size scope, but I live in a small apartment and collect hobbies that require lots of gear, so the idea of a small scope that can adequately meet my beginner needs is appealing.
I'm happy with my Hantek 2C72. Two channels, 70mhz bandwidth, 250mhz sampling rate(halved if both channels enabled). There's the 40mhz bandwidth 2C42, and the similarly numbered D models also have waveform generation. Testing against a known working device or circuit does give me the expected results, so it seems to be giving me good data. The DMM mode is also useful to have User interface is a bit annoying(this one looks a little better on that front) but it does the job and I think it was something like 180USD shipped to the US.
You selected a square wave output while expecting the function generator would output the captured signal and then concluded that outputting the captured signal doesn't work :-/ I bet it works well because user iterface looks similar to 1014D where there are quite a few options for selecting various predefined signals or the captured signal. There is Save Waveform function besides Screen Capture too which you didn't even test. This scope looks more than excellent for the price.
I have one of the multimeters with an oscilloscope built in, the more expensive one, not the one that's just a "waveform display". For general fault finding on building wiring it's excellent. I have a handheld Hantek and an HP tabletop digital oscilloscope as well, but the multimeter is the one that always comes with me. Even though it only has one channel and not a whole lot of features, just the ability to bring a basic oscilloscope around that has the rest of the usual multimeter features is amazingly useful.
I received the unit yesterday. Everything I tried works perfectly and I am very satisfied, but the only thing wrong is the color. I ordered EEVblog blue (ha,ha,ha) and received yellow. Not a big deal, but I'm a little irritated by Fluke yellow. Everything I've tried so far works very well, except RMS measurement. I sent 1kHz, 1Vrms from the generator and the reading on the scope is 2.80Vpp and 979mVrms. It's not a big mistake, but it should be more accurate for 1kHz. I hope that it will be corrected in the next firmware. Thanks Dave, after watching this video, I decided to buy..
back in the good old days i had to take a bloody loan to buy fluke scope that came from eindhoven this low cost scope and many like it have made it so easy to get involved in electronics work i have brought many of them and given them away as presents and use them on the go it's like a disposable cup use it till it breaks then chuck it i am very impressed at what you get for how little it costs !
its essentially a tool for telling you which data traces on a faulty digital board have plausible looking square waves on them the could almost implement a beep mode like a dmm. pass/fail during troubleshooting saving the waveform as an output on the signal generator would have been a neat feature if it had been better implemented
I always love these videos of cheap scopes and multimeters, and the reason is that it's like a "game" you never know what you are getting :D When you look at a very fancy scope that costs few thousand dollars I already know it's gonna be a good scope with fancy features, and it's also fun to watch but with these it's always more fun to see if they maybe can do what they claim =) On this scope though, i kinda want just the display to use with some diy projects
I enjoy these hobby O-scope demo reviews. 🥳 Also, there are some cool PC repairs using $155 oscilloscopes to check various waveforms with remarkable results. Nice little FNIRSI DPO. For now I have several different oscilloscopes. I am waiting for some more hobby 12bit models to come out. 🤩 Thank you.
I can see it having its uses as a second scope if you don't have enough space for a proper second scope. Can you imagine if we had scopes like these handheld ones in the 90's? Hell, people would kill for that technology in the 80's lol.
The scope is probably good for indication and automotive use, but on the bench I'd probably use my agilent, tek or iwatsu for a more detailed look at a signal, but in a car for looking at can bus, abs, crank and cam signals, pwm its probably ideal if you don't have a fluke/keysight portable which costs 10x as much, I use the cheapy DSOs in vehicles and for portable stuff because if it breaks you won't loose any sleep over it.
Ever used a Keysight DSOX 2000 series on a ladder, and been shitting your pants the whole time it's going to fall down and break? This is perfect for those cases, but I think the owon ones might be higher quality scopes for a few more dollary doos
I haven't used a scope but have used a old agilent spectrum analyser up a ladder all strapped around my shoulder thinking if it falls it'll probably take me with it, the owon or hantek is probably a good shout.
I will not argue that this scope is miles behind Siglent or Keysight scopes. However for the money this is awesome scope for DIY bunch without very precise signal observation requirements. And as cheap field scope to quickly diagnose signaling issues there and there. Somebody would give this to me as Christmas present.
I have a slightly different version of this one and it's actually pretty good and useful. I've used an old cheap handled oscilloscope of this brand for years. Even though is was not very great product and had many issues compared even with this dpo180 I still used it over my rigol 90% of times because it's much more convenient to put on and probe when I need to check whether the signal present or not. And the new one is just like twenty times better. Forget abot signal gen tho. But the oscilloscope is extremely nice for it's price. It has descent memory. Mine showed 1000 points per square. 2000 with only one channel enabled. So you can zoom 100 times and have an ok representation of signal. So I can clearly see 2us impulses with 1 khz frequency. That's pretty much all I need from an oscilloscope. I'm pretty surprised that $100 device can cover 99% of cases many hobbyists and repairmen need an oscilloscope.
This reminds me of those restaurants that have a million things on the menu and everything's just okay. C'mon! If you want to impress me just put ONE thing on the menu and make it a Bobby Dazzler!
HDMI would be preferable - smaller connector, same signalling as DVI. Who still uses VGA these days? Even laptops finally dumped it for HDMI or display port.
At 13:00, the 'noise' might be the glitch due to the selected waveform having different beginning and ending voltages. Grounding should never be a problem in a battery powered, floating instrument... unless there is no return current path.
I would have killed for that when I started with electronics...(Actually even years after that.) Nice Christmas gift for a teen dabbling in electronics.
For just a little more cost you can have the slightly larger but much better performing Owon HDS2102S or HDS2202S. I’ve got the 100 MHz HDS2102S in my tool bag. The Owon scopes use two easily accessed 18650 cells, so you can keep a few extra charged cells in your tool bag. The 200 MHz HDS2202S has a separate A/D per channel so no loss of sampling rate when using both channels, but battery life is reduced a little by having two A/Ds.
But does the Owon have a "Digital Phosphor" color graded intensity display though? This one seems to have definite flaws, which is unfortunate, but it seems like the big selling point is the color intensity grading. the other specs are overstated... hopefully they improve the stability with future models. Like Dave said... something with a lower stated bandwidth that can actually back it's claims would be perfect. If you ignore the Digital Phosphor feature, then I'm sure very many scopes are a far better choice, but this does offer a beginner's price point for that type of feature.
@@richfiles I agree, thanks for the reply. There is potential for a better instrument shown here. It will be interesting to see what improvements come with the next generation.
@@khl6367 Thanks for the reply. It depends on how much you need to see surrounding a trigger event, or how much time transpires between the trigger and what you need to see. My application isn’t too demanding, so the 8K points trace is sufficient. I agree the record length is potentially limiting. The other limitations of the HDS2022S are only basic triggering scenario and no serial protocol decode options.
Perhaps the internal signal generator, for probe calibration, was ground looped since the generator output may be shared for both posts, noticed the probe's probing tip and ground clip were placed on each post (14:07). They "try" because I am interested. FNIRSI: Clean, Functional, Reliable (CFR).
The trigger crossing is rock-solid, so I don't think it is jitter. I think it is a digital filtering/reconstruction anomaly due to limited samples per cycle at 180 MHz. At higher frequencies it would be better to to store and to use 5-10 sweeps to fill in these missing data points before applying the filter.
As soon as I saw the YT thumbnail, I said to myself I need to get myself one of this. Initially I thought it must be just a single channel, but no. I totally agree with you with these products, they are likely very over promised and under deliver. I thought one would be useful to carry around in the camper when you want to check something quick but not really concern about measurement accuracy.
the owon ones are pretty good, so is the hantek one. generally for cheaper scopes look at owon or hantek (some of their products are crap be careful, avoid the 6022be or 6022bl at all cost for example). the hirarchy goes like this fnirsi
We need an open source unit, board with real decent basics and firmware that engineers can upgrade in that open source form . An eEV oscilloscope guided by the community for the community . Basic form factor , battery operated . Can be powered externally by say a 12 v battery gel cell incase internals are flat .
it is interesting to see our product in this oscilloscope. love from employee of Anlogic Infotech 🙂. the ADC looks like it is some AD9288-ish stuff(MXT2088?). And there is a small MSOP-10 chip on the corner marked MS5351,which is a external PLL with 3 output channel. Guess it drives both ADC and (maybe current steering DAC made with discrete transistors and FPGA IO?) And from my personal view, at least they are trying to seriously design something rather than mess with numbers like those 101x s**t
I have a slightly more expensive portable scope made by owon. It was around 150$ during prime day and "only" claims 100 MHz and no signal generator, but its actually usable. The Interface is terrible but it delivers what it promised to a much larger degree.
This little jig is actually a good single-channel isolated voltage probe, if equipped with bluetooth wifi or even sound control to realize bit of remote operation. For little companies or hobby purposes. Definitely better than the ordinary HV diff probes. But requires some proper knowledge to use without making boom..
I enjoy these reviews. I am an auto-hobbyist, so I only want a basic 2-channel scope to look at things like injector pulses, ignition firing, or crank/cam pulses. I think most of the scopes out there are way overbuilt for basic automotive stuff. Well, maybe overbuilt is the wrong term; seems like so many extra features for electronics work that isn’t necessary for what I want to use it for. Something like this may actually work for me.
I agree with you 100%, this would be an ideal scope for automotive use where a bit of DC offset, trigger jitter, or low level noise aren't going to make any difference. It's nice and small, bright screen so you can stick in awkward places and see it. Glue a couple of magnets to the back, add a strap hanger, and this would be ideal! If I still did a lot of wrenching I'd probably pick one up just for the garage. "I think most of the scopes out there are way overbuilt for basic automotive stuff..." Confused look on Wes from watching him work as he whips out his Pico Scope LOL!
It seems like an interesting entry scope handheld or not , so for the price there really is only so much we can expect. But the way technology is advancing it won't be long before we have a silicone sealed bath time toaster.
I wonder if the built-in battery is overcharged. I bought a FNIRSI SWM-10 portable spot welder and it charged the internal battery to 4.34V instead of cutting off at 4.20V. 🤔
Kerry Wong did a review and teardown of the FNIRSI DPOX180H 180MHz DPO 2 months ago, and interestingly enough, the one he has had a different front end. Most of it looked the same, but there was a narrower and longer chip in the center, and the group of six VHF/UHF transistors were just not there at all.
Even if they underperform, the fact that they are portable, and the diy one for 20 bucks allowed me to diagnose a portable spot welder and repair it, kind of has its place in non professional environment, specially when budget is tight...
The 5.1K resistors are missing from the USB C jack, that shit drives me insane. Also, with two ADCs, why does it suck with both channels enabled? Are they trying to shove too much data into the SOC and it can't keep up?
@@farpsy USB C jacks on a "slave" device need two 5.1K resistors between each CC pin and ground to correctly configure the other end to supply power. If you've ever had a device that only charges from some cables and not others, this is why. USB A to USB C cables (like the one this thing came with) just shove power into the connected device regardless of how the target device is wired, whereas USB C to USB C cables need each end to be configured as a host/slave to work correctly. Hackaday has several great articles on it. tl;dr if you're making a widget that charges from USB C, put a 5.1K resistor between each CC pin and ground so it can wake up a USB C charger.
If you don’t need the L in LCR, the Owon HDS series does a pretty good job. The current flagship of that line is the HDS2202S. The S suffix denotes signal generator. The scope is an honest 200 MHz with both channels enabled. The Voltmeter is pretty decent. Probably the weakest part is the signal generator is 25 MHz max on sine, less on complex waves. The generator has arbitrary capability, but I believe is limited to about 25 or so predefined waveforms. I have the older 100 MHz HDS2102S in my tool bag and I am still pleased with it after having used it for the past year. It is hard to beat the price for a decent scope voltmeter combination with a not terrible signal generator. I wouldn’t waste my time on the Fnirsi stuff - a lot of spec sheet features, but not stuff that is meaningful for field work.
The FNIRSI logo came from its company name "Fei Ni Rui Si", pronouciation would be like "fei-ny-ru-ss". If they used lowercases for "i", it might be easier to read, like "FNiRSi" ...
On a cheap DVM, same power switch problem, I put a kind of "ring" around the button, so you have to put your finger onto the button, nothing flat can activate it
On a color screen, it should be a trivial task to change the font color to indicate active status -- I don't understand why they would separate this to the opposite diagonal on the screen. I also don't know why they would have "Ch1" and "Ch2" buttons and then not make channel 2 active when its button is pressed. But, as portable oscilloscopes go, this one is certainly worth its price.
Wish they made a version of the scope that included a DMM. I like the 180 MHz bandwidth and the price, but I'm looking more for something that "does everything" in one small package.
How important is the sample rate? The OWON hds272 has 70Mhz 250Msample/s and the hds2102 has 100Mhz 500Msample/s. Which version of the scope is recommandable? Is the s version with signal generator recommandable?
your vids on oscopes are great :) could you make a clip on probes for various applications? My example: no experience in oscopes and a need to analyse a map sensor. I know which FNIRSI to buy, but I am not sure how to connect a needle back probe to it, as the popular P6100 have hooked ends an I need a thin needle to insert into the sensor plug
It's not a measurement instrument! You lose probe calibration on switching from DC to AC coupling. Signal jumps all over the place depending on hand position, offset, amplitude (nonlinear frontend). But at leest they tryed :)
Not sure why these scopes get such a snobby reaction. It's obvious they are not made for high performance, but there are a ton of use cases where they can be very useful. I have a portable Owon, dual channel and it was great to work on the CAN bus. For educational purposes, even the cheapest ones are great. For Arduino PWM debugging and many other things, I do not need a 20GHz oscilloscope that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. I own some decent desk scopes as well as cheap mobile ones. They are all useful.
_"Not sure why these scopes get such a snobby reaction"_ Then watch and listen to Dave's videos. They promote big features that are unnecessary, but often fail to get the basics working properly e.g. triggering. That said they can be useful if you are aware of the limitations and you are primarily interested in looking at the general shape of a waveform rather that making accurate measurements.
@@ferrumignis Agree 100%. Unfortunately in this day and age pretty much everybody is over promising. Think Tesla FSD, if you paid $10,000+ years ago and still waiting for it, how would you feel? And we are not talking $50-$100. Hence, I would assume everybody is able to navigate through the BS of marketing by now. ...Maybe it's just me. I'm still happy that a kid can pick up a scope and see how a capacitor behaves for next to nothing even he/she will not be able to measure precisely a transition time with it.
If I had to buy a scope as a beginner with a simple home repair kind of application for say repairing TVs, VCRs, Hi-Fi equipment maybe some game consoles. What would you recommend me getting on the cheap as it is for incidental use only? Also I can't seem to find any decently priced second hand scopes here in the Netherlands. 🥴
Could 19:22 be some attempt at a switchable input attenuator and/or coupler? Seems likely given that it is mirrored to the other side. Great video as always. Thanks for showing the pluses, minuses, and the guts!
LCD screen scopes talk about high display sample update rates, is there any way it can be tested and proven, since the calibrated eyeball does not react that fast.
It looks like a nice single-channel portable oscilloscope with a signal generator that can be used to test/learn oscilloscopes. The second channel is not useful, and the signal generator is not as adjustable as you wish.
I's not necessarily that people seem to like value-for-money products. People like products they can afford to begin with. It's great to see professional equipment reviews. Sometimes it is also nice to see a recommendation for something I could actually end up buying, though. I'm ready to bet most of your viewers are not professionals...
1:40 Don't count on that being a standard USB-C cable. E.g., my DSO2512G comes with a similar cable, and that cable is definitely not standard although it has USB-A in one end and USB-C in the other. Or at least I can't use any other cable with USB-C connector to power my scope from either a charger or a computer.
Dave, you should really make a pocket Oscilloscope. I have 2 of your multimeters and love them All I need is something cheap and portable (battery powered) for automotive diagnostics and car audio tuning. So up to 20 or 30kHz
for handheld scopes the owon ones are pretty good, so is the hantek one. generally for cheaper scopes look at owon or hantek (some of their products are crap be careful, avoid the 6022be or 6022bl at all cost for example). the hirarchy goes like this fnirsi
I bought one of those and i have mixed feelings, i like the form factor, the screen, and some features, however the interface sometimes is not that obvious, mine sometimes freezes, and signal acquisition is a bit "mehhhh" it can have a "high" bandwidth but surely they are pulling some tricks to achieve it, even when compared to my Rigol DS1054z(with 100Mhz mod) it lacks a lot of detail in the wave forms and its very jittery. Instead of promising high bandwidth and a (useless)signal gen., they could have implemented way more useful stuff like, trigger hold off time (and possibly other triggers mode like AC and etc), roll mode, some basic protocol decryption (uart, i2c, spi, can...), etc. My biggest complain is the memory depth which is only 8K or so, you can't capture a chunk of signal to then analyze it. But overall for my uses and intents, keeping in mind the limitations i'm kinda of happy with bang for buck, i paid about 112€ delivered.
That seems a pretty reasonable price for what you are getting, it looks to be a lot more useable than most of the toy scopes. Triggering issues seem to be a constant problem for these cheapies though.
They are great for those that work on field service. I have a mini DSO and works great.
Well, it doesn't look bad for that price. I certainly wouldn't expect this to be very accurate but looks accurate enough to do some quick field testing.
I certainly like the fast boot of the device and the very quick response which can be handy for the "oups let me quickly see what's happening here".
But you make a great point mentioning protocol decryption. If that scope would support protocols like UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, ... it would make it 10 times more valuable and I would probably order one myself only for that.
One of the major issues with these scopes is their firmware can't be updated. Surely some issues could be fixed in the firmware, but since you can't update them, you are stuck with the buggy mess and you eventually discard them. That sucks.
@@ferrumignisDigital trigger, this means that there cannot be a trigger point between the samples. That pad won't even respond to impulses. This is a bad feature of FNIRSI oscilloscopes.
These scopes are great for the entry level hobbyist. I would have killed for something like this 20 years ago.
Gone downhill since valves and nixie tubes. 🙂
@@Graeme_Lastname Could you imagine the size of a Tektronix tube scope with all these functions?!
@@matthewf1979 I don't have a truck license. On a few, very few thankfully, occasions I've repaired old storage scopes.
@@matthewf1979My 453 is 13kg and does 60Mhz Max and is fully transistorized (A model) imagine just those specs but with 1970's tech, no need to go to valves for it to be ridiculous 😂
It's not a measurement instrument! Take Owon HDS2102(s) instead.
You lose probe calibration on switching from DC to AC coupling, signal jumps all over the place depending on hand position, offset, amplitude (nonlinear frontend).
I'm an auto tech --> college --> mechanical engineer and I'm grateful for these types of devices. They are perfect for filling that gap between me and you. 10-15 years ago that gap was too expensive for me and not enough money for you. I can afford to be an amateur EE now, great for pressure sensors, piezoelectric, etc. Or even for auto techs, etc. Being able to measure a cars alternator current over duty cycle can is helpful. This isn't for your bench, this is to go in someone's toolbox between a multimeter and a set of ratchet wrenches.
i wonder how it goes on C-BUS AND maf , compression wave forms
I actually bought this and I'm rather impressed for the price. Once you take the time and figure out the interface, I find they've done a lot of things well. I've found it rather convenient and useful for my hobby electronics work.
My verdict after a month of usage is to buy it if you're in the market at this price range or you're just looking to get started - it's a decent, slightly flawed but overall satisfactory scope for like half the price of a high-end probe. If you've got a lot more cash/experience, then of course it's better to splurge for a proper bench scope.
One of the nice things is not having to worry about the non ground on most new equipment being tested . Due to switch mode power the actual ground isn't the ground on the outputs of power supply rails so using a ground clip shorts the virtual ground to real ground and can blow up oscilloscopes and test leads and devices being tested .
The waveform copy and paste function is actually a really cool idea from a troubleshooting perspective, if you're working on equipment in the field and need to figure out if it's handling signals properly it can be a pain sometimes to get the real signal to test with. I work on a lot of equipment that has to be locked out prior to maintenance, so you have to shut it down, lock it out, try your fix, unlock it, power it up, then see if it worked, rinse and repeat, being able to simply spoof the signal with a copied real signal would be a huge time saver!
Only thing is I couldn't get it to work, and hte signal gen has no ability to adjust signal level.
@@EEVblog yeah that's the only minor drawback, full marks if it actually worked haha. However now I know that's a feature some products actually have, I'll have to see if I can find a functional one to convince my work to buy for me 😆👍
2:14 That turn-on time is extremely refreshing. No big bloated one-size-fits-all OS in this thing.
Half of your problems you had with this scope is because you didn't read the manual, also going negative biased into a review is a bad starting point for a reviewer
These little fun-sized cheap scopes are excellent for automotive use. Super easy and practically disposable price, compared to lugging a laptop or paying giant money for professional mechanic equipment.
The uscope is incredible and about double this price but comes with a lot of automotive attachments and a nice amp clamp plus attenuators and filters and a COP attachment. Its missing a second channel but you can't really go wrong with one.
agreed. i bought a hantek usb scope for automotive use and it ended up sitting in a box. too much effort and space to setup and put away just for a quick check
I have one of the multimeters with a basic oscilloscope built in. For both building wiring and automotive, it's excellent. Sensitive enough that I can see the neighbors earth leakage current by touching the probe to the basement wall.
I use a cheapo handheld scope regularly and it's been most useful. But yesterday broke out the Tektronics for a better look at things and yeah, it's way better.
However, these handheld cheap scopes are definitely useful.
I have never needed more than 50MHz so I have to agree that making a solidly performing 50MHz scope would probably be a better tool for the market FNIRSI are aiming their products at.
There's a lot of use cases where a hand held battery scope is just the thing. Sometimes you just need an idea about waveforms and whether there's actually any data flowing, something tricky to do with a DMM, but not in an environment conducive to hauling out a nice expensive scope (outside, in the rain, no AC plug, no table to put a scope on, etc etc). I actually just bought the 2 channel version of the ZT702S - the ZT703S - there's one place that seems to have them for sale now. I wonder how that compares - $80 for 50Mhz 2ch vs this one for $123 for supposedly 180Mhz 2 ch
Oh man good timing! I was just looking at MiniWare's mini scopes literally an hour ago! I would just go for a used full size scope, but I live in a small apartment and collect hobbies that require lots of gear, so the idea of a small scope that can adequately meet my beginner needs is appealing.
As I mentioned, probably not the best idea for your only scope. You might be better off with a PC based scope like an Analog Discovery?
I'm happy with my Hantek 2C72. Two channels, 70mhz bandwidth, 250mhz sampling rate(halved if both channels enabled). There's the 40mhz bandwidth 2C42, and the similarly numbered D models also have waveform generation. Testing against a known working device or circuit does give me the expected results, so it seems to be giving me good data. The DMM mode is also useful to have
User interface is a bit annoying(this one looks a little better on that front) but it does the job and I think it was something like 180USD shipped to the US.
Picoscope?
dscope is the good shit, more capable than analog discovery, not as bad as the hantek and owon's but also not as expensive as picoscope
You selected a square wave output while expecting the function generator would output the captured signal and then concluded that outputting the captured signal doesn't work :-/ I bet it works well because user iterface looks similar to 1014D where there are quite a few options for selecting various predefined signals or the captured signal. There is Save Waveform function besides Screen Capture too which you didn't even test. This scope looks more than excellent for the price.
I have one of the multimeters with an oscilloscope built in, the more expensive one, not the one that's just a "waveform display". For general fault finding on building wiring it's excellent. I have a handheld Hantek and an HP tabletop digital oscilloscope as well, but the multimeter is the one that always comes with me. Even though it only has one channel and not a whole lot of features, just the ability to bring a basic oscilloscope around that has the rest of the usual multimeter features is amazingly useful.
I received the unit yesterday. Everything I tried works perfectly and I am very satisfied, but the only thing wrong is the color. I ordered EEVblog blue (ha,ha,ha) and received yellow. Not a big deal, but I'm a little irritated by Fluke yellow.
Everything I've tried so far works very well, except RMS measurement. I sent 1kHz, 1Vrms from the generator and the reading on the scope is 2.80Vpp and 979mVrms. It's not a big mistake, but it should be more accurate for 1kHz. I hope that it will be corrected in the next firmware.
Thanks Dave, after watching this video, I decided to buy..
They are getting professional review from Dave, that save lot of R&D money.
Minimum effort review :->
back in the good old days i had to take a bloody loan to buy fluke scope that came from eindhoven
this low cost scope and many like it have made it so easy to get involved in electronics work
i have brought many of them and given them away as presents and use them on the go
it's like a disposable cup use it till it breaks then chuck it
i am very impressed at what you get for how little it costs !
its essentially a tool for telling you which data traces on a faulty digital board have plausible looking square waves on them
the could almost implement a beep mode like a dmm. pass/fail during troubleshooting
saving the waveform as an output on the signal generator would have been a neat feature if it had been better implemented
I always love these videos of cheap scopes and multimeters, and the reason is that it's like a "game" you never know what you are getting :D When you look at a very fancy scope that costs few thousand dollars I already know it's gonna be a good scope with fancy features, and it's also fun to watch but with these it's always more fun to see if they maybe can do what they claim =) On this scope though, i kinda want just the display to use with some diy projects
If I lived around Dave I would be an absolute menace in his dumpster. It would be like scaring away raccoons.
I enjoy these hobby O-scope demo reviews. 🥳 Also, there are some cool PC repairs using $155 oscilloscopes to check various waveforms with remarkable results.
Nice little FNIRSI DPO. For now I have several different oscilloscopes. I am waiting for some more hobby 12bit models to come out. 🤩 Thank you.
I can see it having its uses as a second scope if you don't have enough space for a proper second scope.
Can you imagine if we had scopes like these handheld ones in the 90's? Hell, people would kill for that technology in the 80's lol.
True.
The scope is probably good for indication and automotive use, but on the bench I'd probably use my agilent, tek or iwatsu for a more detailed look at a signal, but in a car for looking at can bus, abs, crank and cam signals, pwm its probably ideal if you don't have a fluke/keysight portable which costs 10x as much, I use the cheapy DSOs in vehicles and for portable stuff because if it breaks you won't loose any sleep over it.
Ever used a Keysight DSOX 2000 series on a ladder, and been shitting your pants the whole time it's going to fall down and break? This is perfect for those cases, but I think the owon ones might be higher quality scopes for a few more dollary doos
I haven't used a scope but have used a old agilent spectrum analyser up a ladder all strapped around my shoulder thinking if it falls it'll probably take me with it, the owon or hantek is probably a good shout.
This things twice as good as the one I had as a kid at half the price.... Things have come a long way.
did you calibrate the probe?
I will not argue that this scope is miles behind Siglent or Keysight scopes. However for the money this is awesome scope for DIY bunch without very precise signal observation requirements. And as cheap field scope to quickly diagnose signaling issues there and there. Somebody would give this to me as Christmas present.
I have a slightly different version of this one and it's actually pretty good and useful.
I've used an old cheap handled oscilloscope of this brand for years. Even though is was not very great product and had many issues compared even with this dpo180 I still used it over my rigol 90% of times because it's much more convenient to put on and probe when I need to check whether the signal present or not.
And the new one is just like twenty times better. Forget abot signal gen tho. But the oscilloscope is extremely nice for it's price. It has descent memory. Mine showed 1000 points per square. 2000 with only one channel enabled. So you can zoom 100 times and have an ok representation of signal. So I can clearly see 2us impulses with 1 khz frequency. That's pretty much all I need from an oscilloscope. I'm pretty surprised that $100 device can cover 99% of cases many hobbyists and repairmen need an oscilloscope.
@@HK-fz5rn I don't think there's a 20 years old battery powered handled digital oscilloscope of these brands
Hello
OWON
I am undecided between HDS2102S and FNIRSI DPOX180H, which one is better, I would be glad if you can help me.
Thanks.
This reminds me of those restaurants that have a million things on the menu and everything's just okay. C'mon! If you want to impress me just put ONE thing on the menu and make it a Bobby Dazzler!
Handheld scopes are very popular today, a VGA output would be very useful to connect to larger screens
HDMI would be preferable - smaller connector, same signalling as DVI. Who still uses VGA these days? Even laptops finally dumped it for HDMI or display port.
This is something i need, rather than carrying around an old 80 pound Tektronix scope.
At 13:00, the 'noise' might be the glitch due to the selected waveform having different beginning and ending voltages. Grounding should never be a problem in a battery powered, floating instrument... unless there is no return current path.
21:00 "It's interesting, is it not?" It is absolutely fascinating)))
I have their Gamma-Radiation detector and it's quite accurate. Used controlled source and it detected it without a problem.
I would have killed for that when I started with electronics...(Actually even years after that.) Nice Christmas gift for a teen dabbling in electronics.
For just a little more cost you can have the slightly larger but much better performing Owon HDS2102S or HDS2202S. I’ve got the 100 MHz HDS2102S in my tool bag. The Owon scopes use two easily accessed 18650 cells, so you can keep a few extra charged cells in your tool bag. The 200 MHz HDS2202S has a separate A/D per channel so no loss of sampling rate when using both channels, but battery life is reduced a little by having two A/Ds.
Replaceable battery is nice.
must be nice there, where you can get HDS2202S for a little more
here tho, HDS2202S costs about $800-ish murican dilderidoos
But does the Owon have a "Digital Phosphor" color graded intensity display though? This one seems to have definite flaws, which is unfortunate, but it seems like the big selling point is the color intensity grading. the other specs are overstated... hopefully they improve the stability with future models. Like Dave said... something with a lower stated bandwidth that can actually back it's claims would be perfect. If you ignore the Digital Phosphor feature, then I'm sure very many scopes are a far better choice, but this does offer a beginner's price point for that type of feature.
@@richfiles I agree, thanks for the reply. There is potential for a better instrument shown here. It will be interesting to see what improvements come with the next generation.
@@khl6367 Thanks for the reply. It depends on how much you need to see surrounding a trigger event, or how much time transpires between the trigger and what you need to see. My application isn’t too demanding, so the 8K points trace is sufficient. I agree the record length is potentially limiting. The other limitations of the HDS2022S are only basic triggering scenario and no serial protocol decode options.
Perhaps the internal signal generator, for probe calibration, was ground looped since the generator output may be shared for both posts, noticed the probe's probing tip and ground clip were placed on each post (14:07). They "try" because I am interested. FNIRSI: Clean, Functional, Reliable (CFR).
1/3rd of the video and Dave still hasn't found the button to go to channel 2...🤦♀️
It was hidden pretty well, not a single clue in the control labels.
The trigger crossing is rock-solid, so I don't think it is jitter. I think it is a digital filtering/reconstruction anomaly due to limited samples per cycle at 180 MHz. At higher frequencies it would be better to to store and to use 5-10 sweeps to fill in these missing data points before applying the filter.
As soon as I saw the YT thumbnail, I said to myself I need to get myself one of this. Initially I thought it must be just a single channel, but no. I totally agree with you with these products, they are likely very over promised and under deliver. I thought one would be useful to carry around in the camper when you want to check something quick but not really concern about measurement accuracy.
hi . what would you suggest as budget portable osciloscope that would not fail us.
the owon ones are pretty good, so is the hantek one. generally for cheaper scopes look at owon or hantek (some of their products are crap be careful, avoid the 6022be or 6022bl at all cost for example). the hirarchy goes like this fnirsi
Did you calibrate the probes? Usually they're uncompensated the first time
Cool for learning or as a portable scope for testing audio setups in the field.
19:00 I bet it's a I²C Serial EEPROM.
Would like to see how this dude perform in X-Y mode.
We need an open source unit, board with real decent basics and firmware that engineers can upgrade in that open source form . An eEV oscilloscope guided by the community for the community . Basic form factor , battery operated . Can be powered externally by say a 12 v battery gel cell incase internals are flat .
Impressive for the price!, why bother with a fluke scopemeter costing 10x the cost and not much smaller than a normal DSO.
Thats a competent display driver, you could watch movies on it...cheers.
it is interesting to see our product in this oscilloscope. love from employee of Anlogic Infotech 🙂. the ADC looks like it is some AD9288-ish stuff(MXT2088?). And there is a small MSOP-10 chip on the corner marked MS5351,which is a external PLL with 3 output channel. Guess it drives both ADC and (maybe current steering DAC made with discrete transistors and FPGA IO?) And from my personal view, at least they are trying to seriously design something rather than mess with numbers like those 101x s**t
I have a slightly more expensive portable scope made by owon. It was around 150$ during prime day and "only" claims 100 MHz and no signal generator, but its actually usable. The Interface is terrible but it delivers what it promised to a much larger degree.
This little jig is actually a good single-channel isolated voltage probe, if equipped with bluetooth wifi or even sound control to realize bit of remote operation. For little companies or hobby purposes. Definitely better than the ordinary HV diff probes. But requires some proper knowledge to use without making boom..
More eye candy in these comments than Sports Illustrated.
I enjoy these reviews. I am an auto-hobbyist, so I only want a basic 2-channel scope to look at things like injector pulses, ignition firing, or crank/cam pulses. I think most of the scopes out there are way overbuilt for basic automotive stuff. Well, maybe overbuilt is the wrong term; seems like so many extra features for electronics work that isn’t necessary for what I want to use it for. Something like this may actually work for me.
I agree with you 100%, this would be an ideal scope for automotive use where a bit of DC offset, trigger jitter, or low level noise aren't going to make any difference. It's nice and small, bright screen so you can stick in awkward places and see it. Glue a couple of magnets to the back, add a strap hanger, and this would be ideal! If I still did a lot of wrenching I'd probably pick one up just for the garage.
"I think most of the scopes out there are way overbuilt for basic automotive stuff..."
Confused look on Wes from watching him work as he whips out his Pico Scope LOL!
It seems like an interesting entry scope handheld or not , so for the price there really is only so much we can expect.
But the way technology is advancing it won't be long before we have a silicone sealed bath time toaster.
I'd buy that toaster.
I wonder if the built-in battery is overcharged. I bought a FNIRSI SWM-10 portable spot welder and it charged the internal battery to 4.34V instead of cutting off at 4.20V. 🤔
Kerry Wong did a review and teardown of the FNIRSI DPOX180H 180MHz DPO 2 months ago, and interestingly enough, the one he has had a different front end. Most of it looked the same, but there was a narrower and longer chip in the center, and the group of six VHF/UHF transistors were just not there at all.
Interesting, I'll have to take a look.
Whatever was lying around, we made it out of. The only strange thing is that the letter 'S' was not assigned to the model.🙃
Even if they underperform, the fact that they are portable, and the diy one for 20 bucks allowed me to diagnose a portable spot welder and repair it, kind of has its place in non professional environment, specially when budget is tight...
Even some professional places can use it. Hf radio repair, computer repair.
Looks the good for what i need - so I ordered one and its stuck in customs :/ Oh well it might arrive one day !
The sig gen is basically just to calibrate your probes.. and nothing more
Yes, the connector gave it away.
Maybe there is something in the menu to switch the SigGen output onto one of the BNCs?
That's all it's good for, but clearly they are promoting it as a separate feature.
The 5.1K resistors are missing from the USB C jack, that shit drives me insane. Also, with two ADCs, why does it suck with both channels enabled? Are they trying to shove too much data into the SOC and it can't keep up?
Yeah, strange.
Tell me more about it, I need to put these resistors where?
@@farpsy USB C jacks on a "slave" device need two 5.1K resistors between each CC pin and ground to correctly configure the other end to supply power. If you've ever had a device that only charges from some cables and not others, this is why. USB A to USB C cables (like the one this thing came with) just shove power into the connected device regardless of how the target device is wired, whereas USB C to USB C cables need each end to be configured as a host/slave to work correctly.
Hackaday has several great articles on it. tl;dr if you're making a widget that charges from USB C, put a 5.1K resistor between each CC pin and ground so it can wake up a USB C charger.
Does it decode SPI CAN and whatnot? As an automotive scope, it could be pretty handy
As a Retro PC hobbyist this should be good for trying to troubleshoot and repair motherboards when the FSB on some boards go up to 133 Mhz
15:18, sir Dave, any plan of a teardown video on your R&S MXO 44 1.5GHz? 😂
Good times, cheap scopes.
I really, really wish you would do single shot tests on scope reviews!
try it out on a C-BUS SIGNAL for a car computer system , see if it can read the signal information
I wonder when there will be full-featured oscilloscopes with full multimeter functionality (including LCR) ...
Jack of all trades, master of none. Be careful what you wish for.
This guy compares two of them: ua-cam.com/video/DTC1h2PWC8g/v-deo.html
Mp3 player, rom loader
Why isn't this a thing? It seems like an oscilloscope basically is a multimeter with extra features already.
If you don’t need the L in LCR, the Owon HDS series does a pretty good job. The current flagship of that line is the HDS2202S. The S suffix denotes signal generator. The scope is an honest 200 MHz with both channels enabled. The Voltmeter is pretty decent. Probably the weakest part is the signal generator is 25 MHz max on sine, less on complex waves. The generator has arbitrary capability, but I believe is limited to about 25 or so predefined waveforms.
I have the older 100 MHz HDS2102S in my tool bag and I am still pleased with it after having used it for the past year. It is hard to beat the price for a decent scope voltmeter combination with a not terrible signal generator. I wouldn’t waste my time on the Fnirsi stuff - a lot of spec sheet features, but not stuff that is meaningful for field work.
as with all oscilloscopes: x10 and adjust your probes' capacitance for higher frequencies
The FNIRSI logo came from its company name "Fei Ni Rui Si", pronouciation would be like "fei-ny-ru-ss".
If they used lowercases for "i", it might be easier to read, like "FNiRSi" ...
If they cut out the MEH extras and take that cost and put it into as you said a good front end, then they'd have something 🤔
OOOhhh - you got the NEW color!
On a cheap DVM, same power switch problem, I put a kind of "ring" around the button, so you have to put your finger onto the button, nothing flat can activate it
What better for today for this price?any recomendation. Thanks
On a color screen, it should be a trivial task to change the font color to indicate active status -- I don't understand why they would separate this to the opposite diagonal on the screen. I also don't know why they would have "Ch1" and "Ch2" buttons and then not make channel 2 active when its button is pressed. But, as portable oscilloscopes go, this one is certainly worth its price.
12:53 Yeah, that's fine and all but, ... it's not like you're verifying this issue with an RTO6 or something, or even at least a low-end MX05 ...
Great video would be great for a teenager who is just starting out in this line of work or hobby
Sorry : why the signal was shift a little to up and how did you fixed it in oscilloscope ?
I think, in FNIRSI DPOX180H used two 2-channels ADC Analog Devices AD9288-100, overclocked to 125 MSps.
That Rohde & Schwarz looks a bit better than the Fnirsi.
Just a little bit... Probably an adequate probe for the R&S cost as much or even more than the fnirsi lol 😂
You can get a decent Rigol for the price of 2 of these?
Wish they made a version of the scope that included a DMM. I like the 180 MHz bandwidth and the price, but I'm looking more for something that "does everything" in one small package.
How important is the sample rate? The OWON hds272 has 70Mhz 250Msample/s and the hds2102 has 100Mhz 500Msample/s.
Which version of the scope is recommandable? Is the s version with signal generator recommandable?
your vids on oscopes are great :) could you make a clip on probes for various applications? My example: no experience in oscopes and a need to analyse a map sensor. I know which FNIRSI to buy, but I am not sure how to connect a needle back probe to it, as the popular P6100 have hooked ends an I need a thin needle to insert into the sensor plug
It's not a measurement instrument! You lose probe calibration on switching from DC to AC coupling. Signal jumps all over the place depending on hand position, offset, amplitude (nonlinear frontend). But at leest they tryed :)
Is there any decent budget portable scopes you recommend?
Right on the box, 500 MSPs and rated for 180 MHz? lol
Not sure why these scopes get such a snobby reaction. It's obvious they are not made for high performance, but there are a ton of use cases where they can be very useful. I have a portable Owon, dual channel and it was great to work on the CAN bus. For educational purposes, even the cheapest ones are great. For Arduino PWM debugging and many other things, I do not need a 20GHz oscilloscope that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. I own some decent desk scopes as well as cheap mobile ones. They are all useful.
_"Not sure why these scopes get such a snobby reaction"_ Then watch and listen to Dave's videos. They promote big features that are unnecessary, but often fail to get the basics working properly e.g. triggering. That said they can be useful if you are aware of the limitations and you are primarily interested in looking at the general shape of a waveform rather that making accurate measurements.
@@ferrumignis Agree 100%. Unfortunately in this day and age pretty much everybody is over promising. Think Tesla FSD, if you paid $10,000+ years ago and still waiting for it, how would you feel? And we are not talking $50-$100. Hence, I would assume everybody is able to navigate through the BS of marketing by now. ...Maybe it's just me. I'm still happy that a kid can pick up a scope and see how a capacitor behaves for next to nothing even he/she will not be able to measure precisely a transition time with it.
agreed !@@gepetotube
agreed !
If I had to buy a scope as a beginner with a simple home repair kind of application for say repairing TVs, VCRs, Hi-Fi equipment maybe some game consoles. What would you recommend me getting on the cheap as it is for incidental use only?
Also I can't seem to find any decently priced second hand scopes here in the Netherlands. 🥴
now in October 2024.... it worth for repair typical stuff like TV, Radios, microcontrollers prototypes and inverter welder machines ???
Could 19:22 be some attempt at a switchable input attenuator and/or coupler? Seems likely given that it is mirrored to the other side. Great video as always. Thanks for showing the pluses, minuses, and the guts!
It's outside the can.
@@EEVblog with this design, anything’s possible! I wouldn’t put it past them. Although I agree that would be a poor decision.
LCD screen scopes talk about high display sample update rates, is there any way it can be tested and proven, since the calibrated eyeball does not react that fast.
There is no trigger out which makes it harder. But you can put in a known infrequenct signal and manually count it.
It looks like a nice single-channel portable oscilloscope with a signal generator that can be used to test/learn oscilloscopes. The second channel is not useful, and the signal generator is not as adjustable as you wish.
I's not necessarily that people seem to like value-for-money products. People like products they can afford to begin with. It's great to see professional equipment reviews. Sometimes it is also nice to see a recommendation for something I could actually end up buying, though. I'm ready to bet most of your viewers are not professionals...
Спасибо! Супер девайс!
I have heard so many negative reviews on FNIRSI products that practically its products should be declared as toy tools for absolute beginners.
1:40 Don't count on that being a standard USB-C cable. E.g., my DSO2512G comes with a similar cable, and that cable is definitely not standard although it has USB-A in one end and USB-C in the other. Or at least I can't use any other cable with USB-C connector to power my scope from either a charger or a computer.
Dave, you should really make a pocket Oscilloscope. I have 2 of your multimeters and love them
All I need is something cheap and portable (battery powered) for automotive diagnostics and car audio tuning. So up to 20 or 30kHz
Whats the highest frequency digital signal i can measure with this?
for handheld scopes the owon ones are pretty good, so is the hantek one. generally for cheaper scopes look at owon or hantek (some of their products are crap be careful, avoid the 6022be or 6022bl at all cost for example). the hirarchy goes like this fnirsi
How do you measure DC current on a clamp meter? Is it a Hall effect clamp?
Yes it is. Hall effect.
You don't need more than 50MHz but I do. All that's missing from it is a conductive case, a lower impedance power rail and a handful of bypass caps. 🙂
Was that first one 3 channel❔🤔