Review: Siglent SDS1204X-E four-channel oscilloscope
In practice
With any new scope there is a period of time of getting used to its operation. If you already have experience with a Siglent scope, then you will experience little trouble, but the menu structure is very different compared to other brands. I find the operation of the Siglent scopes quite straightforward and even if you have never used one before you can still find the main settings quite quickly. However, sometimes you do have to dig through a lot of menus to find something, mainly because there are so many features built in.The screen is very clear and has various display options, such as selecting the persistence time of a signal and assigning colours depending on the amount of change in parts of the signal.
With the operating buttons, it does take getting used to the fact that there is only one set of rotary buttons for the vertical settings. You first have to select a channel with the adjacent buttons and then the rotary buttons operate on that channel. Four sets of rotary buttons would, of course, have taken up much more room on the front panel, with a two-channel instrument this is still manageable.
Just looking at a signal using the auto-setup is a piece of cake, but for a number of things you will really have to dive into the manual. The signal processing is very fast and thanks to the signal memory of 14 Mpts per converter and combined with the navigation buttons you can quickly scan through a signal.
The SDS1204X-E can also be entirely operated remotely through a web interface on a computer.A handy feature is the option of dividing the signal memory into segments (segmented acquisition). Every time a signal appears that meets the trigger condition that has been set, such a segment is filled. In this way you can take a close look at what is happening in certain signal fragments.
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