Rigol DS1054Z Digital Oscilloscope 50 Mhz, Channels

[gfull]

I recently purchased the Rigol DS1054Z Digital Oscilloscope 50 Mhz, 4 Channels from Amazon.

Surprisingly it came with all the features that are normally paid extras without any time limit.

Very hard to beat at the price of $375 USD and free shipping.

I also understand that it can be upgraded to 100 Mhz with a very easy hack! This makes it the DS1104Z at $619 USD.

[Old_but_Alive]

@gfull

you just cost me £285 ( $353).

I googled, and got carried away.

bought it from aliexpress, re- hacked with the upgrade.

So, I now have 4 scopes !!!!!


https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Original-Rigol-DS1054Z-Unlocked-4-Options-for-free-4-Ch-50Mhz-Bandwidth-12Mpts-Memory-Digital-Oscilloscope/818509_32605391910.html?spm=2114.12010608.0.0.48f96e99DL95W8

[visn]

I have not opened mine as yet. First scope. Arrow.com had a 30% discount across most product lines that dropped the price to $244.30 and Fedex priority shipping free. I still had to pay customs that worked out to around 80USD.

Could not afford it really but at that price and free courier shipping it beat all deals hands down. Keep an eye out for their black Friday deals. IIRC last year they had some discount that you could buy and apply to future purchases.

[jnz]

I'm curious the apparently-hackable MSO5000 hasn't been mentioned here yet. There is a hacking discussion on eevblog, and while it's more expensive at $1000, it seems to be quite the deal.

[crahak]

So many reasons and possibilities I guess:
-a lot of people already had a decent but old scope (tektronix or similar) and are not gonna buy anything newer
-TONS of us already bought something dirt cheap and good enough like the DS1054Z
-it's too expensive for the "arduino crowd" (which is mostly what you find online...)
-a lot of people here also have an account in the other common sites (eevblog forum, hackaday, etc) and just discuss it there instead
etc.

The MSO5074 is a fantastic MSO indeed, especially with all options (essentially a MSO5354) at the base price. Personally I'm fairly happy with my "old" DS1054Z. Selling it would barely be worth the hassle ($200 or so) and the new scope with the optional PLA2216 probes is $1400. As nice as it looks, I don't think I'd get much out of it. I prefer to use a logic analyzer for most digital stuff (better decoder options, larger screen, better interface, etc) and as far as analog goes the DS1054Z is enough for the vast majority of use cases. 100->350MHz or 24->200MPts doesn't do much for me, and in the rare occasions where 100MHz isn't enough then I have scopes faster than the MSO5354 at work too.

[ChristosSDR]

Totally agree with crahak.
After working a few years with the 1104z, I see that this new offer of 1054 with full license pack and the ability to hack up to 1104 gives a scope with the best value for money.

[Magnox]

Yeah, being able to unlock the firmware on these things is great. I could never justify the cost of the higher up versions of these as a hobbyist. Beinig able to hack one means the manufacturer gets a sale which they might not have got otherwise, and I get a better scope. I'm sure they know this.

I've just bought a Siglent SDS1104X-E, two weeks ago, to finally replace my old Tek 2241. I unlocked it up to an SDS1204X-E version the day I got it; 200MHz and all bells and whistles. I nearly went for the Rigol but decided the 200MHz bandwidth of the (unlocked) Siglent would be useful.

I also scored a pair of new LeCroy 500MHz probes at a tenth of RS's price. That really finished off my day nicely!

[Captain_Boblo]

I have two of the Rigol 1054Z scopes upgraded to 100MHz.  I use them for surge and high-voltage work where I wouldn't want to risk my Keysight MSOX3054A. 

The deep memory function on the rigols is very useful, I normally set up a repetitive surge test and use the record function to capture hundreds of waveforms for a test run. 
One of the most useful free companion software for the Rigol is "bildschirmkopie", it allows automatic retrieval of screen shots from the recorded waveforms.   

http://peter.dreisiebner.at/rigol-bildschirmkopie/download.htm

[Marcustv]

I have two of the Rigol 1054Z scopes upgraded to 100MHz.  I use them for surge and high-voltage work where I wouldn't want to risk my Keysight MSOX3054A. 

The deep memory function on the rigols is very useful, I normally set up a repetitive surge test and use the record function to capture hundreds of waveforms for a test run. 
One of the most useful free companion software for the Rigol is "bildschirmkopie", it allows automatic retrieval of screen shots from the recorded waveforms.   

http://peter.dreisiebner.at/rigol-bildschirmkopie/download.htm

Very nice program

[Gallymimu]

I'm curious the apparently-hackable MSO5000 hasn't been mentioned here yet. There is a hacking discussion on eevblog, and while it's more expensive at $1000, it seems to be quite the deal.

I grabbed one of the MSO5000 series when it first came out, hacked, and works great.  New favorite scope in our office (we also have an DSO4000)

[bigtoy]

I've ordered an MSO5000 for work; looking forward to doing the hack and trying it out.

[FTL]

I bought an MSO1104 (DS1104 with a logic analyser) in the beginning of 2019. After shopping around online a bunch, it turned out that Rigol Canada (I'm in Canada) actually had the best price on that and most of their other scopes, beating the usual overseas suppliers and even Amazon. Shipping was quick and cheap as well.

So, don't discount buying direct from your local official Rigol distributor. I haven't needed warranty, but I'm sure they would have been far easier to deal with than one of the other re-sellers.

What probably made it work is Rigol's official policy of including all the software options for "free", which is what the grey market suppliers were all doing.

[hef4015]

I've ordered an MSO5000 for work; looking forward to doing the hack and trying it out.

Rigol MSO5000 works great. You can simply hack it and enable all options.
Detailed information can be found on eevblog.com forums.
Some guys tested the measurement capabilities and posted results. Good to go there for anyone planning to buy one.