Siglent SDS1104X-E its not going as planned. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: Electroplated
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2022, 04:37:26 pm
content: Sigh, took delivery of a new Siglent SDS1104X-E and I am already having problems, though it could be me....The scopes in the default settings, out of the box, boots fine, got the hang of the layout and had a play with it , yeah its ok but its really slow to capture signals if set for 500ms and it does sod all if I set the sweep to 1s, its difficult to describe but here goes.I have a 10hz clock, trigger is on auto or normal or single, same issue on all three settings, I set the horizontal to 100ms and can see the waveform but its very slow to show and update. Thinking this was odd I lowered the horizontal to 500ms and the trace shrunk but it took a good 15 seconds to update, set the horizontal to 1s and the trace shrinks again but never updates, Odd.So disconnect the scope lead, do a default setting and try to get a sweep at 1s, cant, no trace, I expected it to slowly sweep from left to right as my older siglent does, not this one, I can play with the input signals, the trigger levels till my hearts content and for a full 2 hours I could not get a trace to show if the horizontal is set to 1s or less.I cant find anything on the forum about this so does anyone have any suggestions, I don't mind if someone points out this is a user error with this scope, though I will kick myself if its me.Firmware and hardware versionssoftware 6.1.37R8boot 8.3Hardware version 09.06First image, a 1hz sine, took some 6 seconds to kindly show up on the 500ms setting, turned horizontal to 1s and the trace never updated, waited 3 minutes and nothing so gave up waiting, rebooted the scope, set the defaults button, set horizontal to 1s and cant get a trace no matter what I try.Also, is it normal for the bnc sockets on these to get warm, as in 42c with in ten minutes, its something I noticed when changing probes.Dragged out my older siglent and went through the exact same procedure and had no issues at all, so much for upgrading !EDIT... RTFM !PAGE 37 ROLL MODE:In Roll mode the waveform moves slowly across the screen from right to left. It onlyoperates on time base settings of 50 ms/div and slower. If the current time basesetting is faster than the 50 ms/div limit, it will be set to 50 ms/div when Roll modeis entered.Well there it is, in the book, unless I want to wait all day for the buffer to fill up, so I gave it ago, 50ms to 200ms, roll mode, its fecking weird, more like a chart recorder than a scope so that's going to take some getting used to, at this point I feel like a idiot and am going red faced, very red faced.Move on down to 500ms, 1s and lower and nuthin, just a nice shunk partial trace or a blank screen. Move around the menus and its very laggy, I have measurements off, tried memory depth down to the lowest at 14k, its still laggy, disappointingly so, is this normal for this model ?----

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2022, 08:34:26 pm
content: So when not in Roll mode is it operating as you expect ?FYI, there are 2 Roll modes in these, an Auto Roll mode that you have found in the manual that is automatically engaged below 50ms/div and the dedicated Roll mode that is engaged with the Roll button below the timebase encoder.With the dedicated Roll mode a trace becomes visible immediately after it's engaged and slowly fills the display and this Roll mode better duplicates CRO slow timebase settings rather that Auto Roll mode that waits for the display buffer to be filled before pushing the trace to the display.

author: Electroplated
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2022, 09:31:54 pm
content: Hi tautech,The manuals description for roll mode is a little basic, luckily Performa01 created an entire review of this scope as a set of pdf's, I printed the lot off, wife's still mad because I used most of the paper, anyway I sat in front of the scope and went over it all again.If I set it for 50ms then it works as as I expect, go below that and roll mode is active and I can up and down the horizontal settings while in auto roll, however if I turn off roll mode to return to the normal mode, it does not acquire at all, it either holds part of the previous trace or there is no trace, I gather in normal non roll mode the buffer fills and then presents the data as a trace, well I get the acquiring overlay but it just repeats, no matter what signal I apply. I know filling the buffer takes time and is slow but once the acquiring is over, there is no screen update.While in this state if I manually activate roll mode, I get roll mode BUT the scope is rather sluggish. I found if I twiddle the horizontal to anything over 50ms, it goes in to normal mode and recovers from the lag I am seeing that effects menus and settings, there is a distinct lag.To compound this issue the dam thing doesn't always do this, it seems to be a little random.At present I am leaning towards reinstalling the firmware or updating it and go from there because it appears everything works until roll mode comes into play, though I have looked at the update notes for the firmware and cant find anything that seems related to this and I cant think of any other reason for this to happen.Ignoring that, I'm enjoying playing with it, a lot is different from my older Siglent and will take some getting used to butPerforma01 review has helped a lot, I'm sailing though the phone directory sized print off and I get it, sometimes you can read something over and over and it doesn't sink it, this guys nailed that !( Edit for clarity.)--

author: Electroplated
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 13, 2022, 02:26:33 pm
content: Update and thank gawd, panic over.I've updated the firmware to 6.1.37R9 ( from 6.1.37R8 that was installed at delivery.Was somewhat confused about the boot OS version 2 but I have 8.3 so I take it that is the latest V2, hope so because I tried to load 8.3 at boot and it did not update, probably a version check during boot was calling me an idiot, I agree.After updating the firmware and doing a cal I can not reproduce the original problem with the roll mode at all, roll mode comes on if I go below 50ms and goes off when above 50ms automatically, unless I manually turn it off.Had a darned good play with the scope and from what I can see, there is sod all wrong with it now. Its nice to see the screen overlays are still present when a screenshot is saved to USB, my old Siglent often saved just the trace, still does, I had both side by side to compare that function.The only downside is the supplied probes never came with bnc adapters, just springs, I use bnc a lot and its handy so I'm using the testec probes I bought years ago, they have the bnc adapters, as did a old 60Mhz probe from the 80's, bean counters shaving off a few cents, sheesh.--

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2022, 01:43:26 am
content: Quote from: Electroplated on August 13, 2022, 02:26:33 pmIn the Display menu there will be selections of Graticule types and a brightness control that I normally set to ~60% for the graticule to show up well when posted here. Pretty sure your CNL graticule menu will have the wrong one set as one version only showed a border and zero reference lines within it.QuoteYep, the PP510 100 MHz probes don't come with BNC adapters whereas PP215 200 MHz probes and above do.

author: Electroplated
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2022, 01:23:52 pm
content: HI tautech,Thanks for the tip about the Graticule settings, handy to know what settings you use to get results on posted images.Bit miffed about the lack of bnc adapters, I have a few probes that have them, heck had my bench dragged out a few weeks ago and found the two I had lost.--

author: epsilon888
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 15, 2022, 02:45:22 pm
content: If you want to "upgrade" to SDS1202X-E (they have the same hardware and firmware), let me know by sending a PM.

author: Electroplated
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2022, 05:20:04 pm
content: That's handy to know, I've lost count of the number of times I have lost valid keys and licenses, recovering them is a god send to those of us aging folk who become more forgetful as the years advanceBesides that, if your in still in tesco, don't forget the nice bread I like.......oh and cat food.Opps, sorry, thought this was wotsitapp for a moment

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 15, 2022, 08:35:48 pm
content: Quote from: epsilon888 on August 15, 2022, 02:45:22 pmFFS please at least get the model correct......that hardly installs confidence in your help to 'upgrade' a scope.Quote from: Electroplated on August 15, 2022, 01:23:52 pmDon't be, I don't ever remember them coming with 100 MHz probes.Even the Pintek 10x sense probes, their top 100 MHz model that we get as alternatives don't have BNC adapters with any of their 100 MHz probes.

author: Electroplated
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2022, 07:14:06 am
content: Hi tautech,May have used the wrong word there, best read that as miffed ( got a load of bnc connectors and various types of coax but cant be ars*d to make cables and is to mean to considering buying ready made ones )Anyway, today's exercise will be further reading up on this scope, spending more time in front of it now that I have my wife sedated, she saw the scope at boot going through the self test, saw the button light show and instantly thought of Christmas lighting displays...I may even consider upgrading the scope to a different model