eBay clone Saleae Logic 16

[cdev]

As far as I can tell the download that contains the "fwextract" script you are trying to use is not part of Sigrok's actual release,

"sigrok-util is in development and has not yet had official tarball releases.

Distro packagers should NOT package this, yet."

It isnt part of the sigrok packages.

I know I have never used or needed "fwextract".

I had never heard of it before now. You may be trying to install the wrong software.

You likely just want the generic FX2LP logic analyzer firmware.

[phil from seattle]

As far as I can tell the download that contains the "fwextract" script you are trying to use is not part of Sigrok's actual release,

"sigrok-util is in development and has not yet had official tarball releases.

Distro packagers should NOT package this, yet."

It isnt part of the sigrok packages.

I know I have never used or needed "fwextract".

I had never heard of it before now. You may be trying to install the wrong software.

You likely just want the generic FX2LP logic analyzer firmware.

Yes, and how do you get the firmware binaries?  If you know where to get them, please enlighten us. Everything I've read says use the extract python script. There are a couple of firmware projects to build redistributable FOSS binaries but I've not been able to get them to work. 

[cdev]

There is no firmware on fx2lp devices, as far as I know.

You can download a blob from sigrok which is not installed on your device. Its installed in a directory on your computer and uploaded to it at runtime.

Thats the magic of the fx2 chips, they are a blank canvas waiting to be told to do things. Thats why they are so flexible.

Download the git repository, enter the directory,

cd sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

You may need some prerequisites, for example, the usual build stuff.


Its not at all difficult to install the debs OR build it from source using the git repository, which I prefer because they keep adding new decoders to it.

Although I suspect its unlikely - because the fx2 hardware just boots and loads whats presented to it to load, there is I suppose a possibility he could brick his hardware by running the wrong script if it was able to write to the thing permanently.

But actually, I don't think thats possible.  I don't think the fx2 works that way.

[phil from seattle]

OK, I used the term firmware where you use the term blob. The point is that for the logic16 clones, there is no blob/firmware distributed. You have to extract it out of the Saleae binaries.

[cdev]

Miraculoso!

 Somehow I seem to have built firmware for my LA that comes in both flavors!

I have done no extractions, ever.

[phil from seattle]

Dig around the sigrok/pulseview wikis. It's also linked above. I didn't go screwing around with this extract crap for fun, yaknow..

[cdev]

Could you provide a screenshot, and upload it here?

[phil from seattle]

this is getting tedious. look at what has been posted. the firmware/blobs are named differently.  and, it's hard to track what you are saying when you edit and significantly change your posts.

[CustomEngineerer]

for what it's worth, I got the same version error on the windows version of pulseview.

I don't think buying a program that works is a bad idea, but I want to use pulseview as it is clearly superior.  Instead of buying software, I would buy HW that will definitely work with pulseview and call the logic16 clone a FAIL. The dreamsourcelab DSLogic16 looks pretty nice, goes up to 400 MHz and isn't super expensive. Going down market the various Saleae Logic8 clones are super cheap and seem to work.

Had been using one of the super cheap (<$10) logic8 clones with Pulseview for around 6 months, but it just seemed lacking. Decided I wanted something a little more capable around Christmas time. I didn't want to spend too much on it though, so I finally decided on the DSLogic Plus (dreamsourcelab still lists it as the Pro on their site, but it really is the newer Plus version). It arrived today so I've only had a few hours to play around with it, but so far it really seems like its going to be a very nice upgrade over the logic8 clone. I know DSView is based off of Pulseview, but the dreamsourcelabs guys have added some nice additional (and useful) features to DSView.

[g0mgx]

Miraculoso!

 Somehow I seem to have built firmware for my LA that comes in both flavors!

I have done no extractions, ever.

Can you send me your files?

Mark
G0MGX

[phil from seattle]

@CustomEngineer, You got the non-pro version? That's the one I'm thinking of getting.  Have you tried stock pulseview with it?

@G0mgx, hope those work for you.  I'm skeptical because the size is different.

[cdev]

I don't need to, you can download the exact same thing right here:

https://sigrok.org/download/binary/sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw/sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw-bin-0.1.5.tar.gz

The source code - if you want to build t (follow the same sequence of commands as I did above) is at

https://sigrok.org/download/source/sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw/sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw-0.1.5.tar.gz

If you want to build it yourself, thats good but if you are using a raspberry pi, I would use an external USB disk a real hard disk and not a flash disk for your software building. Any real hard drive that works will do, make sure it has enough power- you likely will need to use an external powered hub. Just create a folder called build and I also create subfolders for the program and all associated stuff.

That is because flash memory doesn't like lots of small writes- it wears it out before its time.

If you're going to use Linux, you should learn how to build your own software, its one of the most fun and useful things about the platform.

"git" is a revision control system that programmers use to manage the cooperative development of software.

It was written by Linus Torvalds, the original author of Linux.

So if you are on Linux, you start out on Debian by installing "build-essential" and "git" - you will also need the prerequisites they tell you for each individual piece of software.

You will also need to UNINSTALL, all the partial pieces of other related tools. I would uninstall them, remove them completely.

Miraculoso!

 Somehow I seem to have built firmware for my LA that comes in both flavors!

I have done no extractions, ever.

Can you send me your files?

Mark
G0MGX

[abraxa]

I know you mean well cdev, but unfortunately, what you suggest doesn't work. For the Saleae Logic16 clones, fx2lafw doesn't offer any firmware. Instead, the sigrok-fwextract-saleae-logic16 has to be used to extract the firmware from the Saleae Logic client. This is obviously not ideal for copyright reasons. If I remember correctly, there are two open-source firmwares available as well but I don't have the URLs at hand.

g0mgx, did you try running sigrok-fwextract-saleae-logic16 again with parseelf.py and the Saleae Logic application in place?

[g0mgx]

I don't need to, you can download the exact same thing right here:

Thanks cdev

I've done a few things:

installed openssh so I can use putty to get a terminal window on my Debain PC from my Windows environment
Downloaded the archive you highlighted containing the source
Built the firwmare from source (having installed the dependencies)



So I think that's all worked OK and if nothing else I've learned a whole load 

But now, when I start the pulseview application I dont see any of the error messages I was seeing before, the device just isn't listed in the application drop down.

Feels like I am close but not quite there.

Mark
G0MGX

[g0mgx]

g0mgx, did you try running sigrok-fwextract-saleae-logic16 again with parseelf.py and the Saleae Logic application in place?

Yes - it says: Error : gLogic16HexFileLineCount

I also need to correct this statement: But now, when I start the pulseview application I don't see any of the error messages I was seeing before, the device just isn't listed in the application drop down.

Not true - the error message is exactly the same as it was before, the file in the pulseview application error (what it is looking for) is "saleae-logic16-fx2.fw" but the closest thing I have generated is called "fx2lafw-saleae-logic.fw"

Shall I copy one to t'other?

It feels like the fundamental problem here is that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing!

Mark
G0MGX

[cdev]

I'm sorry.

I am going to bow out of this conversation.

I just don't have the time or energy for this right now.

There are hundreds, likely of different FX2 based devices, dev boards, MSOs, LA's etc, - some cost less than $5, that work fine without any extracting of anything or downloading of anything proprietary. They don't need it.

This is demonstrated by the inclusion of the sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw in the main Debian distribution. (not something that ever happens for non-free software)

It wouldn't be there if it contained any proprietary firmware. 
I have never needed to do anything like you are describing.

If you have questions, you should email Uwe Hermann <uwe@debian.org>

who is the Debian package maintainer.  He is also a user here, offhand I don't know his user name.

You shouldn't buy products that claim to be something they aren't.  Ebay's policy is to not carry counterfeited products if they are made aware of it.

If you try to install another manufacturers firmware on a product thats not theirs, you're not unlikely to brick it. 

Since you use Windows, which attempts to "update" things, maybe you already did?

Here is the description of the sigrok firmware.

"Firmware for Cypress FX2(LP) based logic analyzers
sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw is an open-source (GPLv2+) firmware, 
implemented from scratch, that allows you to use almost 
any device or eval board that has a Cypress FX2(LP) chip 
as a logic analyzer via libsigrok (and a suitable frontend)."

[phil from seattle]

I know you mean well cdev, but unfortunately, what you suggest doesn't work. For the Saleae Logic16 clones, fx2lafw doesn't offer any firmware. Instead, the sigrok-fwextract-saleae-logic16 has to be used to extract the firmware from the Saleae Logic client. This is obviously not ideal for copyright reasons. If I remember correctly, there are two open-source firmwares available as well but I don't have the URLs at hand.

g0mgx, did you try running sigrok-fwextract-saleae-logic16 again with parseelf.py and the Saleae Logic application in place?

I've tried both of the open source firmwares (is that actually a word?) and not had good luck.  One of them gets past the bitstream version check but still doesn't work (get's "failed to init").

The heart of the problem is that there are multiple versions of the "Saleae Logic16" clones. The one I have (got late in 2017) is different from all the ones shown in the pulseview/sigrok wikis. It has the same rounded case as all the others but the PCB is different (FPGA is on the bottom). I don't understand why the Saleae software (aka Logic) works and pulseview doesn't. If I was sufficiently motivated, I'd dig into the sigrok source and relax the bitstream load code. I can see where they look for the 0x40 version in other places so it probably would work. Would have to set up a linux build machine. Too many other projects though. maybe someday.

[CustomEngineerer]

@CustomEngineer, You got the non-pro version? That's the one I'm thinking of getting.  Have you tried stock pulseview with it?

I got the DSLogic Plus version. It is essentially the new version of the Pro model. If you order it directly from dreamsourcelabs, their webpage is way out of date and still shows that they are selling the Pro version (by name and the picture is of the older Pro as well) for $99. However, if you order it, you end up with the newer Plus version. I can't remember where I found exactly what the differences are between the Pro and Plus, but the most obvious is the newer grabber wire harnesses (Pro had single wire harness with all 20? together, Plus has 4 sets of 4 coax cables with ground for each input).

Stock PulseView doesn't seem to want to work with the version I got (it had been working fine with the cheap logic8 clone I had been using). Whenever I select the DSLogic device in Pulseview, it just hangs. I'm assuming the DSLogic device driver is probably for the older model, and thats why its hanging. I didn't try anything else with Pulseview once i started playing around with DSView.

I had also been looking at the other DSLogic's being sold on ebay before deciding to risk it and order directly from dreamsourcelabs (considering they still showed the older Pro version). There were generally 3 versions being shown on ebay.
1) The ones with the older style single wire harness that were typically over $100 USD. Seemed like these were probably the older Pro version.
2) $60 - $80 USD, called the Plus version, showed the Plus version separate wire harnesses. Some claim to come with the on board memory like the real Plus does, other don't. I'm pretty sure these are all the non-Pro, non-Plus version. I saw multiple people who took a chance on one of these that claimed to come with the on board memory, but when they received it, it was not.
3) $95 - $125 USD, also called the Plus version, also showing the separate wire harnesses. Pretty sure these (at least mostly) were the actual Plus versions.

I also saw several reports that the only difference between 2 and 3 was whether the on board memory was actually in place, and everything else about them was the same. Several people reported ordering the $60 - $80 version, and ordering and installing a $4 - $10 memory chip from Mouser/Digikey to essentially make it identical to the real Plus version. Though I have no first hand experience with that part, so couldn't say for sure.

[abraxa]

g0mgx, did you try running sigrok-fwextract-saleae-logic16 again with parseelf.py and the Saleae Logic application in place?

Yes - it says: Error : gLogic16HexFileLineCount

Ow. They recently switched up their application and our script doesn't yet know how to handle it, my apologies.

Please use the Logic executable from http://downloads.saleae.com/logic/1.2.10/Logic+1.2.10+(64-bit).zip - this one works.

After creating the .fw files, please copy them to /usr/local/share/sigrok-firmware with sudo (you may have to create the directory first).

Thanks for your patience.

[phil from seattle]

Abraxa, thanks for taking the time to help. I appreciate it and I am sure others do as well.

I use Logic 1.2.10 64bit that you linked to, do the extract and drop the files into the sigrok directory. When I run pulseview, I get an invalid bitstream version error (0x41 != 0x10). That is followed by "Failed to init device".  I started pulseview with logging level 5 and can see the bitstream files are getting loaded OK. Pretty much stuck at this point.

[1anX]

I took CustomEngineerer's advice and just ordered the the DSLogic Plus ($US99).
My clone Saleae Logic 16 just was not fast enough for some of my projects but worked really well within its limits and with the Saleae software.
The DSLogic Plus works with its own software for multiple platforms and also with PulseView check out indepth tear down and review if interested here

 

Using PulseView with the DSLOgic Plus here

[CustomEngineerer]

I'm only on my third evening with the DSLogic Plus, but so far I have not had a single problem with it. It just works (no crashes or hangs). And the coax connector seemingly solved a problem I had been having with logic8 clone trying to reliably capture a working signal from a nrf24l01+ module. Definitely money well spent.

[Monkeh]

I'm sorry.

I am going to bow out of this conversation.

I just don't have the time or energy for this right now.

There are hundreds, likely of different FX2 based devices, dev boards, MSOs, LA's etc, - some cost less than $5, that work fine without any extracting of anything or downloading of anything proprietary. They don't need it.

The Seleae Logic 16 and clones thereof are not basic FX2 devices. There is an FPGA inside which requires firmware. They are not comparable to the Logic 8 and various other effectively application-note devices.

[kloetpatra]

can someone make a dump of the spi flash of the saleae logic 16 or clone?

[Dwaine]

I'm only on my third evening with the DSLogic Plus, but so far I have not had a single problem with it. It just works (no crashes or hangs). And the coax connector seemingly solved a problem I had been having with logic8 clone trying to reliably capture a working signal from a nrf24l01+ module. Definitely money well spent.

+1  for the Dialogic. Plus.  Been using one for about two months.  A bit more money, but I had no problems with my captures.  Been working well.