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SDG2042X Initial review

5.0

I've had this signal generator for about a month, and it has seen moderate use, mostly for pulse generation, where the low jitter is important for my application. This is an excellent signal/function generator for the price. Simple to use, clean waveforms, dual channel outputs. It meets all the specs that I have checked. I have not used the ARB capability other than checking the built-in waveforms, which seemed fine.

It's not perfect, but it does most of what I need, at a price that cannot be beat. I will add that I was an early purchaser, and since I purchased it, there has already been a firmware update that fixed a couple issues and added a couple nice features.

To sum up, I happy with this. A couple years ago, a generator like this would cost 4-5x the price.

JohnG on Jan 13, 2016 I found this helpful (3)

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Siglent SDG2042X Generator Review

4.0

The SDG2042X is a solid 2 channel arbitrary function generator. Big step up from ebay cheapie (sub $100) generators and a solid fraction of the capability and functionality of expensive name brand generators like the Keysight 33522 >6x the cost. I was worried about getting a new to market product from a Chinese company given the generally poor reputation for initial FW quality, usability from Chinese companies. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Right out of the box everything seemed to work well. I then updated to the new FW available on their web site which was released 1.5 months after product launch. I can say that after many, many hours of use not once did the instrument crash.

Pros
- 2 full capability 10 Vpp into 50 Ohm output channels unlike other economical units which don't
go full range or one channel is partial range.

- Large arbitrary wave memory for both channels.

- Signal quality is quite good.

- 25 MHz squ - are with 8.4 nSec rise/fall.

EtherNet and USB connectivity

- Touch screen is surprisingly useful/not a gimmick even though the small screen makes most touch points small.

Cons
- Only a single sync/trigger output that is shared as the external modulation input. Really should have a trigger out for both channels.

- Limits Sync/trigger output to waveforms less than 1 MHz. This limit lowers the generator utility. They should be able to output a sync signal to higher frequencies for basic waveform generation via interpolation and sign/polarity extraction in the FPGA.

Weakness
- External modulation input A/D is only 9 bits over /- 6V range with a fair bit of zero cross distortion. 586 kHz sample frequency limits the usable bandwidth.

- Channel locking functions do not allow frequency lock with adjustable between channels to emulate direct and quadrature waveforms while in sweep or modulation modes. Siglent has said they will update FW to fix this.

- Outputs are tied to chassis ground/PE and not floated. (To be fair competitive product with floated outputs is a fair bit more expensive.)

- Triangle wave is capped at 1 MHz which is too low. Using arbitrary wave function can get around this limit and get quite good triangles up to 10 MHz but without adjustable duty. Siglent should change the FW limit on triangle frequency range to at least 3 if not 5 MHz.

- The included EasyWave software is a bit basic and buggy. For example, can not reliably makes waveforms with point counts other than 16k. Other vendors have much better software including instrument control which Siglent does not provide at all.

Verified Purchase GBY on Nov 23, 2015 I found this helpful (10)

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Siglent SDG 2042X

4.0

Good waveform/arbitrary signal generator at a great price. Lots of features, good performance, slightly clunky UI. So less expensive than US brands that it's hard to justify buying one of those.

I never received the Dinner & Movie card I was supposed to get, though.

Verified Purchase Tim Thompson on Oct 20, 2015 I found this helpful (0)