Rigol 1054Z new user questions - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: WaveyDipole
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2016, 11:18:54 pm
content: I have recently acquired a brand new Rigol 1054Z oscilloscope. My previous working oscilloscopes were an analogue Hameg HM605 and Tektronix 465, so although I am familiar with the general workings of oscilloscopes, this is my first venture into the world of DSO scopes.I have familiarized myself with the instrument but reviewing the manual (yes I actually read them sometimes!). I have also set up the probes and carried out a self-calibration as well as installed, set up and tested the Ultra Sigma on both Windows 7 and Windows 10 using USB and Ethernet successfully. I recently used the instrument for the first time to observe some signals on an Arduino board while working with PWM. I am puzzled by some of the things I am seeing.The first observation that struck me was the thickness of the traces which seem quite thick in comparison to an analogue scope. The free running trace is much thicker than I expected.Secondly, the display has a flashing 'Auto' which cannot be turned off. Pressing the 'Auto' button turns it off momentarily, but it comes back on again after a few seconds. Applying a signal makes it change to T'D. Whereas I can see the usefulness of an auto-ranging feature, I am not a big fan of the scope trying to do its own thing and would rather like the option of taking control of the settings. Is there a way of turning Auto off?

author: Dubbie
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 20, 2016, 11:27:15 pm
content: the T'D means that you are seeing the waveform triggered by the trigger condition you have set up.If there isn't anything to trigger on, it switches to auto and just triggers by itself so that you can see what is going on, rather than just displaying a black screen.It doesn't have anything to do with autoranging.At least this is as far as I remember, I no longer have my Rigol.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2016, 11:32:45 pm
content: Dave did a video comparing digital and analog scopes. Watch it and don't worry about the thickness of traces.You can also adjust brightness level to make it a bit thinner if you want.

author: Fungus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2016, 11:34:04 pm
content: Quote from: WaveyDipole on December 20, 2016, 11:18:54 pmThat's normal on a DSO. It's actually a more true representation of high frequency noise present in the signal, something an analog scope is hiding from you. If you take a long exposure photograph of an analog screen you'll see thick traces too.Quote from: WaveyDipole on December 20, 2016, 11:18:54 pmIt flashes 'auto' when the trigger voltage level is outside the min/max range of the signal (ie. it can't trigger normally). When that happens it draws a line every now and again so you can see that the line is on screen.nb. It's nothing to do with the 'Auto' button.

author: PTR_1275
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2016, 11:36:39 pm
content: Yep, the Auto / t'd is the trigger (not auto scaling / auto ranging)If you press the trigger mode button it will change to normal mode and will display nothing on the screen until it gets a trigger. Press the button again it will go to single shot capture. Press it again and it will go back to auto.The auto mode is useful for getting something on the screen when a trigger event is not occurring. Quite often I'll leave it on auto mode to set up what I want, then change it to normal.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2016, 11:51:10 pm
content: Quote from: WaveyDipole on December 20, 2016, 11:18:54 pmWelcome to the world of DSO's.Nothing at all worrying about what you see, you need to get used to it.So no doubt you've used a CRO on Normal triggering, switch back to that if you don't like the Auto triggering and it won't be long until you get used to it.Now the Auto button is for Autoset where the DSO looks at the signal and sets the scopehow it thinks is best.Pay with it a bit for now, it'll help you get your head around the various things a DSO can do.

author: TheoB
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2016, 12:14:39 am
content: QuoteI had exactly the same experience. I disagree with the argument that you just "see more". That's partly the case if persistance is set to a high value or trace intensity is set to max. A DSO _can_ display more. In this case I feel it's the 8 bit resolution that is just less than what you were used to. You can improve things a bit by averaging or high-res mode acquisition. Still on a stable well triggered signal I see the digitizing artifacts. You get used to it

author: WaveyDipole
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2016, 12:20:58 pm
content: Thank you for the comments. It seems that I had mis-understood what Auto function the marked button was referring to. Setting the trigger voltage each time a signal was applied was one the first things I had to get used to. At first I couldn't understand why there was no triggering, but eventually realized that the trigger voltage is set to zero by default and it has to be turned up each time you connect a signal.Regarding the thickness of the trace, I have had a look at that video which I found very interesting and it makes sense. I will no doubt get used to it. I also found this video which gave a good overview of the features.https://youtu.be/W2qdtQkBKhcI only wish I could see him operate the controls so I could determine how he accessed some of those features. I guess its going to take a bit of time to get to grips with everything.While searching for a tutorial, I also found a spectrum analyser program for the DS1054Z:http://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/rigol-ds1054z-spectrum-analyzer-hack.146768/I will probably give this a go sometime.

author: Mitsch
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2016, 06:16:13 pm
content: Regarding the "thick traces" you maybe want to test the HighRes mode or use the average mode.

author: WaveyDipole
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2016, 08:26:32 pm
content: Quote from: Mitsch on December 21, 2016, 06:16:13 pmYes, thanks for that. I had a look at those modes tonight as well as the persistence and intensity options and can now appreciate the difference these make.Incidentally, I ran into another rather curious problem tonight.First let me mention that Dave discussed Ultrascope in his video and although he did not seem to like it much, I wanted to try it out so I installed it. Dave complained that the horizontal adjustments do not follow the usual 1:2:5 pattern which is true, but I found that it is possible to enter a value directly into the box and set it - one does not have to mess about with the vernier. It was also mentioned in the overview that the button to set the trigger to 50% is missing on the DS1054Z, it is present in the software although I'm not convinced that it works properly. It was while having a look around at this I discovered an odd problem.Using Ultrascope, I added a measurement from the left hand side and later went to delete it using the oscilloscope panel using Measure->Clear->Item1. I hit the button to delete. The measurement momentarily disappeared and I got the word 'Recover' followed by the measurement re-appearing! I also tried Measure->Clear->All items and tried setting Measure->Statistic to Off, but it also automatically comes back on again. On the features overview video I linked earlier, I saw Dave show these controls and the statistic could be turned off with no problem, so what was I missing?Well it turns out that the software was re-instating them automatically. The measurements first have to be turned off via the software, but this only removes them from the PC software window. They then have to be turned off again via the oscilloscope panel as normal, whereupon their status is set to recover. As soon as you add any other measurement - whether from the software or the scope - the new measurement and all previous ones re-appear, although you then have to press 'recover' to activate them. I find this behavior puzzling to say the least.

author: TheoB
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2016, 09:34:12 pm
content: I find myself deleting the measurements and then power cycle the scope. Only way to get rid of them. Top annoyance for me. Nobody wants to recover a measurement. The guy that invented this, does not use the scope