Best Oscilloscope for complete beginner? – Page 1

First, they pick up way too much noise. The STM32F103… used in these 2 toys are 10 bit converters, but they do not seem to manage to get more  then 6 bit of usability out of them. This may be a PCB layout issue or maybe it’s simply bad software, for example using the least significant digits of the ADC instead of the most significant digits.

Another issue is simply bad overall software. Especially the way triggering is implented. You can somewhat change a trigger level to get a stable signal on the LCD, but the triggering itself is always off screen and you can not see the point on which the scope toy was actually triggered.

If those issues were resolved the DSO Shell would have been a nice and usable instrument, even with it’s limitations of small low resolution screen, limited functionality and small bandwith. Those are acceptable for an EUR 20 instrument.

The “DSO Nano” and “DSO Quad” are also jokes. Horrible User interfaces (they may have improved on that) but they’re too expensive. Just add EUR150 and buy a real scope.

The “expeyes” may be interesting. It has been designed in India with the goal of education in mind. It can be combined with a PC or a phone for a UI, which keeps the price low.

I also recommend to search for “gabotronics”. On his website he made an overview of about 50+ scope like gadget things.

If you’re designing a coarse about electronics you also can go hardly around microcontrollers nowadays. For microcontroller debugging a Logic Analyser is a very usefull tool and I can highly recommend the very cheap (EUR 7 !!! ) LA’s from Ali / Ebay / China. Just search over there for “24MHz 8ch”, and use them with Sigrok / Pulseview.
I have a Rigol scopoe myself, but when working with microcontrollers I often find the EUR 7 Logic analyser more usefull. On the AVRfreaks forum there is an old thread that is an introduction into using a LA for software debugging on small uC’s.
https://www.avrfreaks.net/comment/2421756

I have bought both the “DSO138” and the “DSO SHELL” and I find them very dissapointing. The buttons of the 138 are a pretty bad user interface. The “Shell” has a rotary encoder and the user interface itself is usable, but some other limitations are too big to call these usable instruments.First, they pick up way too much noise. The STM32F103… used in these 2 toys are 10 bit converters, but they do not seem to manage to get more then 6 bit of usability out of them. This may be a PCB layout issue or maybe it’s simply bad software, for example using the least significant digits of the ADC instead of the most significant digits.Another issue is simply bad overall software. Especially the way triggering is implented. You can somewhat change a trigger level to get a stable signal on the LCD, but the triggering itself is always off screen and you can not see the point on which thetoy was actually triggered.If those issues were resolved the DSO Shell would have been a nice and usable instrument, even with it’s limitations of small low resolution screen, limited functionality and small bandwith. Those are acceptable for an EUR 20 instrument.The “DSO Nano” and “DSO Quad” are also jokes. Horrible User interfaces (they may have improved on that) but they’re too expensive. Just add EUR150 and buy a real scope.The “expeyes” may be interesting. It has been designed in India with the goal of education in mind. It can be combined with a PC or a phone for a UI, which keeps the price low.I also recommend to search for “gabotronics”. On his website he made an overview of about 50+ scope like gadget things.If you’re designing a coarse about electronics you also can go hardly around microcontrollers nowadays. For microcontroller debugging a Logic Analyser is a very usefull tool and I can highly recommend the very cheap (EUR 7 !!! ) LA’s from Ali / Ebay / China. Just search over there for “24MHz 8ch”, and use them with Sigrok / Pulseview.I have a Rigol scopoe myself, but when working with microcontrollers I often find the EUR 7 Logic analyser more usefull. On the AVRfreaks forum there is an old thread that is an introduction into using a LA for software debugging on small uC’s.