Rigol DS4014 decided it would be more fun to be a DS4054 - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: TommyGunn
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2012, 05:36:41 am
content: So I bought myself a Rigol DS4014 a couple of months ago and it has been fantastic to work with. Today was working with it normally and busy troubleshooting some power supply issues. Then I turned it off while i went to have some dinner and when I came back I found my signals for all the 4 inputs WAY off the scale in the negatives. I tried using the trusty old default button with no luck.The next thing i thought was a calibration issue. So i tried to do an auto calibration on one channel, however, it really insisted that i plug everything into the calibration port.I did see this before before it gave me the 'selfcal coonnection error!' message.As you can see the signal did actually centre properly for the short while before it realized i only had channel 1 connected to the calibration port.Anyway, I kept looking i just a little while ago I saw thisSo unless I have the first DS4000 series scope and it has been incorrectly badged as the DS4014 I think a eeprom or something has lost all the version info about the scope.Tomorrow I'm going to see if i can pick up a couple of bnc connectors and cables and see if i can calibrate it aswell as calling Rigol to see what the fastest way to get a scope in working condition again.anyone have any ideas what it could be?

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2012, 01:16:12 pm
content: That's odd, it does sound like an issue with the flash/eeprom config.Could be a BGA issue, if it lost a data line on the flash chip for example.101 (5) vs 001 (1) is only 1 bit different. (DS4014 vs DS4054)Have you tried leaving it to cool down for a few hours?Personally i wouldn't mention the change in model number when you talk to them.They might jump to the conclusion you were trying to hack the model number and refuse support.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2012, 03:32:27 pm
content: Neat feature : The Rigol DS4014 will turn into a 500MHz scope with no intuition required

author: TommyGunn
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2012, 04:33:58 pm
content: Quote from: Psi on July 17, 2012, 01:16:12 pmYeah I left it overnight with no luck.as for the model number i think ill just tell them that everything has returned to base valuesThese are some more values im getting.MAC Address: 47-47-47-47-47-47Serial: DS4A0000000001Software version: 00.00.03.SP1perhaps an eeprom with a built in MAC?does anyone know what the latest software version is out there?

author: TommyGunn
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2012, 04:37:09 pm
content: Quote from: DaveXRT on July 17, 2012, 03:32:27 pmHaha, perhaps it was detecting the pulses i was trying to measure were too high frequency and decided to help me out.

author: mukymuk
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2012, 05:16:02 pm
content: I have a DS4024. 00.00.03.SP1 is what I'm running. I've talked to rigol on a couple of occasions about some firmware bugs and they've never suggested there was a later version. They did indicate that a new rev is in the works though.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2012, 05:18:30 pm
content: I've asked this before, but I still don't know what the answer is... what is the point of making a 100MHz DSO like this 50-ohm input impedance? I don't even see the point of making 1GHz scopes 50-ohm... other than slightly decreasing the noise floor I can't see why this would help anything; it just makes the damn thing easier to overload.I notice on this guy it says 1M input resistance and right underneath it says 50 ohm?

author: KTP
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2012, 05:24:12 pm
content: Quote from: olsenn on July 17, 2012, 05:18:30 pmIt does seem a lot safer to self terminate to 50 ohms right at the BNC outside the scope and then leave the scope on 1M mode 300V input range...

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 17, 2012, 05:53:28 pm
content: Quote from: olsenn on July 17, 2012, 05:18:30 pmNormally it would be 1M ... then it has a switchable terminator ( i assume ) that is 50ohm ...Like the agilents

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 17, 2012, 11:18:14 pm
content: Quote from: olsenn on July 17, 2012, 05:18:30 pmDid you read my answer in one of the recent threads about the Jim Williams pulser? Do you still believe there is such a thing as 1 Mohm impedance at 1 GHz? Have you done the math to see what a cable with 1 Mohm characteristic impedance looks like so it can match this supposedly resistive 1 Mohm input impedance?Quote from: KTP on July 17, 2012, 05:24:12 pmExcept that this ~10 pF of parasitic capacitance in parallel with the 50 ohm terminator will screw up your impedance matching (50 ohm in parallel with 16 ohm at 1 GHz). Especially for fast signals, like the Jim Williams pulse generator that was recently discussed. This signal contains components well in excess of 1 GHz. VSWR is going to suck with that cap in parallel with your terminator.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2012, 12:42:02 am
content: QuoteI read it, but I don't understand the whole impedance matching thing... power doesn't need to be maximized; just enough power needs to get through for the device to accurately and precisely measure the frequency responce and relative amplitude. Obviously adding a 1M resistor in series with the signal input will greatly attenuate the signal (potential divider), but the instrument can calculate what the amplitude would be if that resistor wasn't there and display that for the user instead... just like using a 10x probe instead of a 1x one.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2012, 05:29:34 am
content: Quote from: olsenn on July 18, 2012, 12:42:02 amAt audio (or similar frequencies) in the past, power maximisation was what it was all about.Modern audio line amplifiers have enough power gain that they can afford to play fast & loose with impedance matching,so often amps have o/p Z of around 20 Ohms or so,& no effort is made to match them to the next device,which may be 600Ohms input Z,or 5kOhm or greater,with very little in the way of problems.At high frequencies,however,you can't get away with such tricks,as cable characteristics come into play.With an incorrect termination,the cable,from being an essentially passive player,gets involved as part of the circuit determining the resulting signal characteristics you will see with your 'scope.An incorrectly terminated length of cable may affect the amplitude & phase of various components of a complex signal,whereas a correctly terminated cable will show the original signal.Probes are designed to work around this problem to some extent,so as to make everyday circuit tracing/troubleshooting possible.There are,however,as others have said,severe limitations,because real 'scope input circuits cease to look like 1M Ohm,input Z,due to their inherent parallel capacitance.Those 'scopes with UHF capablility are designed to use 50 Ohms input Z from the outset,but usually,if an internal 50 Ohms termination is available at all on the types of Oscilloscopes that us lesser beings use,it is available by operating a switch.

author: Gunb
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2012, 07:35:49 am
content: Hi,I've got the DS4012 at the beginning of the year. I noticed a similar behaviour. When I powered it on, sometimes it reset to Chinese language and the bus decoder trial version restarted with 1950 minutes ;-)I've contacted German support and they've sent me the firmware that you're already running. After that both bugs did not occur anymore to this day. A few weeks ago I've found the bug with the cursor tracking measures and reported it also. They confirmed and told me that an update might take up to 2-3months.Maybe the bug is caused by a part of the firmware that is model-dependent, and your's simply not fixed. Anyway, your problem sounds a bit like the one I had before the current firmware. The latest firmware should be the one you've got on your scope. Support told me to contact me when new firmware is out, in particular because of the cursor tracking bug.By the way: I did have to calibrate after updating, too. For that purpose I had to press a few keys to enter calibration menu. For correct calibration all channels have to be connected with TNC part and the cal connector at the back of the scope, otherwise it will not calibrate.Maybe that helps a bit ;-)RgdsGunb

author: jahonen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2012, 07:55:57 am
content: Quote from: olsenn on July 18, 2012, 12:42:02 amBasically, it is all about "making cable parasitic properties to disappear" for measurement applications, not power transfer. When a transmission line is terminated to its characteristic impedance, it looks resistive at all frequencies (with some caveats but let's not go in there now). So we can put those otherwise parasitic things to play for our favor if we pay the price of having relatively low input impedance. So it makes it possible to get much flatter frequency response extending to much higher frequencies that would be otherwise possible, basically limited only by skin-effect and dielectric losses.Of course, if things get fast enough so that wavelength is short compared to transverse dimensions of the cable, then there will be waveguide modes but that does not happen for normal coaxial cables until far above 10 GHz or so. So don't worry about it at least for casual digital stuff yet. There one must use smaller-diameter coax if higher frequency or fast edge operation with pure TEM mode is desired. For typical RF/microwave applications this is still no problem since the required bandwidth is usually small around high center frequency so that all relevant frequencies use same mode. For digital applications which require "DC-to-light" bandwidth, having non-TEM modes can be a problem since different modes have different propagation velocities, so signal edges start to suffer from dispersion (ringing etc).Regards,Janne

author: TommyGunn
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2012, 08:35:26 am
content: Quote from: Gunb on July 18, 2012, 07:35:49 amWhat is the procedure to upgrade? can you do it yourself or do I have to send it in?Also according to my calibration certificate it was calibrated with a Fluke 9500b, I'd like to have it recalibrated with good equipment.Is a Fluke 9500b complete overkill for a mere 100Mhz scope? Is the internal Calibration connector good enough?Thanks a bunch!

author: Gunb
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2012, 09:58:06 am
content: Hi,I don't know it by heart, but I will have a look how to do it in the late evening when I'm home. Yes, you can do it yourself.I think, it must be differed between the selfcal that can be done with many scopes and calibration that has to be done with more accurate devices.For the case we are talking about the internal calibration should be sufficient, anyway it was the recommendation of the support engineer after flashingthe firmware. Either using the connector at the back or an external function generator.I assume the Fluke is used for the base of the selfcal unit of the scope, that should not be influenced and concluding selfcal should be sufficient.You will need a BNC cable for each channel and TNC connectors to connect all channels in parallel to the cal connector at the back of the scope. The scope will check ifall channels are connected at once, otherwise it will not start calibration. Because low frequency signal is applied by the cal unit special matching with splitters seems not to be necessary.As far as I can remember the Ext. Trigger input has to be connected, too. So try to provide a cable & TNC for that input, too.Not difficult to do, very easy.2nd: I'm not quite right if I understand you're question right. Do you mean upgrade or update? If you mean updating the scope with a new firmware, than my answer might be the following:you'll need a special file - think the extension is *.rel - and store it on a stick. As far as I can remember it must plugged in before power-on and is detected automatically after powering on the scope at boot time. Then the update process starts and firmware is going to be flashed.RgdsGunb

author: Gunb
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2012, 08:06:55 pm
content: Hey TommyGunn,I've just had a look into the details and as described here are the steps to get into selfcal-mode:1. Start the scope2. Press MENU in the TRIGGER control area3. Type in the function menu and select "Edge" (if already active, choose another one to go back to "Edge" - my experience if it should not work)4. Press the function keys F7, F6, F7 and then press the key UTILF6 and F7 are the lower two keys on the right of the display.After pressing UTIL you should see menu "Self-Cal" at softkey F6. If you press it, the screen you've posted at the beginning should appear.Let me know if you could reproduce the steps I've listed.Opposed to my first note the firmware files have got the extension *.GELKind regardsGunb

author: drieg
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 01, 2012, 07:23:36 am
content: Unfortunately this is a known issue of 00.00.03 and 00.00.03.SP1 firmware versions. Model specific information (model, sn) and also some calibration data gets rewritten after unit tries to write some data info flash. The problem can be triggered by the firmware update, running the Self-Cal or even saving Setups into internal memory. Anybody with this FW versionDO NOT TRY ANY OF THESE ACTIONS !!!Once your unit got reseted into DS4054, SN:DS4A0000000001, it won't operate correctly anymore, you have to send it back to Rigol for the repairUPDATE:The issue should be fixed in FW 00.00.04.00.01

author: egor_ti-tec
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 14, 2012, 10:54:06 am
content: I have the same problem this RIGOL DS4024. After his reset to DS4054 come some bugs this trigger system and some little bugs this other systems.The bandwidth and rise-fall times become as a 500MHZ oscilloscope.The wide bandwidth is certainly good but bugs this trigger is very bad for using DSO.I hope that RIGOL produce new firmware for fix this bugs.

author: petitegayolle
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 07, 2012, 12:03:43 pm
content: I alse have the same problem. I have just received my new Rigol DS4014. I have save and recall a setup file into the internal memory. Then after a power down - power up, the vertical offset of all channels was totally uncalibrated. Internal flash memory calibrations factors and all configuration parameters are lost. The DS4014 is become a DS4054 and serial number 000001.

author: tlu
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 07:02:33 pm
content: Could a ds4014 really become a ds4054 with software mod?

author: salvix
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 14, 2013, 06:28:08 am
content: Quote from: Gunb on July 18, 2012, 09:58:06 amHello Gunb,How did you connect the 5 cables in parallel to the back of the scope?Did you find an adaptor or some splitter box?I'm looking for a "5 BNC to 1 TNC" but can't find it anywhere. I've looked for 5 BNC to 1 BNC (and then I'd just use a BNC->TNC adaptor), but can't find that either.Or did you just use a chain of "T" BNC connectors like these atto run them all in parallel?Thank you!

author: iDevice
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2013, 04:49:36 pm
content: You only need BNC cables, no TNC.You can use T's like the one you showed, as long as you assemble them all together starting from the trig out at the rear and you take care of having the same path length for each cable going to the front panel inputs.That means that one of you cable will be a few centimeters longer than the 4 others because it will connect to the first T while all others will be connected to the 3rd rank T's of the cascade. (you will need one T to connect to one of the female of the first one and 2 other T's connected to the 2 female of this 2nd T, the fifth cable being connected on the remaining female of the first T)So the fifth cable has to compensate exactly the length introduced by the 2nd and 3rd level of T's in the cascade.An alternative is to buy 6 PCB female BNC connectors and solder them on a prototyping board, then connect 5 of these female connectors in parallel with equivalent length short cable to the last female BNC and then run 5 very short cables of same length to the imput and a last longer cable to the rear connector.This setup is actually what the RIGOL calibration kit looks like.

author: salvix
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 24, 2013, 12:47:25 am
content: Thanks for the reply, iDevice!You're right, I've just received my DS4014 and it indeed uses only BNC.I've tried looking for the Rigol calibration kit in the US but no one sells it. I've asked Tequipment and Rigol North America themselves, and they will start selling it next year (ETA January). I'll wait for that instead of messing with making my own cable for now

author: alex.forencich
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2013, 09:59:11 pm
content: The self cal setup for Agilent scopes is the same (at least for the 6000 and 7000 series) - connect the trigger out to all four channels with three BNC tees and five short BNC cables. Just make sure all of the path lengths from the trigger out to all four channels are the same.

author: iDevice
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2013, 10:24:16 pm
content: Quote from: salvix on December 24, 2013, 12:47:25 amI would have suggest you to buy the kit from Batronix, but I just noticed they ran off stock and await a new batch in more than 21 days, which is not good as they just got a large delivery of Rigol stuff including probably a large inventory of DS-1000Z and DP-800 because they still have stock after a week, which is ... amazing as last stock lasted only a couple of hours.So, that probably means the factory has run out as well in china and everyone has to wait till they produce a new batch and that could be unpredictably long.This kit costs 40$, so it's cheap if you factor the PCB and the decent quality BNC connectors, but you can easily build it yourself like I said earlier, although not at that price if you use relatively good connectors.