Are there per chance any tutorials for this? I searched around around but didn't really find anything useful.
Its not a particularly difficult process. If you get
this DSLogic Basic ($69) it comes with a pretty weak 256 KB waveform storage memory. However, you can buy the memory chip used in the more expensive models (like
this DSLogic Plus ($115)) from Mouser at this link:
MT48LC16M16A2TG-6A IT:GTR by Alliance Memory ($3.36). Note: the chip was a little more expensive than I initially mentioned, but its still less than $5.
Once you have the RAM chip, unscrew the case, take the mainboard out, and you'll notice that there is an unpopulated region on the board that fits the memory chip you just bought. Line up the pins, make sure the chip is in the right orientation (the orientation is indicated on the board) and then solder the pins into place (see attached photos for difference between Basic and Plus models). You'll need to practice your SMD soldering, the pins are pretty small. But its really not too hard, and the functionality you gain makes this device pretty world class for the price.
In general these devices all have the same sample rate - 400 MS/s when sampling with 4 channels - however the effect of this sample rate is severely limited if you run out of onboard buffer memory. 256 KB fills up fast when you are clocking data in at 400 MHz on 4 channels, which means that if you want to take a trace that is more than a few microseconds long at the full sample rate you will need more onboard memory. This is because the device switches to streaming mode when it fills the onboard memory, and the streaming mode has a maximum sample rate of less than 100 MS/s for more than 3 channels of simultaneous readings. So, bigger onboard memory = faster data acquisition and longer traces before streaming mode limits you. This limitation is basically removed when you do the upgrade from 256 KB to 256 MB of onboard memory, as you can read in approximately 160 milliseconds of waveforms on all 4 channels at 400 MHz with the 256 MB of onboard memory, whereas you could only read in at most 160
microseconds of waveforms on 4 channels with the stock 256 KB of onboard memory at max bandwidth.
My experience with sigrok's pulseview was pretty smooth, it wasn't bothered by the fact that what it knows is a DSLogic Basic has 1000 times the onboard memory than what it was expecting, and it recorded the traces in buffered mode just fine without issues with the software. It also functions just fine in streaming mode as well. Make sure you build sigrok using the linux build instructions on the sigrok website, rather than installing from a PPA or using a package manager. It makes things go much more smoothly on the setup.
Here's a link to the EEVBlog forum thread on this whole subject for your own reference. You can probably ignore the part about the software compatibility with the modified Basic version of the device. The software didn't cause me any problems.
Good luck, and let me know how it goes!
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