Introduction
This page has my reviews of various products and services I've used and liked. Hopefully someone somewhere will find this useful.
Atten ADS1102CAL 100M Hz Digital Oscilloscope
I have owned this oscilloscope for several months (at the time of writing), and have enjoyed using it. It is an excellent oscilloscope for anyone on a tight budget, but who can still afford to stay away from the very low end. It is easy to use, accurate enough for most purposes, and comes with a good selection of features. The manual for the Atten ADS1000 Series can be downloaded here, though this is slightly different from the one on the supplied CD.
The oscilloscope has a 100 MHz bandwidth, and 40 kSample storage memory. It has a wide aspect ratio screen, which is useful for looking at the detail of a signal for a bit longer than otherwise. It comes with two probes, which have a 1X and 10X attenuation settings, as well as a probe compensation adjustment for which there is a test signal generated by the oscilloscope. The oscilloscope itself supports 1X, 5X, 10X, 50X, 100X, 500X, and 1000X probes. The oscilloscope has a math mode, which supports addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and FFT. It features the ability to save captured samples, and screenshots, to a memory stick (and also to connect directly to a computer, though I have only used a memory stick).
Having used this scope a lot for the last few months, I find it to be of generally good build quality. It has survived well several months of regular use. The plastic around the power socket bows in a bit when inserting the kettle lead (I live in the UK; I was supplied with a UK kettle lead, and an adaptor for other countries), but this does not seem to be a serious problem. The oscilloscope is very responsive most of the time, though there is a small delay (perhaps half a second) when the time-base is set to around 2.5 ms or when the oscilloscope loses triggering lock. At 50 ms, it takes two or three seconds (less between 5 ms and 25 ms) for it to respond to update the display or change the timebase or voltage. At 100 ms and above, the oscilloscope has a rolling display mode which makes it responsive again.
Summary: a good oscilloscope, great for the price! I'm very glad I chose this one; I enjoy using it.
| Amazon US | Amazon UK |
|---|---|
Viewsonic VX2253MH-LED 22 Inch Display
This is a 22 inch 1920x1080 LCD screen. It has two HDMI inputs (which is useful to connect my desktop and my Raspberry Pi to), as well as a VGA input. At the time of writing, I've had mine for several months, and have had no problems with it &endash; no dead pixels, and the picture quality is great. Although at first the stand may seem a bit weak and wobbly, it's actually perfectly fine; I don't find the monitor to be unstable even when using the buttons on the side.
This screen can also be used as an HDMI TV (no DVB tuner), although the speakers aren't the best for this use. One thing to note: you may need to go to Menu→Input Select→HDMIn→PC if you would like to disable overscan/underscan (it took me a while to find that).
Summary: great product:D As long as you don't plan to use the speakers, I'd recommend!
| Amazon US | Amazon UK |
|---|---|
123-reg
I've registered a few domain names with 123-reg (including this one), and always had a good experience. Their control panel is sensible, and allows a good set of DNS records, or alternatively you may use your own nameservers. 123-reg also offers other services, such as web hosting, email, and SSL certificates, amongst other services.123-reg UK's leading domain registrar