Siglent Technologies Function Generator and Power Supply Bundle

I purchased this after a friend recommended it when I said I needed a signal generator for troubleshooting work. I was skeptical as the product is made in China. But the quality is very good and the user interface is quite simple. It passed my usual test - could I get it to do basic stuff without reading the instructions. It has quite a range of capability - most standard waveforms (sine, square, triangle, pulse) are built-in. So is a noise waveform. It has an arbitrary function capability so you can enter a waveform via the USB or network interface (standard Ethernet) connection and it will then generate it and let you vary amplitude and frequency. The display is quite sharp and the screen is large enough to be easily read. The relatively small size means it does not take up a lot of space on your workbench or if you are carrying it around. A nice, well-made (though I did not open it up - I'm judging by the way the controls feel and work) product for a reasonable price. If I ever need to replace my Tektronix digital oscilloscope, having purchased this Siglent product will get me to look at their oscilloscope line as well.

Generator arrived on time, appears to be working as expected - I'll be checking it with a spectrum analyzer and scope in a few weeks when I can borrow those items. For now, I can generate/modulate a tone that i can hear on an AM Radio and CB radios, at the frequency I expect, so I assume it's good on the rest of the band.Fan is very quiet. Unit has USB and Ethernet interfaces. Additional programming manuals and documentation can be downloaded from Siglent website.As an example, the firmware would not allow me to program a 1% duty cycle directly (5-95%), but by specifying a number of cycles at the desired frequency in burst mode, I was easily able to program a 27.12 MHz burst of 271 cycles every 1mS (a 1% duty cycle on a 1KHz pulse output at 27.12MHz), and program the amplitude as output voltage into 50 ohm load.I have no issues with the unit yet, it works as described. included a short quick start guide and a CD with software and additional documentation.

This is a very nice instrument. It is not cheap, but nice. It is also a lot less to the very high end signal generators. It is good for HF ham radio work. The capacitive touch screen is very handy and easy to use, but I would say the same for the button operated menu system as well. I had no trouble connecting to my LAN and using the PC software for this as well.

I previously had a similar Rigol with a lower band width. I bought this Siglent to gain a little higher frequency. I put it to use right away, without having to refer to the user's manual (not supplied with unit). I have continued to use it off and on over the last few weeks, with no issues or needing to refer to the manual. The Rigol was just as good, and don't really see any advantage of one brand over the other.I have successfully used this for alignment purposes on several boat anchor receivers because some of the frequencies needed were not available on my HP-8656B. The alignments were spot on, and I have not had any issues.

This product was easy and intuitive to use right out of the box. I was able to put it into service right away. The product is very complimentary with my Siglent Tech Oscilloscope.

Just as described. Worked perfectly.

The SDG2042X works as advertised, the interface is fairly intuitive.A few notes:Siglent recently added the ability to combine the two channels internally with the latest firmware update. Hopefully they continue to support this with future firmware updates.The arbitrary waveform generator is UI is terrible and Windows only. However, the signal generator comes pre-loaded with dozens of waveforms and I haven't needed to load any new ones with their software yet. If I do need to define an arbitrary waveform, I plan on sending it over the programming interface they document on their website rather than use their software..I didn't see anything in the manual about this before buying it, but the signal generator does support setting the output power in dBm while in 50 ohm output impedance mode. The lowest supported output amplitude is about -56 dBm.

Despite some issues this is a very capable unit with good performance at a very reasonable price.SOME RANDOM NOTES:o The fan is very quiet.o In general the user interface is good, although in some areas it is awkward.o I find the touch-screen to be useful for some things, and will often use both the touch-screen and the buttons together to make settings.o The manual is very basic, and inadequate in many areas.o The EasyWave software for creating and downloading arbitrary waveforms pretty much sucks. It's also Windows only.o The unit has two arbitrary waveform generation modes: DDS and TrueArb. They behave quite differently. The manual doesn't explain at all well the differences and how to get predictable results from either mode. The EasyWave software doesn't help at all: it will show you one thing on the computer screen and the unit will generate an entirely different waveform. After many hours of experimentation I still haven't figured out how to get predictable results, even though the waveforms I'm trying to generate should be trivial to create.o The hardware is the same for all three units in this line. It's possible to start with the 40MHz unit, and get unlock codes for the higher frequency units.o The only difference between the three units in this line is the maximum sine wave frequency. The maximum square-wave, triangle-wave, etc. frequencies are the same, and are lower than that for sine waves.o There is a long discussion of issues and findings with regard to this unit on the EEVblog forum, including many oscilloscope screen shots, at:[...]