Owning an oscilloscope is a real gamechanger and these days, scopes are more capable and less expensive than ever before. However, there is a big difference between scopes that cost several hundred dollars which are usually quite good and many of the very inexpensive — below $100 — instruments that are often — but not always — little more than toys. [Adrian] looks at a PC-based scope from Hantek that costs about $60. Is it a toy? Or a useful tool? He answers the question in the video below.
The Hantek 6022BE sports two channels with a 20 MHz bandwidth and 48 million samples per second. The device included probes, too. Of course, you also need a PC, although there is apparently third-party software for Android if you don’t want to lug a laptop around.
With two channels and relatively low bandwidth and sample rates, this Hantek is not going to displace a good benchtop scope, but you aren’t going to get one of those at this price point. The question you have to ask yourself is what do you actually need? In [Adrian’s] case, he wants to work on things like Commodore 64 computers, so 20MHz should be just fine for that sort of thing.
The software looks a bit dated, but it does have a lot of features you’d find on traditional scopes. The triggering, however, wasn’t very capable but since the device uses USB2, you can guess that the triggering is all happening in the device which probably can’t handle anything too complex. The results matched fairly well with a more capable instrument that [Adrian] had on hand.
The verdict? [Adrian] thought it was probably worth the money, but did wish for some things to be better. Many commenters, however, urged him to try unofficial software for the device which is supposed to be much better. We weren’t that interested in the device as an oscilloscope, but given that the protocol is apparently understood, we wondered if it might not find a home as a cheap data acquisition module in some future project.
We’ve seen reviews of Hantek’s scope meter recently. We are always on the lookout for what kind of scope you can get for under $100.
In Adrian’s next video, “Guide to using inexpensive tools to diagnose and fix old computers”, he uses the cheap Hantek scope with (better) OpenHantek software to fix a broken Commodore 64. (Oh the memories from the mid ’80s.) I thought this video gives a better idea of what the Hantek can do.
My big problem with the Hantek is its poor triggering. It has no hardware triggering. Software triggering is fine at slower sample rates, but it eliminates the ability to do single sequence triggering at it’s max 48MHz sample rate. I consider this a major drawback in debugging microcontroller projects, but your mileage may vary.
Instead, I would recommend that anyone in the market for a cheap scope look seriously at the Owon VDS1022, which can be had for $79 at AliExpress. It’s a USB scope like the Hantek, with a max sample rate of 100MHz on both its channels. Its provided software is fairly rudimentary and Windows only, but there’s an improved, hacked version (github.com/florentbr/OWON-VDS1022) that also run on Linux and Macs.
Adrian seemed to hint that he had ordered other cheap scopes to try out. I hope he looks at the Owon.
20MHz dual channel scope was a luxury not all that long ago and to get one for around the $60 mark I’m guessing this is $60 like the $5 Raspberry pi. That aside it’s still a pretty good price point for some one to start with and the bells and whistles just make you lazy
There is no hardware triggering in this unit. It is all done in the PC software.
I bought one and returned it immediately. The trigger is so bad that even the internal 1kHz square wave jitters all over the place, making it extremely annoying to use. There are slightly more expensive pc oscilloscopes out there that are much better.
I bought a 20MHz Bitscope. For $80 I got two analogue and 6 digital channels on a heat shrinked PCBA. There is software for scope, logic, multimeter and logging. I was a poor student and the digital channels have the insights I needed. It’s a pain to use but when my main score went bang I dug out out of the cupboard and continued wiring from home.
Did you buy it used for $80? The cheapest version I see on their website is $145.
For a higher-quality USB ‘scope, look at Pico Technologies. I have two of their units and they work very well.
Having experience with both picoscope and Velleman pc scopes, I greatly prefer the Velleman if I know what type of signal I’m looking at.
The Pico scope is a bit too much hand-holdy for my liking and becomes a bit unwieldy when going against what the software thinks you should do, while the Velleman is definitely overwhelming to someone who’s never used a scope before, but also easier to use if you know what you’re gonna do.
I have practically zero budget, so I am always on the lookout for cheap, reasonably-useable gadgets and tools. Over the years I’ve gotten plenty of stuff that’s perfectly okay for my beginner-level needs, like e.g. a Chinese clone of the Saleae Logic 16 – logic analyzer — works great!
Alas, a good, cheap USB-oscilloscope is still eluding me. All the cheap ones seem like terrible crap and anything remotely reasonable is way out of my budget. (Why USB? Because I already have PCs, so it makes sense to use those for the UI and interaction with the scope, instead of some big, bulky thing on the desk.) Here’s hoping someone produces something suitable soon…
Please tell us more about the logic analyzer you mentioned.
It’s an old device by now and will not amaze anyone here. Can probably get something far better nowadays, but eh, e.g. Adafruit has a page with all the specs for the device at https://www.adafruit.com/product/733
It’s long discontinued and it appears it’s ridiculously expensive on Aliexpress nowadays. When I bought my Chinese clone, it was 20€ or so, with a bunch of bells and whistles in the package as well, and it works great with the official software. The software is the real beauty, IMHO: it looks good, it’s rock-solid, has support for a billion different digital protocols — at least I haven’t found anything to complain about, yet.
My first oscilloscope is a soviet C1-79 2-channel 100MHz beast that weights about 16kg or more. It’s not a DSO, but it has every possible input and output for such an analog scope possible. And it’s pee-proof, which my daughter tested few years ago. If you can’t afford a DSO, then grab an analog scope.
For some time I considered buying a PC-based oscilloscope, but most of them are very function-limited with poor software. Good ones cost as much as, or even more than normal DSO. In the end for past few months I earned a bit of money by writing, and bought a Siglent SDS1104X-U. Great scope with some small things I don’t like, and surely a superior alternative to all cheap USB scopes.
20 MHz BW and 48 Msps? Yeah, even at $60 that’s not attractive at all. 20 MHz BW and at-least 100 Msps for $60 and I’ll look it over.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with any of the vendors mentioned herein. The same goes for any of the links.
How about this for some cheapskate test equipment:
A real stand-alone 2-channel 100 MHz 1 Gsps DSO with a built-in 1-channel 10 MHz (Sine) DDS function generator for $193.99 including “free” fast U.S. shipping from Amazon. After all, you can’t go wrong with the trusted “YEAPOOK” brand name (wink). To be fair though, FWIW the reviews look pretty OK:
* YEAPOOK ADS1014D 2 in 1 Digital Oscilloscope DDS Signal Generator with 2 Channels 100Mhz Bandwidth 1GSa/s Sampling Rate (ADS1014D)
Brand: YEAPOOK 4.5 out of 5 stars 53 ratings $193.99
https://www.amazon.com/YEAPOOK-ADS1014D-Oscilloscope-Generator-Bandwidth/dp/B099S4QP3T
And to round things out, you’re going to need a logic-analyzer. This is a $12.96 8-channel 24 MHz kit with USB cable and Dupont wires. 24 MHz will be fast enough for most anything you do, especially of you’re sniffing protocol-based stuff. Mine works fine with the free-open-source cross-platform Sigrock-PulseView software which you can find here:
https://sigrok.org/wiki/Main_Page
https://sigrok.org/wiki/PulseView
* HiLetgo USB Logic Analyzer Device With EMI Ferrite Ring USB Cable 24MHz 8CH 24MHz 8 Channel UART IIC SPI Debug 4.6 out of 5 stars 318 ratings Amazon’s Choice for “logic analyzer” $12.69. Shipping from Amazon is fast and “free” if you buy at least $25.00 worth of Amazon junk.
https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-Analyzer-Ferrite-Channel-Arduino/dp/B077LSG5P2
I’m pretty sure the 1014D is only 200MSps, not 1GSps as it claims. Check out the learnelectronics YouTube videos on it. (It’s usually branded as FNIRSI.)
The cheapest true 1GSps scope I’ve seen is the Hantek DSO2C10, which can be found for about $185 on AliExpress, or even cheaper if you can find a coupon. Check out EEVBlog for how to hack it to enable its function generator,
One warning about the Hantek DSO2C10: It often comes with only one probe, even though it’s a two-channel scope.
I’ve been using a “400MHz” scope I bought on hackaday.com about 7 years ago for $80, the DSLogic Pro (v1, microUSB 2 and 0.1″ headers), with a modified version of sigrok (there is/was drama about them not sending their changes upstream). Since then they’ve released a few new devices, the software is still updated and still open-source. It has 16 channels and can operate with 4 channels in 400MHz, 8 in 200MHz, and 16 in 100MHz. It has multi-level triggering on an FPGA.
Argh, logic analyzer, not scope.
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