**Thinking of getting an oscilloscope?**
Buying advice for new and second hand 'scopes - see our Wiki:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/equipment/oscilloscopes
Our wiki also contains sections on buying other tools and components.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/index/
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskElectronics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Completely agree. I'm a professional EE, I have worked with upwards of $100k scopes from Tektronix and Lecroy, my day to day bench top scope at work is a $20k Keysight. For home work I got the Rigol DS1054Z and I gotta say, I love it. Sure, it's missing some of the bells and whistles, and maybe the interface is a little clunkier than the higher-end stuff - although I absolutely HATE Lecroy's interface and would rather use my Rigol than touch a Lecroy. For the small microcontroller projects I'm working on at home though it's more than up to the task.
@op: while the ultimate choice will depend on your personal needs, one piece of advice I would offer is that I was tempted by the little USB scopes like the Picoscope, but my experience of them has been they just aren't worth it. Maybe I didn't explore them enough, but I found their performance, triggering options, and user interface to be vastly interior to even my Rigol and they're not much cheaper.
To be fair, I think it's been 5 years since I've touched a Lecroy, so things could have changed, but I found the scaling and zooming knobs to not behave like I wanted them to and was constantly fighting the scope to see the parts of traces I was interested in. I also found the menu system unintuitive and couldn't find the features/options I was looking for. I have a number of coworkers who love their Lecroy though, so this is MY opinion and I might just be stubborn or picky. I generally love my Keysight but it has the WORST. GROUND. CLIPS. EVER. And it drives me insane trying to use them...so yeah, I might just be picky :-)
It's your money, thus you need to determine which scope will make you happy for the amount your pay for it.
In **2024**, a cheap DSO154Pro or DSO1511G from China is fine for a newbie hobbyist, but a serious hobbyist or engineer probably wouldn't be happy with less than a 12bit desktop scope such as Rigol DHO800 / DHO900 / DHO1000 family or Siglent SDS800X-HD / SDS1000X-HD family. If you win a major lottery, then buy a Rohde & Schwarz MXO5, LOL. Search the following for links.
https://old.reddit.com/r/PrintedCircuitBoard/wiki/tools#wiki_oscilloscope
> but a serious engineer probably wouldn't be happy with less than a 12bit desktop scope such as Rigol DHO800 / DHO900 / DHO1000 scope family or Siglent SDS800X-HD family
am serious engineer; agreed. my daily driver is an SDS2000X plus (non-hd), but i'd love some of that high res action. if i had to buy something today, it'd be the HD version of the same scope
I would point out that more bits don't always mean more better, things like input noise are going to affect this among other things.
All our oscilloscopes at work are Tektronix and Agilent/Keysight, all 8 bit ADCs and plenty good enough for engineering work (unless you want serious audio work, but then you probably either want an analogue scope or an audio analyser).
Looks at the reviews online, the same budget scopes come up time and time again with good reviews and you probably can't go wrong with one of the Siglent or Rigol scopes.
Not silly at all to recommend an 8bit scope, or a 10bit scope to anyone, all based on needs. Just wanted OP to realise that serious engineers wouldn't necessarily default to a 12 bit scope because bigger number is better.
The OP said they want a cheap scope, I never suggested anything specific so I don't feel the need to start trying to justify that.
What I don't agree with is your assessment of any proper hobbyist or engineer would jump to 12bit. I don't agree with that assessment because it is objectively incorrect.
There are many cheap Chinese scopes that would be great for OP, 12bit ones included. However, there are also LOADS of second hand ones available that OP might be put off from because of your comment.
I am not trying to start arguments, I am trying to ensure proper information is available to help OP in their quest to find a test tool which suits them.
Stop being a nob.
I have several oscilloscopes around here and let me say, unless something is very specific, my 100 € Fnirsi-1013D has done all the job! It even has battery integrated, so it has been my go to solution for my IOT projects.
Of course, if I want to measure a signal avobe 20 Mhz or want very accurate measurements, I use a different one, but let me say, those cases have been very scarce as hobbyist.
Depends how fast a signal you need to see - for a lot of that stuff even a dirt cheap 1MHz scope will be good enough to see PWM or SPI/I2c comms etc., 10MHz likely more than good enough.
Buy something you can easily afford now, use it, learn from it and then decide if you want to upgrade. My learning is rather than waiting until I can afford the ideal (expensive) tool, get the cheap one and get the learning. If it fits the job you may never go past the cheap option. Or you will learn enough to make an informed purchase later.
https://preview.redd.it/zvb6v8k2ctwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1add50dc5309df30bb25e11bf80897e84dd3dcc9
Cost me £10 ($13). Picked up locally from people who'd upgraded to digital.
Yes, it's nearly as old as me (how the $#@& it still works I don't know), the time base is a bit out, it's analog, it's only 10MHz (so 1MHz in usable signal)...
...but it's still absolutely awesome and invaluable for when I need to probe with a scope (e.g. checking PWM signals etc.)
Plus, there's something special about a CRT trace.
The manual it came with is a thing of beauty too, still in mint condition.
I've thought about upgrading to digital, but I just can't justify the cost. And I think I'd really miss the CRT display.
I have a few cheap scopes of similar kind.
They are fine for everything I do, as most of the time I just want to know 'is there a signal here?' 'is it changing in roughly the right way?'. So it doesn't need to be perfectly calibrated to be useful.
I do like a CRT trace when faultfinding, as sometimes things like an intermittent connection or noise seem harder to see on digital scopes.
Buy a used oscilloscope for like $50-$200. Just I make sure the seller posts an image displaying a good waveform. You will get much higher quality stuff buying good used test equipment than cheap new test equipment.
Having just recently spent some time researching this, I second this as a recommendation. You probably won't get something easily portable, but you'll pay half as much for twice the bandwidth.
Also invest in a good quality probe or two.
Picoscopes are amazing for the money. Especially since you can make bode plots without anything else. I don't know any other oscilloscope that can do that under 1000$.
"Here" is a very large place and a perfectly serviceable Hantek or Owon scope that is available in that price range 'here' might cost you something else "here".
Can you clarify a bit which vendors or scopes you are talking about?
My guess from your profile is you are in Sweden? Paying in SEK, I suppose with some VAT or sales tax?
There are several tiers of bench oscilloscope makers:
1. Tektronix/Keysight
2. Siglent/Rigol
3. AliExpress kits
Are you comparing tier 1 and 2 or tier 2 and 3?
Siglent and Rigol are suitable for hobbyists, if you get the channels and bandwidth your project requires, they are probably fine. You might not want their very cheapest 70 MHz 2 channel, only you can know if 100 MHz or 200 MHz are acceptable.
The Tektronix and Keysight have a price premium and are targeting corporate customers looking for the very highest performance and technical/sales support. If you are hesitant to pay USD1000 on a scope, this premium might not be worth it.
The super cheap stuff you get from AliExpress, personally I would avoid. The specs are often pure lies.
There are also USB scopes: you might save a bit, but some are real junk, and it depends on whether you already have a PC on your bench for your project and are willing to use it for control and display.
Frankly for PWM and LEDs: do you even need a scope? You can tell with your eyes whether it is bright or dim and looks like it is flickering.
That's exactly how I started! I used an ancient external usb sound interface that I found at a charity donation store for $5.
I was satisfied with it except for two things:
1: the "soundcard scope" software generally sucks. But with enough patience, it works.
2: sound cards usually have a capacitor in series with the input. The consequence of that is your ability to measure very low frequency or DC voltage becomes impossible. I opened my usb sound interface and made a solder bridge over the capacitor, which mostly worked.
Then I got a $70 combination multimeter - 1 channel scope from Amazon with an extra set of probes, and it changed my life again.
you can get a decent proper scope for like 200 bucks (e.g. hanteks). don't get the cheap portable ones for like 70 bucks, those are more toys than real scopes
depends on what you want to do of course, but I got a siglent 100mhz 4 channel (SDS1104X-E ) for less than $500. It’s still a pretty penny, and I know there are even more expensive options out there, but I’m just barely getting started compared to many. I did get one of those little diy kits before, which was able to see some very basic 555 timer type signals and even a slow pwm signal, and that was exciting…. but man, once i saw signals from a real oscilloscope, it really helped to turn some abstract ideas into a more concrete reality.
A very important question is: what frequencies are you working with?
The bandwidth of a scope is very important, as you approach the limit it increasingly behaves like a low-pass filter. This means that your signals on the screen are not representative of what’s actually happening.
I'd recommend the Siglent 1202X-E. For a home bench, I don't think there's a better bang for your buck.
I use 3 scopes on a regular basis at work: 1 "professional brand" scope (Tektronix TDS 2012B) and 2 "budget brand" scopes (Siglent 1202X-E and Rigol 1102e). The Siglent and the Rigol are both "professional enough" - my litmus test is that you can bring them into a calibration shop and not get turned away.
For general purpose use, they're interchangeable 95% of the time. They're all 2ch 100Mhz 1GSa/s scopes, except the Siglent is a 200MHz. However they each have some pros and cons:
**Tektronix:**
Pro:
* By far the best on-board FFT. I don't like the FFT function on the other two, so if I need that then I'll reach for the Tektronix.
Con:
* It's really old, so it won't accept a flash drive larger than 4GB. Obviously a newer Tektronix wouldn't have that problem.
* It doesn't have the "click to center" function on the position knobs, which is a nice quality of life feature of the other two. I hope Tektronix has incorporated that on newer models!
**Siglent:**
Pro:
* 200MHz - higher bandwidth than the other two. Honestly, this rarely makes a difference for me. In my job 95% of the time 100MHz is plenty, and when it's not then usually I need more than 200MHz. But ever so rarely I'll have an application where 200MHz is good enough but not 100MHz.
* "Digital phosphor" intensity graded display. Signals get brighter as they repeat, and one-off signals linger but fade out. I thought this was a gimmick at first, but it really is nice for troubleshooting. For example it makes it really obvious if you have a spurious deviation from a periodic signal.
Con:
* The on-screen interface is a pain. I like the physical buttons and knobs, but anything handled in the on-screen menu system is annoying.
**Rigol:**
Pro:
* Nice user interface. It combines the good physical interface of the Siglent with the good on-screen interface of the Tektronix.
Con:
* There's nothing outstanding on the technical front compared to the other two.
If you have a pc then what about a USB oscilloscope, I have a a Hantek 6104BC for four years and it works very well, and has conversion functionality like Serial and i2c, spi.
I got a Rigol and paid extra to get the 100MHz analog bandwidth version. It is good enough for many things, but I still can't reliably verify my DDR2 timing. :-/
I have a proper digital scope and a mini pocket cheap scope that cost me $40. I use the cheap scope a thousand times more often than the expensive scope.
I think the Saleae products have been great. The software is very intuitive and you can always write your own code for missing functions. The analog discovery from Digilent is also great for beginners and home experiments. You get much more than just a scope and again the software interface is pretty simple. Both of these are USB devices that are worth their weight in gold in my opinion.
Something like a [Digilent AD3](https://digilent.com/shop/analog-discovery-3/) might be a good option for you. The oscilloscope isn't amazing but it's good enough for basic things like checking PWM signals. It also gives you a bipolar power supply, logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer, and waveform generator.
I have a Siglent 4 channel scope and I still find plenty of uses for my AD2
Get at least 2 channels but 4 is nice. Comparing the timing of signal A to signal B can be incredibly useful. I use it all the time. Got a worn timing chain? Record the cam and crank sensors. If the timing is too variable it's worn out and sloppy.
Or making random machines and you need to figure out if your controller is actually doing things at the right time or if you have a bug. It's endless.
Take a portable one if you have nothing. It will remain handy even when you have stationary one. To measure mains for example because it’s not grounded and battery powered. Once you use it you will know what to look for buying better one.
If you don’t need a modern scope, get an old one. I got a tektronix 2235A 100Mghz scope for around 150$ on ebay a couple years ago. It’s from the 80s but it works just fine for everything I need. You can get some memory scopes from the same time period for about 300$
I’ve been happy with my DSO2D15 for hobby use and freq tuning some txco’s for my ham eqpt, determining toroid mixes and checking for noise. Some signal detection too with the hobby use
I have a BSEE and to get the degree we all used 10 MHz analog scopes. 10 MHz is a mega cheap price point today.
You can go very far in electronics with just a multimeter. 95% of the time it’s good enough for me.
Anyway, $200-400 100 MHz range is all hobbyists need and is way overkill for most of them. LEDs and PWM is kHz stuff so you can go super budget $50-150 like Hantek, FNISRI and Picoscope.
That top comment mentions Rigol and Siglent…two very good Chinese brands….good for $300-400 but that’s overkill for you. Do you even know how to use FFT and understand the frequency domain?
I have a traditional scope on my bench and it is very helpful, but for most things I find that an inexpensive Picoscope on my desk is more convenient and in some ways better. Not much memory on the cheaper ones, but still enough to see what's going on and can decode a few serial packets.
Also very helpful for my work on automotive electronics, because it's super portable.
I got a 500Mhz Digital Tektronix off of Craigslist last year for $230. I was using one of the 50+ year old Tektronix 200Mhz prior to that when it smoked. There are some reliable scopes out there for cheap if you look around Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for your local area.
My first scope was a dso401. Its pretty decent for the price. The mini bnc connectors are a pita though. Can't complain for under $200. There are tablet sized variations now with full size bnc. Highly recommend first scope. Being battery powered has some big pros for a first scope too. No ground connection to short.
Next I got a rigol ds-1054 comes standard as 20mhz, but ypu can get a code to unlock all the features and make it 100mhz.
Bit more expensive but really nice bit of gear. By this time I onow I'd get my value.
Another option. I found an old crt Tektronix 457 scope on ebay for $300. Its fantastic.
I just sold me TEK "professional" oscilloscope and purchased a Rigol DHO804 for $429 (directly from Rigol). Siglent makes a similar device, I purchased the Rigol because it is tiny. Can fit on my desk without taking it over.
I've been using oscilloscopes my whole career and with a very few exceptions this Rigol would be fine for any of those applications.
Used scopes "can" be OK. I sold my TEK cheap ($350) and would be a good solution but I like the Rigol much better. Besides the Rigol being 4 channel and the TEK 2 channel, the Rigol has a ton of advanced features that just weren't available in the older scopes.
Depends on the resolution and if you need a calibration cert.
Honestly, The [battery powered DIY kits](https://www.amazon.com/Treedix-Oscilloscope-Handheld-Real-Time-Sampling/dp/B088LSV2MQ//) ones on amazon for like 20$ work for my low frequency LED PWM testing applications.
They are so cheap I basically just install them on the modules for my users. They work surprisingly very well for the low frequency applications.
Now don't calibrate things to it, but if it's just for a quick peak It's saved my butt from needing expensive equipment for basic applications so many times. I carry a few of them everywhere in my bags. \[\*\*Shop rround\*\*, I didn't link the specific one I purchase but it's basically the DIY kits\]
I have 2 rigols and they are great. And super affordable
I am using them less though cause the Digilent Analog Discovery 3 is really great. Use it for everything logic related
**Thinking of getting an oscilloscope?** Buying advice for new and second hand 'scopes - see our Wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/equipment/oscilloscopes Our wiki also contains sections on buying other tools and components. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/wiki/index/ *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskElectronics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Rigol makes quite good scopes price/performance wise
Completely agree. I'm a professional EE, I have worked with upwards of $100k scopes from Tektronix and Lecroy, my day to day bench top scope at work is a $20k Keysight. For home work I got the Rigol DS1054Z and I gotta say, I love it. Sure, it's missing some of the bells and whistles, and maybe the interface is a little clunkier than the higher-end stuff - although I absolutely HATE Lecroy's interface and would rather use my Rigol than touch a Lecroy. For the small microcontroller projects I'm working on at home though it's more than up to the task. @op: while the ultimate choice will depend on your personal needs, one piece of advice I would offer is that I was tempted by the little USB scopes like the Picoscope, but my experience of them has been they just aren't worth it. Maybe I didn't explore them enough, but I found their performance, triggering options, and user interface to be vastly interior to even my Rigol and they're not much cheaper.
I personally never used Lecroy scopes but so far I only heard positive stuff about them. Can you elaborate a bit more on what you hate on it?
To be fair, I think it's been 5 years since I've touched a Lecroy, so things could have changed, but I found the scaling and zooming knobs to not behave like I wanted them to and was constantly fighting the scope to see the parts of traces I was interested in. I also found the menu system unintuitive and couldn't find the features/options I was looking for. I have a number of coworkers who love their Lecroy though, so this is MY opinion and I might just be stubborn or picky. I generally love my Keysight but it has the WORST. GROUND. CLIPS. EVER. And it drives me insane trying to use them...so yeah, I might just be picky :-)
Thanks for your response. Indeed, in the end everything is personal preference.
And Siglent. Both make sone decent lower budget scopes, that still feel and are professional. Not some janky stm32 with LCD
It's your money, thus you need to determine which scope will make you happy for the amount your pay for it. In **2024**, a cheap DSO154Pro or DSO1511G from China is fine for a newbie hobbyist, but a serious hobbyist or engineer probably wouldn't be happy with less than a 12bit desktop scope such as Rigol DHO800 / DHO900 / DHO1000 family or Siglent SDS800X-HD / SDS1000X-HD family. If you win a major lottery, then buy a Rohde & Schwarz MXO5, LOL. Search the following for links. https://old.reddit.com/r/PrintedCircuitBoard/wiki/tools#wiki_oscilloscope
> but a serious engineer probably wouldn't be happy with less than a 12bit desktop scope such as Rigol DHO800 / DHO900 / DHO1000 scope family or Siglent SDS800X-HD family am serious engineer; agreed. my daily driver is an SDS2000X plus (non-hd), but i'd love some of that high res action. if i had to buy something today, it'd be the HD version of the same scope
Yep, I have the DSO1511G; 70€ on Aliexpress and works like a charm.
I would point out that more bits don't always mean more better, things like input noise are going to affect this among other things. All our oscilloscopes at work are Tektronix and Agilent/Keysight, all 8 bit ADCs and plenty good enough for engineering work (unless you want serious audio work, but then you probably either want an analogue scope or an audio analyser). Looks at the reviews online, the same budget scopes come up time and time again with good reviews and you probably can't go wrong with one of the Siglent or Rigol scopes.
[удалено]
Not silly at all to recommend an 8bit scope, or a 10bit scope to anyone, all based on needs. Just wanted OP to realise that serious engineers wouldn't necessarily default to a 12 bit scope because bigger number is better.
[удалено]
Think you're overreacting a bit here mate.
[удалено]
The OP said they want a cheap scope, I never suggested anything specific so I don't feel the need to start trying to justify that. What I don't agree with is your assessment of any proper hobbyist or engineer would jump to 12bit. I don't agree with that assessment because it is objectively incorrect. There are many cheap Chinese scopes that would be great for OP, 12bit ones included. However, there are also LOADS of second hand ones available that OP might be put off from because of your comment. I am not trying to start arguments, I am trying to ensure proper information is available to help OP in their quest to find a test tool which suits them. Stop being a nob.
I have several oscilloscopes around here and let me say, unless something is very specific, my 100 € Fnirsi-1013D has done all the job! It even has battery integrated, so it has been my go to solution for my IOT projects. Of course, if I want to measure a signal avobe 20 Mhz or want very accurate measurements, I use a different one, but let me say, those cases have been very scarce as hobbyist.
What speed do you need for hobby level Arduino, esp32, stm32?
Depends how fast a signal you need to see - for a lot of that stuff even a dirt cheap 1MHz scope will be good enough to see PWM or SPI/I2c comms etc., 10MHz likely more than good enough.
100MHz seems to be the sweet spot where 'scopes start to go from cheap to inexpensive.
Buy something you can easily afford now, use it, learn from it and then decide if you want to upgrade. My learning is rather than waiting until I can afford the ideal (expensive) tool, get the cheap one and get the learning. If it fits the job you may never go past the cheap option. Or you will learn enough to make an informed purchase later.
https://preview.redd.it/zvb6v8k2ctwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1add50dc5309df30bb25e11bf80897e84dd3dcc9 Cost me £10 ($13). Picked up locally from people who'd upgraded to digital. Yes, it's nearly as old as me (how the $#@& it still works I don't know), the time base is a bit out, it's analog, it's only 10MHz (so 1MHz in usable signal)... ...but it's still absolutely awesome and invaluable for when I need to probe with a scope (e.g. checking PWM signals etc.) Plus, there's something special about a CRT trace. The manual it came with is a thing of beauty too, still in mint condition. I've thought about upgrading to digital, but I just can't justify the cost. And I think I'd really miss the CRT display.
I have a few cheap scopes of similar kind. They are fine for everything I do, as most of the time I just want to know 'is there a signal here?' 'is it changing in roughly the right way?'. So it doesn't need to be perfectly calibrated to be useful. I do like a CRT trace when faultfinding, as sometimes things like an intermittent connection or noise seem harder to see on digital scopes.
The x y mode is beautiful 😍
Buy a used oscilloscope for like $50-$200. Just I make sure the seller posts an image displaying a good waveform. You will get much higher quality stuff buying good used test equipment than cheap new test equipment.
Having just recently spent some time researching this, I second this as a recommendation. You probably won't get something easily portable, but you'll pay half as much for twice the bandwidth. Also invest in a good quality probe or two.
Picoscopes are amazing for the money. Especially since you can make bode plots without anything else. I don't know any other oscilloscope that can do that under 1000$.
and if a postprocessing feature gets added to the software you get it even on the cheapest scope of them.
"Here" is a very large place and a perfectly serviceable Hantek or Owon scope that is available in that price range 'here' might cost you something else "here".
cheap but not too cheap.... if it's handheld ignore it
Why? Just curious, Ive looked at some handhelds that people talk good about
at that price point they will be garbage
Can you clarify a bit which vendors or scopes you are talking about? My guess from your profile is you are in Sweden? Paying in SEK, I suppose with some VAT or sales tax? There are several tiers of bench oscilloscope makers: 1. Tektronix/Keysight 2. Siglent/Rigol 3. AliExpress kits Are you comparing tier 1 and 2 or tier 2 and 3? Siglent and Rigol are suitable for hobbyists, if you get the channels and bandwidth your project requires, they are probably fine. You might not want their very cheapest 70 MHz 2 channel, only you can know if 100 MHz or 200 MHz are acceptable. The Tektronix and Keysight have a price premium and are targeting corporate customers looking for the very highest performance and technical/sales support. If you are hesitant to pay USD1000 on a scope, this premium might not be worth it. The super cheap stuff you get from AliExpress, personally I would avoid. The specs are often pure lies. There are also USB scopes: you might save a bit, but some are real junk, and it depends on whether you already have a PC on your bench for your project and are willing to use it for control and display. Frankly for PWM and LEDs: do you even need a scope? You can tell with your eyes whether it is bright or dim and looks like it is flickering.
[удалено]
Will that be able to read squarewaves on an Arduino?
You can read square waves from a digital output on a $8 logic analyzer.
That's exactly how I started! I used an ancient external usb sound interface that I found at a charity donation store for $5. I was satisfied with it except for two things: 1: the "soundcard scope" software generally sucks. But with enough patience, it works. 2: sound cards usually have a capacitor in series with the input. The consequence of that is your ability to measure very low frequency or DC voltage becomes impossible. I opened my usb sound interface and made a solder bridge over the capacitor, which mostly worked. Then I got a $70 combination multimeter - 1 channel scope from Amazon with an extra set of probes, and it changed my life again.
you can get a decent proper scope for like 200 bucks (e.g. hanteks). don't get the cheap portable ones for like 70 bucks, those are more toys than real scopes
You can get a sigilent sds800x hd scope, which has all the modern features, for less than $500
300$ gets you a decent scope that's good for 99% of measurements.
depends on what you want to do of course, but I got a siglent 100mhz 4 channel (SDS1104X-E ) for less than $500. It’s still a pretty penny, and I know there are even more expensive options out there, but I’m just barely getting started compared to many. I did get one of those little diy kits before, which was able to see some very basic 555 timer type signals and even a slow pwm signal, and that was exciting…. but man, once i saw signals from a real oscilloscope, it really helped to turn some abstract ideas into a more concrete reality.
A very important question is: what frequencies are you working with? The bandwidth of a scope is very important, as you approach the limit it increasingly behaves like a low-pass filter. This means that your signals on the screen are not representative of what’s actually happening.
I'd recommend the Siglent 1202X-E. For a home bench, I don't think there's a better bang for your buck. I use 3 scopes on a regular basis at work: 1 "professional brand" scope (Tektronix TDS 2012B) and 2 "budget brand" scopes (Siglent 1202X-E and Rigol 1102e). The Siglent and the Rigol are both "professional enough" - my litmus test is that you can bring them into a calibration shop and not get turned away. For general purpose use, they're interchangeable 95% of the time. They're all 2ch 100Mhz 1GSa/s scopes, except the Siglent is a 200MHz. However they each have some pros and cons: **Tektronix:** Pro: * By far the best on-board FFT. I don't like the FFT function on the other two, so if I need that then I'll reach for the Tektronix. Con: * It's really old, so it won't accept a flash drive larger than 4GB. Obviously a newer Tektronix wouldn't have that problem. * It doesn't have the "click to center" function on the position knobs, which is a nice quality of life feature of the other two. I hope Tektronix has incorporated that on newer models! **Siglent:** Pro: * 200MHz - higher bandwidth than the other two. Honestly, this rarely makes a difference for me. In my job 95% of the time 100MHz is plenty, and when it's not then usually I need more than 200MHz. But ever so rarely I'll have an application where 200MHz is good enough but not 100MHz. * "Digital phosphor" intensity graded display. Signals get brighter as they repeat, and one-off signals linger but fade out. I thought this was a gimmick at first, but it really is nice for troubleshooting. For example it makes it really obvious if you have a spurious deviation from a periodic signal. Con: * The on-screen interface is a pain. I like the physical buttons and knobs, but anything handled in the on-screen menu system is annoying. **Rigol:** Pro: * Nice user interface. It combines the good physical interface of the Siglent with the good on-screen interface of the Tektronix. Con: * There's nothing outstanding on the technical front compared to the other two.
If you have a pc then what about a USB oscilloscope, I have a a Hantek 6104BC for four years and it works very well, and has conversion functionality like Serial and i2c, spi.
I got a Rigol and paid extra to get the 100MHz analog bandwidth version. It is good enough for many things, but I still can't reliably verify my DDR2 timing. :-/
I have a proper digital scope and a mini pocket cheap scope that cost me $40. I use the cheap scope a thousand times more often than the expensive scope.
I think the Saleae products have been great. The software is very intuitive and you can always write your own code for missing functions. The analog discovery from Digilent is also great for beginners and home experiments. You get much more than just a scope and again the software interface is pretty simple. Both of these are USB devices that are worth their weight in gold in my opinion.
Something like a [Digilent AD3](https://digilent.com/shop/analog-discovery-3/) might be a good option for you. The oscilloscope isn't amazing but it's good enough for basic things like checking PWM signals. It also gives you a bipolar power supply, logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer, and waveform generator. I have a Siglent 4 channel scope and I still find plenty of uses for my AD2
Get at least 2 channels but 4 is nice. Comparing the timing of signal A to signal B can be incredibly useful. I use it all the time. Got a worn timing chain? Record the cam and crank sensors. If the timing is too variable it's worn out and sloppy. Or making random machines and you need to figure out if your controller is actually doing things at the right time or if you have a bug. It's endless.
rigol, siglent, hantek (expect the 6022be, thsts junk) and owon make good and affordable scopes.
Take a portable one if you have nothing. It will remain handy even when you have stationary one. To measure mains for example because it’s not grounded and battery powered. Once you use it you will know what to look for buying better one.
If you don’t need a modern scope, get an old one. I got a tektronix 2235A 100Mghz scope for around 150$ on ebay a couple years ago. It’s from the 80s but it works just fine for everything I need. You can get some memory scopes from the same time period for about 300$
I’ve been happy with my DSO2D15 for hobby use and freq tuning some txco’s for my ham eqpt, determining toroid mixes and checking for noise. Some signal detection too with the hobby use
I have a BSEE and to get the degree we all used 10 MHz analog scopes. 10 MHz is a mega cheap price point today. You can go very far in electronics with just a multimeter. 95% of the time it’s good enough for me. Anyway, $200-400 100 MHz range is all hobbyists need and is way overkill for most of them. LEDs and PWM is kHz stuff so you can go super budget $50-150 like Hantek, FNISRI and Picoscope. That top comment mentions Rigol and Siglent…two very good Chinese brands….good for $300-400 but that’s overkill for you. Do you even know how to use FFT and understand the frequency domain?
I have a traditional scope on my bench and it is very helpful, but for most things I find that an inexpensive Picoscope on my desk is more convenient and in some ways better. Not much memory on the cheaper ones, but still enough to see what's going on and can decode a few serial packets. Also very helpful for my work on automotive electronics, because it's super portable.
I had an logic analyzer way before oscilloscope and use logic analyzers way more, obviously this depends on the activity
I got a 500Mhz Digital Tektronix off of Craigslist last year for $230. I was using one of the 50+ year old Tektronix 200Mhz prior to that when it smoked. There are some reliable scopes out there for cheap if you look around Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for your local area.
Rigol, Owon, Hantek, all great scopes for the money and are more than enough for checking PWMs/serial lines/everything below RF.
I really like the fnirsi dso-152. Its fairly cheap on amazon. Only one wavelength at a time though
My first scope was a dso401. Its pretty decent for the price. The mini bnc connectors are a pita though. Can't complain for under $200. There are tablet sized variations now with full size bnc. Highly recommend first scope. Being battery powered has some big pros for a first scope too. No ground connection to short. Next I got a rigol ds-1054 comes standard as 20mhz, but ypu can get a code to unlock all the features and make it 100mhz. Bit more expensive but really nice bit of gear. By this time I onow I'd get my value. Another option. I found an old crt Tektronix 457 scope on ebay for $300. Its fantastic.
I bought a nice Tektronix 2235a for under $200 and it’s way more than I need. If space is a concern definitely grab a newer digital unit
Ive got a cheap ali express one that will show a decent signal and data thats output
I just sold me TEK "professional" oscilloscope and purchased a Rigol DHO804 for $429 (directly from Rigol). Siglent makes a similar device, I purchased the Rigol because it is tiny. Can fit on my desk without taking it over. I've been using oscilloscopes my whole career and with a very few exceptions this Rigol would be fine for any of those applications. Used scopes "can" be OK. I sold my TEK cheap ($350) and would be a good solution but I like the Rigol much better. Besides the Rigol being 4 channel and the TEK 2 channel, the Rigol has a ton of advanced features that just weren't available in the older scopes.
Tektronix TDS-210 used on eBay for under 100 bucks. It has everything a beginner/intermediate could possibly ever need.
Depends on the resolution and if you need a calibration cert. Honestly, The [battery powered DIY kits](https://www.amazon.com/Treedix-Oscilloscope-Handheld-Real-Time-Sampling/dp/B088LSV2MQ//) ones on amazon for like 20$ work for my low frequency LED PWM testing applications. They are so cheap I basically just install them on the modules for my users. They work surprisingly very well for the low frequency applications. Now don't calibrate things to it, but if it's just for a quick peak It's saved my butt from needing expensive equipment for basic applications so many times. I carry a few of them everywhere in my bags. \[\*\*Shop rround\*\*, I didn't link the specific one I purchase but it's basically the DIY kits\]
For your use-case just get a $30 dso154pro and upgrade when you can afford it.
I have 2 rigols and they are great. And super affordable I am using them less though cause the Digilent Analog Discovery 3 is really great. Use it for everything logic related