Choosing the Oscilloscope That's Right for You! The RIGOL MSO5074

2023-11-20 | By Will Siffer

What is an oscilloscope and do you really need one?

First, I want to start this post by saying that these thoughts were completely my own and that this new scope was purchased with my own money. I did, however, use my affiliation with DigiKey to get recommendations on products. Those recommendations are some of the same I will make here.

An oscilloscope is a tool that allows you to visualize electrical signals in a circuit and measure certain characteristics of them, such as frequency, period, duty cycle, and amplitude. These tools are crucial in diagnosing issues with electronics since we cannot see what's going on inside the wires or PCB traces. To put it simply, an oscilloscope kind of functions as a microscope to see into a design. For me, I tend to use my oscilloscope as a design tool for circuit debugging. Sometimes it can be challenging to find issues in a circuit, but with an oscilloscope, I am able to see what the signals are actually doing and verify that they are what I expect!

Different Levels of Oscilloscopes for Different Levels of Designers!

In my time as a student at Purdue, I was fortunate enough to try out a large variety of oscilloscopes, and it gave me a lot of experience to base some of these recommendations on. I'll briefly summarize them here.

The first scope I ever used was one I was required to buy for my lab classes at Purdue that I could use at home. The ADALM2000 is a USB-style device that offers some low-power measurement capabilities in a convenient package.

Choosing the Oscilloscope That's Right for You! The RIGOL MSO5074

After taking a few classes, I was starting to need more capability and measurement features. We used one similar to the B&K Precision model that I linked below. It was a significantly higher cost, but it had dedicated knobs for each channel, making it intuitive to change the signal scale and offset while improving the overall usability of the scope.

My Pick: The RIGOL MSO5704

There are a lot of reasons why I went with the RIGOL MSO line, specifically the 5074. I highlight a lot of them in my video, but I will mention a lot of them here as well.

First, the 5074 is a 4-channel 70MHz scope that can read and display serial signals and decode them on screen in real time. It also has a large touch screen that makes controlling the scope easier whenever I want to use it. To me, one of the most important features of an oscilloscope is its usability. If you spend +$500 on a scope and then it is hard to use, you won't use it as much and won't get enough practice to ever get better at using oscilloscopes in general.

Choosing the Oscilloscope That's Right for You! The RIGOL MSO5074

Some things to notice right away; there are a lot of buttons, but they are all well-labeled. There are knobs and controls for each channel dedicated so there's no need to select a channel before changing a setting, and the screen is absolutely huge for an oscilloscope, which will make visualizing 4 or more signals just that much easier.

On the back side of the scope, you will notice there are a lot of ports. The USB output allows a computer to be connected to control the scope, which can be convenient for running tests or exporting data. There is also an HDMI out for putting the display on a larger screen, an ethernet port for connecting to the internet, and a trigger-out jack as well. Of course, the power port is here on the back too.

Choosing the Oscilloscope That's Right for You! The RIGOL MSO5074

What I like about this scope specifically is just how many measurement features there are available at my fingertips now that I have it sitting on my bench.

Digital Oscilloscope capable of measuring at 8G sampling rate per second
Logic Analyzer
Spectrum Analyzer
Serial, I2C, CAN, SPI, and other common bus decode capabilities
Arbitrary waveform generator
Digital Voltmeter
High-precision Frequency Counter and Totalizer
Protocol Analyzer
Data recording
Roll Time Scale mode
XY Scale mode
and so much more!

It would be impossible to detail every feature of this scope in a single sitting, but I hope I've given you a good idea of just how much it can do considering the affordable price point of under $1,000. Sure, that's still a lot of money for a home hobbyist to spend on a scope, but I personally believe in spending more money on a tool in order to not have to buy another tool later. If I ever need more features, I also can just pay for software upgrades to give me more features on the scope I already have, preventing me from needing to spend money on a brand-new tool.

Okay, Will. Cool scope, but I don't want to spend $1,000!

Alright, I get it, it is a lot of money to spend on a scope, especially if you are still in the early stages of your electronics journey. If you are looking for a scope for about half of the cost, I recommend the Rigol DS1074Z. It comes in at under $500 and offers 4-channel measurement capability but for less. You will lose some features and some capability, but it will probably be plenty for the average home user. The reason this isn't my number 1 pick is there are 4 channels, but there are only 2 knobs to control horizontal and vertical scale, meaning you must select a channel before doing anything. The screen interface is also less intuitive for me than others I tried.

Choosing the Oscilloscope That's Right for You! The RIGOL MSO5074

I hope this blog post was helpful in deciding what scope to buy. I linked all of the products mentioned in this post down below, but even if these don't fit your needs, I encourage you to search DigiKey.com to find one that better fits your lab.

Until next time, my name is Will, and I hope you have a great time making!