Cheap logic analyzer options on the market - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: mwsoft
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 12:29:17 pm
content: Hi everybodyI'm about to pull a trigger on buying Rigol DS1000z, as my old good tek TDS2014 with 2,5kpoint memory is not doing the trick anymoreI'm working mainly on digital designs, so I'm really interested in serial decode / trigger capabilities.But after seeing some videos on DS1000/2000/4000 lately, (including Dave's review of DS1054z) - I came to conclusion, that serial decode and trigger on ALL Rigol scopes are totally useless crap - lots of bugs and unacceptably slow operation. And even on the models with LA, all the decoding on the digital inputs is still done in software not in FPGA...I didn't found any videos showing how decoders work "offline" with long record captured by single shot or in segmented memory playback. Maybe it performs a little better in this situations?Typical situation, when logic analyzer will be useful for me, is to capture long (1-10 seconds) record of communication (SPI/I2C/RS232/CAN...) and then analyze it offline.Coming to the point - what are the options for cheap, yet powerful logic analyzers that could be used in situations where DS1000z can't cope?1. Saleae and others - nice for slow data, but try to debug 6-12mbaud uart communication with it...2. Intronix Logic Port that keeps popping up in many threads - SRSY? 2kpoints memory? Somebody even considers that useful? Even with compression... I'll probably not be able to catch one full pocket of my 6mbaud comm, that I'm working on right now...3. Zeroplus Logic Cube - only edge and pattern hardware triggers - useless for many applications...4. Open Logic Sniffer and bazylions of it's mutations - I'm not fully grasping, what are the hardware options, which versions/branch of software to use, where to find most updated info. It doesn't fell like a real tool, and more like a constant "work in progress" platform for toying with VHDL and JAVA...5. ... is there anything else in price range, let's say 100-400$?

author: nixfu
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 12:53:49 pm
content: I would not say that it is crap. I have read people on this very forum who have mentioned how it helped them solve a problem here.I have used it on my 1074z, and honestly as someone who only needs SPI/i2c for use with microcontrollers and peripherals it works fine for that.If your needs are very heavy, then sure a dedicated logic analyzer would be better.But its not really fair at all to call it useless crap.

author: mwsoft
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 01:48:50 pm
content: Well.. maybe I'm paranoid, but seeing on videos how it constantly glitches, gives false values, or stalls for few seconds doesn't build much confidenceAnd whole interface gets horribly unresponsive with decode enabled - that's the main problem, when you have a long waveform to analyze.And from what I understand - serial triggers are also software based - this makes them REALLY useless - when scope need 0,5-1 second to decode every capture and decide if it is a trigger point or not - how can it trigger on anything?I'll buy DS1054z anyway - it still seems like a very capable scope - maybe I'll correct my opinion after trying it in real world.But the question about logic analyzers still stands.

author: Mark_O
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 05:27:59 pm
content: Quote from: mwsoft on January 15, 2015, 12:29:17 pm12 Mbaud x 4 samples/bit (I'd prefer more) x 10 seconds = 480M samples. Or "only" 48M for 1 sec. Just to get a general idea of your requirements. And the newer Saleae Pro units with USB3 would handle that with no problem.QuoteYou might be surprised what the Intronix can do, with RLE compression and selective triggering. What's the size of your packets? The 6 MBaud is irrelevant to the LogicPort, because you can run the clock fast without burning redundant samples. You may get up to 200 bytes, which would be great if your packets are 20B each. And not so great if they're 300B.But I will agree that for extended protocol exchanges it may not be effective.QuoteFor $399 (before Jan23), and $479 after, the Saleae LogicPro 8 will do 4-channel SPI at 12Mbit/sec, sampling 8x per bit cell, for over half an hour (~4.5 mins/GB of RAM). That's probably quite a few packets. And they have good protocol support, which is user extensible.

author: MarkL
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 06:10:54 pm
content: I'll second or third or N the Saleae. Even though the SW is still in beta, it does a fine job at being a generalized, long capture logic analyzer.On the UART application, if you've already verified the signal integrity, why bother with a full blown logic analyzer?If you're just after the bytes, you could use a multiport UART to USB interface chip and put your Tx and Rx into the Rx of two channels. A trivial program could then read bytes from both input ports and dump them into a file somehow delineated by which port the bytes came from. Timestamp them if you want. Channel to channel timing might be slightly out of sync, so it depends on what you need to see in your protocol.I use the 4-port FTDI FT4232H to do exactly the above. Their $30 eval board for the FT4232H makes for a really simple and low cost solution. And because the hardware is re-assembling the bits for you, can go up to 12Mbaud without a problem.And if you don't like FTDI, which is understandable, there are plenty of companies that make UART<-->USB.

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 07:16:21 pm
content: As usual, I'll throw in theIkalogic ScanaPlushere.9ch, fixed 100MHz sampling frequency, USB2 but using compression to save bandwidth.Adjustable logic levels, RS232/LIN receivers, differential inputs for CAN, protected inputs (up to +/- 50V)Flexible trigger setup with theoretically indefinite trigger levels (better than Saleae).Nicemulti-OS GUIwith option to write/modify decoders in JavaScript.There's room for improvement, but the software was constantly worked on the last years and for ~166€, it's a pretty interesting option.Also the main developer is responsive in the forums and they have a very good customer support.

author: mwsoft
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 07:55:24 pm
content: This fast UART problem is just an example - actually I did the debugging just by printf'ing info about pockets and timestamps in client aplication on PC on one side of the link.But it's nice to have some tool, that I can just connect, do few clicks an see the data on nice graph, instead of writing some additional code and looking through thousands of lines in text fileIn this case packets are big - up to 2500 bytes.I know that you can do a lot with compression, but in todays world, when can you shuffle few MBytes in a blink of an eye, 2Kpoints of Intronix really seems not adequate.I'm a bit confused about Saleae... I always thought this kind of LAs was build around Cypress USB bridge with 8bit parallel port capable of DMAing data straight from it at max ~25Msps.Now I see 100msps on Logic8 - I presume this is possible with only 1 or 2 bits per sample. Or they are also doing compression on the fly like Ikalogic?Saleae website really puts me off... this whole thing looks like something created for Apple fanboys, not engineersI can't find there any specsheet with details of operation of this thing - but there are nice quotes about simplicity, beautiful graphics and a lot of FAQ for beginners with Arduino.... Anybody know where to find it, so I can compare it to Ikalogic?Ikalogic seems nice, but at 199€ it's almost the same cost as Logic 8.LogicPro 8 with USB 3.0 sounds really nice, but I think the price is starting to be a bit high for what it is....Any other proposals?

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 08:12:41 pm
content: Quote from: mwsoft on January 15, 2015, 07:55:24 pmScanaPlus V2 is available for 166€andV1 for 129€

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 08:32:05 pm
content: I would have to agree. The Ikalogic looks very good. IMHO, and inexperienced one, it looks like the best buy for a serious hobbyist right now.

author: mwsoft
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 08:33:55 pm
content: Quote from: 0xdeadbeef on January 15, 2015, 08:12:41 pmWhat's the difference between V1 and V2? V1 is not listed on their website, and spec looks similar.From what I can see, nether Ikalogic nor Saleae have real serial protocol trigger - only edge and pattern - I guess PC is not fast enough to decode serial in real time with 25MB/s coming in.But I think it's no really an issue with realy long record time they are capable of.I've found another one - USBee - they also seem nice with 600msps and compression to USB 2.0, but the price is _really_ to high ...

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2015, 08:38:49 pm
content: Differences between ScanaPlus V1 and V2Regarding protocol trigger

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 07:18:01 am
content: Actually I think I take back my kudos for the Ikalogic. I didn't read the full specs and dropping to 8MHz for 9 channels is not really that good at all. In fact I think that it is terrible. I am beginning to believe that there aren't any truly good budget logic analyzers. They all fall on their face in some spec.

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 11:21:54 am
content: Perhaps you misunderstood the spec. There is no drop of the sample frequency. In contrast to other LAs, the Scanaplus is always sampling with 100MSa/s, no matter if you need one channel or 9.Now the V1 version also always sends 9 channels via USB2, Obviously, as it uses compression, the USB2 bandwidth needed depends on the actual signals (how many actual signal edges per second). So there is a point where the bandwidth of the USB2 connection is not sufficient any more to transfer all the transitions. It's a bit hard to predict this exactly, but the thumb rule is that a continuous (!) PWM/clock signal of 8MHz can still be handled, while e.g. a continuous 16MHz signal can't. Short bursts of 10MHz (like SPI or so) should be ok though.The V2 introduced the possibility to reduce the number of channels tranferred via USB, so there's more bandwidth for the transferred channels. Thus continuous PWM/clock signals with more than 8MHz can be transferred.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 06:35:15 pm
content: It is still limited to a much lower input frequency, sampling the same or not. I see two different numbers so I will quote the specs on the Ikalogic webpage:" ScanaPLUS V2 has replaced ScanaPLUS, adding 3 modes of operation:1 Channel mode : 25MHz maximum input frequency (Perfect for measuring the stability of high frequencies).4 Channels mode: 16 MHz maximum input frequency (Adapted for high speed serial protocols like SPI)9 Channels mode: 10MHz maximum input frequency (Fits all other lower speed applications)."I really dislike it when companies advertise a spec only to read it is the absolute max under the right conditions. I shouldn't have to look for it. Is 10MHz enough? I don't know but it certainly isn't 100MHz and it isn't even 25MHz.Like I said, it appears that every "budget"logic analyzer falls flat on its face in some respect. Please convince me the Ikalogic is good enough because I am still looking for a logic analyzer than isn't a toy but is also a reasonable price. I most people say you really need a 34 channel device if you are going to do any parallel buss work anyway.

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 07:45:55 pm
content: I fear that you don't fully understand the difference between input and sampling frequency. Most LAs reduce their sampling frequency when using more channels or to use less space.The ScanaPlus doesn't do this, which is a great feature. Still the USB2 bandwidth is a limiting factor for every streaming analyzer on the market apart from the new Saleae USB3 models - which are another price class though.So you should also consider what other LAs in the price range can offer.E.g. the Saleae Logic 8 reduced its sampling rate to 25MHz if you capture 8 channels. So even under the most optimistic assumptions, you can't capture more than 12.5MHz with all 8 channels. This is about the same as the ScanaPlus V1 or V2 in 9ch mode. The difference is though that the ScanaPlus will give you measurement with 10ns accuracy while the Logic 8 will drop to 40ns. Besides, for the Logic 8, you can't capture anything above 12.5MHz for sure while the ScanaPlus still can capture bursts with higher frequency.Honestly, most people will never user more than 1MHz or 2MHz for SPI clock, I2C is always < 400kHz. At least for me, it's far more important to have a 10ns precision than to be able to capture continuous clocks > 10MHz. Besides, for real high frequencies, you would need better probes anyway with integrated shielding etc.Anyway, if you're looking for a LA with >=34 channels, high/unlimited memory depth and input frequencies > 10MHz, the "cheap" analyzers at nor for you.You should then have a look at e.g. an Acute Acute TL2136B (~1100€) or Acute TL2236B (~1550€).

author: mwsoft
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 08:26:09 pm
content: Quote from: 0xdeadbeef on January 18, 2015, 07:45:55 pmWeeell... Flash memories with Quad DDR SPI running at 66-100Mhz come to mind...There are really many SPI devices out there than can run typically at 10-66Mhz - SPI is no longer only used to control 200ksps DACs and simple shift registers like it used to be.Anyway - Ikalogic specs can be easily misunderstood with this 8Mhz figure without any comment, that this is maximum transition rate, that will not overflow internal buffer.Another thing - after some more digging, I've found, that ZeroPlus Logic Cubes actually support hardware protocol triggers - it's optional, and costs about +40€.Also did some more web digging - it appears that really there are no other cheap options

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 08:53:42 pm
content: Quote from: mwsoft on January 18, 2015, 08:26:09 pmSure, but still most SPI devices like H-bridges or LS/HS drivers with integrated diagnostics or even displays use much lower clocks < 5MHz.And as I said: using some simple wires to measure a 100MHz clock might not be the best idea.Quote from: mwsoft on January 18, 2015, 08:26:09 pmMy understanding is that this is the maximum input frequency you can connect to a pin without getting inconsistent measurements due to USB bandwidth issues.Short bursts can be faster. Yet the size of the internal buffer is unknown (to me), so it's unclear how long such a burst can be with which frequency to not result in a buffer overflow independent of USB bandwidth issues.Quote from: mwsoft on January 18, 2015, 08:26:09 pmNope. At least the LAP-C devices only have a very simple edge/level trigger with one trigger level. This "protocol trigger" seems to be a pure software solution that marks found occurrences of the trigger inside the currently captured data.The very expensive LAP-B series seems to have a protocol trigger in hardware. I'd go for the Acute though if I'd want to spend > 1k€ for a LA.Quote from: mwsoft on January 18, 2015, 08:26:09 pmBelieve me, I've been there as well. I own the Open Logic Sniffer, a LAP-C(16032) hacked to a LAP-C(32128) and a ScanaPlus V1 (well, and a V2 at work).I toyed with the idea of getting one of the new Saleaes with USB3, but IMHO they are much too expensive for their limited trigger options and the analog part is more or less a toy.As I said, ScanaPlus isn't perfect. There are some things in the GUI and trigger system that I'm not 100% happy with, but the developer is very responsive and really considers suggestions.Even if the trigger system is already better than that of other affordable LAs, I'm quite optimistic that it will be become even better with the next releases. E.g. a protocol trigger is on its way.Besides, the decoders in JavaScript are somewhat unique currently (if you leave out OLSFront for the OLS) and it's really easy to write your own decoder.

author: jimon
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 09:47:36 pm
content: There is a "poor man's" (tm)Cypress FX2LP board, 24 MS/s, 16 channels, price 5-7 $and if you use sigrok software (I haven't used it yet) then you shouldn't need saleae software, so you should feel ok about it.But there's a winner board :Cypress FX3 board, 100 MS/s, 32 channels, 49$, a nice start for DIY logic analyzer(note this board should be powerful enough to pass 400 megabytes of data per second to your PC, but you should consider if your PC is powerful enough to process it or at least write it down to SSD)

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 10:06:05 pm
content: This sure is neat, but letting aside the missing input protection I guess you lose any kind of trigger, don't you?Or does Sigrok implement triggers in SW for streaming LAs?

author: jadew
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 10:43:27 pm
content: For the record, I decided to get into the LA business as well, so expect some really nice hardware + bad ass software in the upcoming months. I'm aiming for $80-$100.

author: mwsoft
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 10:44:48 pm
content: Quote from: jimon on January 18, 2015, 09:47:36 pmC'mon... but we are talking about somewhat "real" logic analyzers, not hacker-maker-messofwires "thingy"sOne interesting thing about Sigrok come to mind - I'm not sure how it all works, but it seems that it should be possible to do acquisition using Rigol scope, display it in Sigrok PulseView and apply all these fancy decoding pluggins or write you own in Python. It is probably a little bit clunky, and there are still problems with lack of compression and triggering issues, but this approach is virtualy free and may become useful at some scenarios.I'll do some experiments, when my DS1054z arrives.@deadbeefThanks for heads-up with Zeroplus.And I'll be watching Ikalogic development progress - the thing is - many projects like that just disappears, when guy running it gets bored, gets a better job or it's not longer profitable...The other option is Saleae USB3.0 clone from chine - but what exactly are the triggering options on Logic Pro8? Saleae's friggin website don't have any detailed info about their current models ...

author: mwsoft
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 10:58:47 pm
content: Quote from: jadew on January 18, 2015, 10:43:27 pmWell ... maybe start a new thread, and do some discussion with potential users about most-wanted features.And maybe you can share some info about capabilities of your design?Although $80-100 price point doesn't seems real for any "real" hardware - unless you are talking about open source project and this is only BOM cost...World changed, and I think that USB 3.0 streaming approach is way to go, but using proper FPGA, with at least 10-20m buffer, and of course with embedded hardware triggers.With this architecture you have big enough buffer to compensate for USB throughput / non compressable data bursts issues, and you can also use it as traditional logic analyzer in single shot mode.

author: jadew
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 11:09:23 pm
content: Quote from: mwsoft on January 18, 2015, 10:58:47 pmNot planning to share any info atm since I don't want any more of my ideas to get copied (see the javascript decoders 0xdeadbeef was mentioning + other stuff).Quote from: mwsoft on January 18, 2015, 10:58:47 pmI expect the BOM to be at around $40-50, the overhead should account for software + support. No it's not gonna be opensource. I think making a hardware project opensource shifts the burden of making good software to the user, which is not fair, especially in a project like this, where the software makes it or breaks it.

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 11:14:17 pm
content: Quote from: mwsoft on January 18, 2015, 10:44:48 pmWell, Ikalogic is in the business for some years now. They seem to have expanded a bit in 2014 (?), so it's no longer a one man show. But yes, it's a small company with small product portfolio, so you never know what happens in a year or so. But honestly, this is the same for Saleae or many others of the small vendors.Quote from: mwsoftFrom what I can tell with the demo version of the software, the trigger options are very limited. Edge, level and pulses (which they introduced in 2014). But there don't seem to be multiple trigger levels.@Jadew:What is missing in the affordable part of the market is a LA with complex multi-level HW trigger + realtime trigger output and a GUI that lets you easily configure the trigger.Note that a real complex trigger system could also be used to do protocol triggers in real time by converting a data with an inverse decoder to a edge/time trigger setup.Also input protection is important but often ignored. And in an ideal world, there would be an affordable LA that has an LVDS input and could (HW) trigger on HDMI signals.

author: jadew
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2015, 11:49:54 pm
content: @0xdeadbeefAs I was saying, I don't want to discuss any of the features I have in mind, not until its imminent release, but I'm definitely not planning to come up with the same thing everyone has.When it's time for beta testing, I'll make sure to message you and if you agree, I'll send you a unit.

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2015, 12:41:01 am
content: I see. Best luck for your endeavor!And yeah, there's always a space left for an interesting new LA in my collection

author: eas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2015, 02:20:14 am
content: Quote from: jadew on January 18, 2015, 11:09:23 pmI'm no expert, but the ratio between your BOM and your target price seems low, particularly if you are determined to deliver good quality software and support along with it. Plus, it doesn't seem to leave much room for reseller and distributor margins, which you'll probably want on board to help you reach the total addressable market. Or perhaps $100 is just the price on an useful entry level model, and you'll have a product line leveraging the same R&D and manufacturing with compelling, more capable, higher-margin products at higher price points?In any case, best of luck!

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 20, 2015, 04:59:52 am
content: So what is the opinion of people on the ones sold by Seeed?http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/Oscilloscopes-c-63_65/?ref=sideThey actually look pretty good for the price and a better deal than the Ikalogic.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2015, 05:19:49 am
content: Quote from: eas on January 20, 2015, 02:20:14 amDave suggests the magic ratio of x2.5 and indeed $40 * 2.5 = $100 but this is just for the BOM so it depends on the additional manufacturing cost.http://www.eevblog.com/2014/05/28/the-economics-of-selling-your-hardware-project/@jadew, hopefully you will support all three main OSs, and let me guess, it's going to be browser based ;-)

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2015, 05:49:23 am
content: Quote from: zapta on January 20, 2015, 05:19:49 amMost people base their product planning on a 3x multiplier when selling hundreds or thousands. Of course, if you have huge NRE to recover that might need to be a lot higher, but 3x is a good working figure for a lot of instruments and industrial devices. Strangely, that figure hasn't really changed much in the last 30 years, even though a typical BOM is now much lower.If you can sell tens of thousands, and your NRE is not too high, 2.5x might work OK. Remember that multiplier is what you need to get. If you operate through any kind of sales channel they need a cut too.

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2015, 11:34:00 am
content: Quote from: Lightages on January 20, 2015, 04:59:52 amPossible problems with this kind of noname device:- is the HW really up to its spec, e.g. regarding input protection, effective bandwidth, high frequency behavior etc.?- is the SW actively developed or will the current version be the last version you ever get?With this specific one:- Questionable specs, e.g. "Compatible USB2.0/3.0 interface". A plain old USB1 interface fulfills this as well.- no specifications for trigger capabilities at all- no configurable input thresholdMy bet is that you get a somewhat capable hardware but in the end never user it since the software is buggy or not working as expected.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 22, 2015, 10:49:44 pm
content: I have downloaded and played with the software for the one sold on Seeed, and the Ikalogic.The software for the one sold on Seeed is very basic. There is no search function so going through megabytes worth of data would be tedious, if not impossible. I give this one a pass. Too bad because the hardware looks good enough for many things. It has 16 channels and depending on the model up to 500MSPS and 80 MHz bandwidth, if that is believable.The Ikalogic ScanaPLUS (V2) is only 9 channels, and has a bandwidth limit of 10MHz at 9 channels, which I trust. The software looks pretty good and very useable. Are the lower sampling and bandwidth and 9 channels enough for me? I don't know because I am just getting started again with some of this and I am not sure what I will run into yet. I doubt I will be working on anything with parallel busses very much. If I do then even 16 channels will probably not be enough.I also had a look at the Salaea offerings and compared the ScanaPLUS (V2) there is not much competition IMHO from my limited experience. The prices certainly help sway things.With any of these there isn't any decoded logic triggering which is understandable. In place of this if you have a scope like a DS1054Z it can be used to do a decode and then trigger the logic analyzer. I wonder if the ScanaPLUS (V2) has a pre-capture buffer function.

author: andrija
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2015, 11:15:12 pm
content: I had to actually decode some I2C yesterday on my design that just wouldn't work. Tried using my Rigol 2202A as the decoder. Watched short YouTube video they posted on how to do it. I managed to get something to show up, enough to see that one slave was not sending ACK (but another one did) but I found it impossible to capture more than just one event. You press record and you don't even get a second worth of data - and while it claims it captured 50 events, if you scroll through them, there's nothing there. Then, the auto trigger refuses to work and only a single shot would capture anything. Then, a day later, the scope refuses to decode any data though it captures it and I couldn't even reproduce previous day's results. I am guessing one needs to read a manual for even the most basic usage, assuming this is even working.I have the Logic Sniffer so I will try that next. Ironically even though I couldn't get it to work properly, Rigol helped me figure out at least my master I2C was working fine and there were no issues with the bus lines.

author: jadew
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2015, 11:24:23 pm
content: @zaptaYeah, I plan to support all 3 operating systems, but I'm gonna go for Windows first and port it later. And no, it's not gonna run in a browserEdit: As for the price, that's just an estimate, but I'd like to stay as close to that as possible.

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2015, 12:07:52 am
content: Quote from: Lightages on January 22, 2015, 10:49:44 pmIt you look at thesquare wave thread, it seems indeed questionable how good a measurement with simple wires as probes and simple input stage can be for anything remotely close to 80MHz.Quote from: Lightages on January 22, 2015, 10:49:44 pmAgain, just to make sure, the 10MHz is the signal rate you can measure with 9 channels due to USB2 bandwidth limitations. The input circuit for the V2 seems to have a low pass filter kicking in at 50Mhz. Sample frequency is always 100MHhz, so your measurement will always have a 10ns resolution.Quote from: Lightages on January 22, 2015, 10:49:44 pmAnd the team seems to be really interested to improve it in every possible way.E.g. some of the thing I suggestedherewere implemented a few months later.Generally, the main developer Ibrahim Kamal (-> Ika) seems to be a very friendly and open minded chap and at least he gives you the impression to be really interested in suggestions.E.g. lookhere.Quote from: Lightages on January 22, 2015, 10:49:44 pmThat's of course something to consider before you buy. My main interest is SPI/I2C and stuff like this in the low MHz range and I never need more than 9 channels. So the choice was simple.Besides, it's not a really big investment and it is a useful tool for sure.Quote from: Lightages on January 22, 2015, 10:49:44 pmNot yet.But they're already working on triggering on protocol data.Quote from: Lightages on January 22, 2015, 10:49:44 pmIt's not a feature of the ScanaPlus, but one of the software. Anyway, you can set the trigger position and from the simple tests I performed, it seems to work perfectly well.BTW: I have a V1 at home and a V2 at work, so I can say they are functionally nearly identical.The only difference is the color of the activity LED and the fact that the V2 lets you chose the number of channels actually transmitted when you set up a new project/config.Since USB2 bandwidth was not an issue for me yet, I also use the V2 with 9ch, so the difference to V1 boils down to the color of the LED.BTW: if you want to play around with decoders, I uploaded some workspaces with data in the Ikalogic forums.SENT examplesSPI examples

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 23, 2015, 04:45:47 am
content: OK, I think I am sold. The question is, where is the best place to buy to have it shipped to me in Chile?

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2015, 03:11:44 pm
content: Well, Ikalogic is a European company located in France, so I guess buying fromtheir storeis not attractive.MaybeSaeligis an option for you.For the protocol, this is what happens if you try to sample 9ch with a continuous clock/pwm signal >10MHz:http://www.ikalogic.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=2113This discussion happened before V2 was released (or planned from what I can tell).

author: Electro Fan
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 24, 2015, 12:15:12 am
content: The ScanaPlus looks pretty good - seems like they should be able to ship to Chile or the U.S. or pretty much anywhere for not too much - the package must be fairly small.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 24, 2015, 04:44:03 am
content: Yes they can ship anywhere, but their price is higher than the resellers.

author: eas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 25, 2015, 07:55:22 am
content: Quote from: zapta on January 20, 2015, 05:19:49 amYou seem to be missing something, something I think is important. Dave is talking about a hardware project, specifically the uCurrent. This is a logic analyzer. Sure, there is hardware involved, but there is also software, and not just firmware, user-facing software. Jadew seems to recognize that doing a good job with that software, and supporting it, is an important differentiator. Creating good software isn't cheap, but once you have it, the marginal cost is tiny.So, 2.5x the BOM might make sense, if the volumes are high enough, but getting high-enough volumes not be easy without having some margin for either marketing or distribution (if not both).At least, that's my take.

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2015, 04:02:33 pm
content: Quote from: Lightages on January 18, 2015, 07:18:01 amEverything on the website is misleading. Stay away from this toy! Not worth the money.

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2015, 05:05:11 pm
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on October 18, 2015, 04:02:33 pmThat's rather harsh to say the least. I used the ScanaPlus at work and at home for quite some time and apart from some smaller bugs in the decoders that were usually fixed within days, I can't complain at all. For me, it works much better than the Open Logic Sniffer I used before. It was extremely helpful to debug the 10MHz 5 line SPI communication with an IILI9341 LCD driver. At work, I find it much more helpful than a >10k€ Agilent standalone analyzer. The ability to write your own decoder in JavaScript (or modify an existing one) alone is a feature that nearly no other USB LA offers.Yes, as all (relatively) cheap USB based LAs it has its shortcomings, but it has much more features and better software support than most of the other affordable USB LAs.Side note: apart from announcing a successor to their ScanaLogic line (4ch, internal capture memory, output capability, but unfortunately no compression yet), a new software is to be relased on the 20th which should offer protocol triggering at least for some of the serial protocols.

author: Sigmoid
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2016, 10:07:07 pm
content: The ScanaPlus seems to be sold out in most places, and Ikalogic is pushing their ScanaQuad like they had channeled the spirit of Steve Jobs for marketing advice. (As enticing as it is, four channels seems only enough to hang myself with, lol.)Does anyone know any news on the plans? Are they retiring the ScanaPlus? CaneScanaPlus v3 be around the corner?

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2016, 10:48:23 pm
content: Well, they really concentrated on the ScanaQuads in the last months, but the official statement is that the ScanaPlus is still their top range product.My understanding is that the ScanaQuads are the replacement for the old Scanalogic devices which lacked input protection and had very limited storage capability.They are also working on some kind of device to use multiple ScanaQuads in parallel and create a trigger output.I'm a bit skeptical though if this is such a brilliant idea. The ScanaPlus devices just feature a mini USB connector, 4 channel pins and a ground pin.There doesn't seem any way to couple them without using USB which will introduce latencies. Or they have to sacrifice channels which also not really an option for four channels.Anyway, while I praised ScanaStudio in the past and still think it's a very good GUI, the new version GUI 2.4 gives me nothing but problems and progress in SW improvement seems to be more or less stalled.Actually capturing doesn't work at all at work and 2 or three times at home, so it's kinda unusable for serious work and there was no progress at all in the last months to improve the situation.So I have to stick with 2.3 which is however effectively abandoned and has its own instabilities and quirks.Actually, I bought one of these 16ch DS Logic Pro things for a bit less than 100€ which is far superior to the ScanaQuads HW wise and works totally stable.While it also supports streaming for lower sample rates, due to large onboard memory (16M samples per channel) and RLE support, you can sample multiple seconds at 100MHz which is more than enough for my needs.Unfortunately, the trigger conditions are rather limited and the decoder is terribly slow (sample based instead of transition based) which makes it practicably unusable for decoding longer captures. Also the SW seems to be more or less abandoned. Which is a shame as the HW is really great for the money. It even has shielded probe cables.

author: Sigmoid
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2016, 10:07:57 am
content: Hm this is half the price of the ScanaPlus, even with import tax. For twice the channels. Nice.As for future insurance in software regards, Sigrok appears to support it, though I don't know about the extent of the support.

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2016, 11:58:36 am
content: Quote from: Sigmoid on July 16, 2016, 10:07:57 amThe HW is absolutely stunning for the price.Quote from: Sigmoid on July 16, 2016, 10:07:57 amThe DSView software is based on Sigrok - which actually causes the problem with the sample based ultra-slow decoder as far as I understand.Besides the SW is open source (even the VHDL/Verilog stuff for the FPGA). Then again, while this is great and all, someone would still have to do the work to rewrite all the protocol decoding stuff (and probably also the internal data representation) to make the decoder speed somewhat acceptable. Same is true for the trigger options. Going from ScanaStudio to DSView feels a bit like using the Open Bench Logic Sniffer again (especially regarding trigger options). Lots of promise but some things just never happened.Then again, at least the basic functions work reliably. This is nothing that I could say about ScanaStudio V2.4beta in the last months.

author: Sigmoid
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2016, 12:59:48 pm
content: Hm.By the way, anyone know of someplace where I can see the actual supported capabilities of each hardware in sigrok? "Supported" sounds reassuring, but it can mean a pretty wide spectrum of things...

author: stevenhoneyman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2016, 11:57:40 pm
content: Quote from: Sigmoid on July 16, 2016, 12:59:48 pmIn my experience - it means nothingI bought a "supported" logic analyzer...http://sigrok.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=748

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2016, 12:04:10 am
content: Yeah, "supported" means just "somewhat supported". E.g. the ScanaPlus is supported, but as far as I understand without any trigger possibilities.Other LAs are supported without RLE compression etc.

author: Sigmoid
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2016, 06:07:46 pm
content: Overall the communication of Ikalogic seems a lot more reassuring, even with the problems with the beta. True, the last stable version of ScanaStudio was released about a year ago, but the last COMMIT to DSView happened 7 months ago - wtf!The whole attitude of DS is wildly reminiscent of the clueless idiotic management chaos I'm quite familiar with from the inside, and I wouldn't bet a buck on them. (As for their shitty fork of Sigrok, and zero patch contribution to upstream, what was wrong with these people?!)Honestly, Saleae seems the only truly solid option - pretty awesome too with the analog capability and good support, but if I wanted to spend half grand, I'd probably buy a Rigol 1100Z+... Not many Saleae are for sale used either.

author: stevenhoneyman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2016, 06:11:36 pm
content: Anyone got an opinion on the Hantek 4032L? It boasts a couple of GB DDR2 sample memory which seems really rare.I can only find them to buy from China at the moment so haven't bought one yet (risk with the import tax...)

author: mrm2007
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2016, 04:10:04 pm
content: Quote from: stevenhoneyman on July 17, 2016, 06:11:36 pmHi,You can check this thread :https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hantek-ht4032l-logic-analyser/

author: stevenhoneyman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2016, 04:44:00 pm
content: I did, but it's very old and doesn't really come to any conclusions.

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2016, 07:07:31 pm
content: There are only 2 reviews available on Amazon, and they date back from 2013:https://www.amazon.com/Hantek%C2%AE-4032L-Analyzer-Channels-Memory/dp/B00CG49P90Both reviews are negative about the software. However, the software could have been improved in the mean time.It seems that the device is not supported yet by Sigrok:https://sigrok.org/wiki/Supported_hardware#Logic_analyzersBut they do have some information about it on their page, and somebody might be working on it:https://sigrok.org/wiki/Hantek_4032LMoreover, there seems to be an SDK available from Hantek. Could be interesting to look at!http://www.hantek.com/Product/HT4032/SDK.zipActually it might be a good idea, to choose a logic analyzer from the list of Sigrok supported devices:https://sigrok.org/wiki/Supported_hardware#Logic_analyzersThat is a better strategy. Instead of picking randomly a logic analyzer and hope that it is supported, just pick one that is already supported

author: 0xdeadbeef
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2016, 11:01:38 pm
content: Then again, as discussed before, "supported" doesn't mean the same as supported with all features or even usable.Also unless I'm proven otherwise, I'm pretty much sure that the super slow sample based decoding that plagues DSView was inherited from Sigrok.So unless that was vastly improved (like a speed up by a factor > 100), I consider it nearly useless for large sample buffers (like 100MSamples or more).

author: jjoonathan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2016, 11:25:31 pm
content: My experience with Hantek software is not excellent. I bought a DSO2150 ~7 years ago. Naturally the SW required XP (and did not deal well with compatibility mode), but that's not terribly out of place in the electronics world. They posted updates once every few years, but these had crippling bugs that indicate poor testing, for example they would post binaries linked against the debug versions of .NET libraries so old that you couldn't get them from microsoft and had to resort to sketchy "DLL repair" sites. Crashes, slowdowns, and stutters were not uncommon, and this was a DSO with performance requirements that amounted to drawing a squiggly line a handful of times per second.Contrast to Saleae, which eats timescale orders-of-magnitude for breakfast and runs like greased lightning on just about every OS/machine combo I've thrown at it.