hand held or bench oscilloscope?

[Doddy]

I can't comment with any experience on the Owon. I do have an Owon signal generator - bought because it was cheap and Amazon Prime, etc. It has an annoying issue with the main rotary controller being noisy, so I'll often get gaps in settings... e.g. 1..2..3..6..7..8, and sometimes jumps or (annoyingly reverse jumps) e.g. 3..4..5..2..3..4..5..6.

I've not read that about their scopes - and I imagine all their gear is likely just rebadged from the Chinese Factory.

Reviews (Elektor) are generally in praise, my concern would be for weak trigger patterns (e.g. on mine, I often use a gated-window trigger to trigger on noise spike signals that exceed a threshold for less than e.g. 100uS - ignoring longer "intended" pulses) and no apparent protocol decoding (yes, I've used a scope to monitor packet values in both serial/RS232 and IIC busses before now). But, at the price you can pick these up for (~£170) you get a lot for your money.

Ultimately I expect you'll get what is advertised - just make sure that it ticks your boxes. At £170 or so it won't owe you too much over time.

I'm almost waiting for someone to suggest buying a second-hand "high end" scope - and I've looked at this option myself - but to be honest, these new scope-on-a-chip solutions beat the older technology hands-down on bags-per-buck provided that you don't need the instrumentation-level precision of the big boys.

[Kitwn]

I've got a Picoscope 2000 series PC scope that I use with my laptop. I've been happy with the performance for the price. They do a range of machines which might be worth checking out before you decide what to buy.

https://www.picotech.com

Kit

[Neale]

I use a Picoscope as well. Very happy with it although as mentioned you do need bench space for a laptop as well. On the other hand, that means a bigger screen, capability to store traces, etc. Horses for courses...

In my case, this replaced a Tektronix dual-trace 'scope, complete with delayed trigger timebase, etc. That had some hardware issues that I needed a 'scope to diagnose, hence the new one. Overall, similar spec for a fraction of the price - amazing what modern electronics can do for peanuts.

[A_Camera]

I'm looking at getting an oscilloscope and cant decide on a decent "ish" hand held one for basic signal checking or whether to just go for bench one?

the Hantek ones seem to get good reviews and isn't to pricey at just over a ton.

it will mainly be for logic testing on Arduinos, STM32 etc but I can see it might be handy for the workshop as well. does any one use oscilloscopes on their CNC setups?

That's not easy to answer...

I have a Hantek MSO5202D which I use frequently and very happy with it. I think it all depends on how you plan to use it and how often plus of course how much money you are prepared to spend on it. If you just want to test logic and simple, low frequency things then you can use basically anything. Beware that many of the small and cheap battery operated ones don't have any mains protection and have limited maximum values, so if you intend to use it around a CNC then you should be careful what you chose. Also beware, that the cheap ones may not have good enough display update frequency and may have VERY limited buffer. Many things to consider. The higher the sampling frequency per channel the better it is, but they also cost more.

[m_c]

Go and have a search/read over the EEVBlog forum. Lots of reviews/posts/comments about various scopes.

Personally I have a PoScope, which I've had for years, and it does the job when I need it.
Having to use a laptop isn't ideal, although I did recently use it with my 8" tablet which was better.
If it was something I used more often, I would probably invest in a DSO, however the PoScope is handy in that it all sits in a small box with all it's leads, tucked on a shelf. Even a DSO would probably take up much more room.

[Colin Barron]

Have a look at the reviews on here. He was keen on the Rigols and chipping them a few years ago.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php
I did not read the above post before i posted but another plug for eevblog.

[Ross77]

Thanks for all the input, Really does seem to be horses for courses. I was leaning towards a cheaper bench scope to learn on but I have been offered a cheap second hand scope and PSU's from a workshop clearance.

trouble is they wont confirm it works but said it does power up, except the screen is blank. I haven't got the full details at the moment but should the screen light up even with no input? I'm assuming there should be a back light?

If I go and see it is there a quick test to check, never used one before so sorry it that's obvious.

[Doddy]

"Powers up, blank screen" covers a whole multitude of possibilities.

If it's a digital scope then I'd expect something on the screen. Even if the trigger is set and untriggered there would generally be some configuration/setting data displayed. If not digital, at the cost of scopes these days I wouldn't entertain an analogue scope.

If it's a CRT (rather than LCD/TFT) then it could be as simple as the brightness turned down, but that's rather a bit too hopeful I think.

I'd tread carefully. How much cost and effort are you looking to risk on this (i.e. "free, around the corner from you" is a bit easier to swallow than "200 quid and 200 miles round trip"). If you want a second pair of eyes (I've rejected driving from Lancashire to Devon, btw), and can share details then feel free to PM without any motive on my part other than to offer help.

[Colin Barron]

An additional advantage of the new cheap scopes is the don't take up much room, Spend some time on the EEVBLOG.

[Ross77]

An additional advantage of the new cheap scopes is the don't take up much room

The ones in the videos above are tiny compared to the old ones. certainly a big plus

Spend some time on the EEVBLOG.

Go and have a search/read over the EEVBlog forum.

Cheers for the heads up, another useful site to spend my evenings looking at.