Post by Klaus Vestergaard KragelundPost by Steve WilsonPost by Spehro PefhanyThere are a couple of known brand combo 3-in-1 battery powered
waveform gen + small screen 2-channel 70MHz oscilloscope + true-RMS
DMM in a bloated DMM form factor for < $200.
Might be worth throwing in the luggage if we ever get to travel again.
For fiddling around with development boards and such like it would be
enough a lot of the time. They even have replacable 18650 cells in a
holder.
I got the 25MHz Dual Channel DDS Function Signal Generator for US $61.63.
eBay item number: 111678169556
I have a old 15MHz HP33120A. At one point I needed a 50MHz generator,
https://www.banggood.com/FY6600-Digital-12-60MHz-Dual-Channel-DDS-
Function-Arbitrary-Waveform-Signal-Generator-Frequency-Meter-
p-1171428.html?cur_warehouse=CN&ID=530532&rmmds=search
Post by Klaus Vestergaard KragelundIt's great. Dual channel, and in some ways better than the HP
Only problem is that it is noisy, so I was testing wireless power
transfer between two coils, and measurements didn't make sense. It
turned out that the CM noise from the generator is quite high, so if you
buy it, add a lot of clamp on cores
Other tip, it is very light, and the buttons are hard to press, so place
it under some heavy gear so it stays in place :-)
That's a three year old model! Feeltech / FeelElec have since done an
FY6800 and, currently an FY6900 model which looks a better bet. The
latest 6900 model revision now uses a single 5v rail smpsu board with the
+/- 13.7v rails generated on the main board making the option to replace
the source of the high levels of CM switching noise with a small analogue
PSU board a whole lot easier.
Unless you want to upgrade its cheap 10MHz smd XO chip to an OCXO, you
only need 5v at 2A to power the main board.
A comprehensive source of info on these dirt cheap AWGs can be found in
the EEVBlog forum.
<https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/feeltech-fy6600-60mhz-2-ch-vco-
function-arbitrary-waveform-signal-generator/msg1266953/#msg1266953>
I didn't join this FY6600 topic thread until reply #1702 (page 69)
<https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/re-feelelec-new-arrival-fy-6900-
signal-generator/msg2564763/#msg2564763>
I started contributing to this FY6900 topic with reply #33 (page 2)
Anyone interested enough to view these topics (you can read any EEVBlog
topic as a guest - no need to sign up for membership unless you want to
post) will see that the FY6600 was mentioned in this very news group way
back in October 2018!
You'll also see the story about how reading the "amazing ARB pricing"
thread in the SED NG had led me to my very first DSO purchase, swiftly
followed by the infamous FY6600-60M a week later after comparing it
against the cheapest of Siglent's 2CH AWG models the SDG1032 which then
weighed in at an extra 280 quid.
The choice, for a first time punt on a signal generator was a no-brainer
and, despite some obvious but fixable shortcomings, proved in the event
to be one of the wisest choices I ever made. You can see why I'd come to
that conclusion by reading my contributions here:-
<https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/the-siglent-sdg2042x-thread/
msg3546785/#msg3546785>
BTW, you're not wrong about how lightweight it is! :) However, I'm using
my shiny new SDG2042X simply as a plinth to raise my much modded FY6600-M
to a more convenient level above the bench top.
Until Siglent finally fix its UI issues to fully realise its potential,
that expensive SDG2042 simply isn't up to the task of syntonizing a
Rubidium reference to a GPSDO reference in 10μHz (or even 1μHz)
increments as I am able to do by feeding it into the external reference
socket on the back of the FY6600 so as to dial in calibrated frequency
offsets without putting needless wear and tear on the LPRO-101's trimpot
whilst I work on my project to create a temperature stabilised RFS for my
workshop.
In essence, to quote from the SGD2042X thread,
"For now, I'm experiencing the rather unexpected situation where the
expensive AWG is reserved for the "Less Demanding" work whilst that cheap
'toy' FY6600 is my go to AWG for the more demanding tasks."
--
Johnny B Good