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Hantek DSO5102P digital oscilloscope

c.coyle

c.coyle

Fighting the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Anybody using this scope, or other Hantek models?

I'm looking to create some bench space, so I'm thinking of replacing my ancient boat anchor Hitachi V-212 (which has served me well) with a Hantek DSO5102P. $273 from Amazon, including shipping. I like it mostly for the price. Less than Rigol or Owon. My scope needs are very basic and not daily. 100mhz is overkill for audio, but I still fool around with RF, and at that price, why not?

All I want are the basic functions, a small footprint, and reliability for 15 or 20 years.

I have no experience with digital scopes. Good choice or not?
 
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I have not used that one but digital is the way to go now that they don't require a blood sacrifice in order to buy one. What I've seen that's annoyed me with cheaper digital stuff is crapy interface and the expected general cheapness. You might look for a youtube video of someone demoing it that isn't affiliated with hantek. Also 4 channels might be worth the cost for audio troubleshooting because you can look at L, R preamp and L, R output simultaneously, handy for intermittent stuff. Anyway if you do get it, or another inexpensive DSO I'd love to hear how it works out. I'm regetting my TDS210 now that all these new cheapies are being almost universally praised. My old tek is two channel, too slow for RF and the screen is a joke compared to the cheapest modern DSO. Good luck. Oh and FFT test out the FFT.
 
I have that one (Thanks to Binkman) . All I can say are good things. Sometimes I find hard to measure small noises, or get a noise free measurement, buy I think it's more related to the wiring and the setup than caused by the scope. Once you learn to tweak a bit the "trigger" settings, the results are very good (or, just pressing the "auto" button will setup everything. The problem I have is a very strong FM interference, and the "auto" button setups everything to catch that 90.7 MHz !!!). I use it all the time, even to set DC offset. Very useful to set tape heads azimuth .

I think you can't be disappointed.
 
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c.coyle said:
Anybody using this scope, or other Hantek models?

I'm looking to create some bench space, so I'm thinking of replacing my ancient boat anchor Hitachi V-212 (which has served me well) with a Hantek DSO5102P. $273 from Amazon, including shipping. I like it mostly for the price. Less than Rigol or Owon. My scope needs are very basic and not daily. 100mhz is overkill for audio, but I still fool around with RF, and at that price, why not?

All I want are the basic functions, a small footprint, and reliability for 15 or 20 years.

I have no experience with digital scopes. Good choice or not?
Click to expand...


I looked into some of these (haven't pulled the trigger) and someone suggested Siglent http://www.siglent.com/ens as a good choice. Better UI and a few other things I've forgotten now.

EDIT: Sorry...wires crossed, I was looking at signal generator, not DSO, although Siglent looks to have competitive models for DSO too.
 
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elnaldo said:
I have that one (Thanks to Binkman) . All I can say are good things. Sometimes I find hard to measure small noises, or get a noise free measurement, buy I think it's more related to the wiring and the setup than caused by the scope. Once you learn to tweak a bit the "trigger" settings, the results are very good (or, just pressing the "auto" button will setup everything. The problem I have is a very strong FM interference, and the "auto" button setups everything to catch that 90.7 MHz !!!). I use it all the time, even to set DC offset. Very useful to set tape heads azimuth .

I think you can't be disappointed.
Click to expand...

Great. That's what I wanted to hear. I've ordered it and it should be here next week.
 
Ha ha, you always want more bandwidth, oscillation can be into MHzs, you want to be able to see those. My old analog used scope is 400MHz, I am not complaining.

It's good to hear good things about Hantek, I was worry about it's so cheap. I can use a tiny scope as my room is piling up.
 
It's here. It's small.

Lots of plastic, but the feel is reasonably solid. It is so light that pushing the on/off button makes the whole unit skid across the table. I'm resisting the urge to take the afternoon off.

IMG_20170425_121006888.jpg IMG_20170425_121309548.jpg
 
Looks just like my 70mhz Hantek I bought two years ago. They basically build one model and hobble the firmware for the lower mhz models. Mine was hacked to 100mhz. Ive read updating the firmware will kill the ability to hack it. I wouldn't try hacking them unless you have experience with Linux and altering code. You could really foul it up. It wasn't difficult but one wrong key stroke and poof! make sure you have plenty of paper in your printer if you decide to print the manual out.
 
I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
I haven't used mine as much as Elnaldo and he works on a lot of vintage stuff down there in Arg. (lol all vintage stuff) It can be hacked up to higher mhz but no present need to do that for me. I'd save the older unit for tubes and higher v's etc associated but elnaldo says it's safe within avg rail v's per SS. I have diag'd logic ic sweeps like you see in TT serv. manuals etc. no need to calc much as all info is displayed on screen and you have the capture options etc, too.
 
The important thing is how's the trigger. One problem of the slow scope is the trigger get funny when you use it at frequency pushing the limit, it fails or hard to trigger and get a good display. That's the reason I always hesitant to wander off Tektronix as they always have good trigger even for analog scope. As long as you get a good trigger, you got a good scope.

Whether you can hack and get a little higher frequency is trivial. All depending on the front end.
 
Lavane said:
Looks just like my 70mhz Hantek I bought two years ago. They basically build one model and hobble the firmware for the lower mhz models. Mine was hacked to 100mhz. Ive read updating the firmware will kill the ability to hack it. I wouldn't try hacking them unless you have experience with Linux and altering code. You could really foul it up. It wasn't difficult but one wrong key stroke and poof! make sure you have plenty of paper in your printer if you decide to print the manual out.
Click to expand...

There are lots of videos showing how to take it up to 200mhz, but I'm happy with a 100mhz, which is way more than I'm likely to need. I watched a video where they put one of these on a signal generator and calculated the actual bandwidth, and it exceeded spec by a nice margin.
 
c.coyle said:
There are lots of videos showing how to take it up to 200mhz, but I'm happy with a 100mhz, which is way more than I'm likely to need. I watched a video where they put one of these on a signal generator and calculated the actual bandwidth, and it exceeded spec by a nice margin.
Click to expand...
Being a retired computer tech I had to do It. :biggrin:
 
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