The Rigol DS1052E

[Simon]

is all this being done with software provided on the original cd ?

That is one way, though there are simpler.

from the commands manual I downloaded do I correctly understand that the whole scope can be command line controlled from a pc as it would from it's own control panel ? and of course for doing things like this

Yes, that is correct.  I think you're still making this out to be far more difficult than it needs to be, thinking you need to "program" something.  Assuming you have a serial cable, and HyperTerminal on your PC (comes standard on all WinBoxes), just download these instructions on how to use HyperTerminal to send text commands back and forth to your Rigol.  No special software required... just a simple terminal emulator.  And all the required settings you'll need to use it (setting baudrate, etc.) are described in the Rigol manual referenced.

- Mark

Hi mark, yes I have understood for a while now that it is not a reprogramming thing required but simply talking to the scope via a command line and I'm familiar with dos so won't be too hard when I get the app up and running and have some time to take a peak. would you reccomend modding the hardware too ?

[Mark_O]

As for the LA module - yes, it's also possible to turn DS1000E into DS1000D but you have to build not only external, but also internal LA module with ALTERA FPGA and ISSI SRAM...

Drieg, thanks very much for this!  So the LA functions require an extra daughter-card, which duplicate some of the scope functionality with a parallel Cyclone and 1Meg RAM buffer.  The card apparently has a connector on the bottom that mates with the 40-pin header on the PCB, a standoff supports the other end of the card, and the 68-line cable from the front SCSI connector runs to a connector on the daughter-card.  Makes sense.

One thing I was never able to figure out is if all it took for the LA was a ribbon cable going from 68-pins on the front to 40-pins on the PCB, where was the extra Meg of RAM for the 16 logic channels coming from?  The 2 analog channels already were using the full Meg of onboard RAM in LongMemory mode, and the LA can be used in conjunction with that, for full 18 channel captures.  That resolves that mystery.

One final question... where does the Reference Memory come from?  I've copied up to a Meg into there at times.

- Mark

[Mark_O]

would you reccomend modding the hardware too ?

Would I?  Just my personal opinion, but no, I wouldn't.  A lot of effort, and potentially some risk, for minimal extra gain.  While I understand and respect flolic's rationale, and have no argument with it whatsoever, there are times when I actually do want to bandwidth limit the input signal, to clean up HF noise that can interfere with the signal I'm trying to see.  I'd prefer not to throw that capability away.  YMMV.

- Mark

[Simon]

Mark those instructions seem to relate to the RS232 connector, will it all work with USB as well by choosing different ports ? can't wait to hook the scope up and start playing.

[Simon]

Mark those instructions seem to relate to the RS232 connector, will it all work with USB as well by choosing different ports ? can't wait to hook the scope up and start playing.

yea i think I'd agree there

[JimBeam]

One final question... where does the Reference Memory come from?  I've copied up to a Meg into there at times.

Maybe the second half of the flash?

[Mark_O]

Mark those instructions seem to relate to the RS232 connector,

Yes, that is correct.  I thought that using serial (RS232) might be a lot simpler for you, since it already provides a straightforward, line-oriented interface.  And no special software is needed, beyond any terminal emulator.  So less to have to worry about.

will it all work with USB as well by choosing different ports?

Umm, no.  USB is a fairly generalized mechanism, that allows for packet-level data exchanges.  When you plug a Rigol in via USB, it won't just show up as another serial port.  That's why you need both an interface driver (DLL) to talk to it (on the USB side); and an Application of some kind, to send your command lines to and from the driver.  While in the end, they both wind up doing exactly the same thing, RS232 is a lot easier (and USB is a lot faster).  We're lucky that Rigol provides both.  (And as standard, not-extra cost options, like some other vendors.)

- Mark

[drieg]

One final question... where does the Reference Memory come from?  I've copied up to a Meg into there at times.

Maybe the second half of the flash?

"Reference Waveforms are saved waveforms to be selected for display. The reference function will be available after saving the selected waveform to non-volatile memory."

[Mark_O]

One final question... where does the Reference Memory come from?  I've copied up to a Meg into there at times.

Maybe the second half of the flash?

"Reference Waveforms are saved waveforms to be selected for display. The reference function will be available after saving the selected waveform to non-volatile memory."

Thanks, Andreas and Drieg.  I missed that reference in the manual, but that's obviously where it's located.  A Meg for the analog, a Meg for the LA, and an independent Meg for the Reference waveform.  Nice.

- Mark

[dimlow]

Guys, just did the 'UPGRADE' on my scope with a serial cable and hyper terminal, works a treat, thanks!

[Dynomo]

Modded mine to with serial cable and hyper terminal . Did some testing with 106 mhz signal on the scope and the mods working great here. Nice one  

[tristan]

Hi Guys

I just performed this operation on my scope too and have had good results. However I did have a slightly worrying few minutes.

I changed the S/N and the model as described here but the unit would revert to the DS1052E after a reboot. After trying 3/4 times I went into the utility/system info display and it was corrupted - the top half of the screen showed only random graphics. I didn't take a photo unfortunately. This also locked the scope up requiring a reboot to return to operation. Returning to the system info screen locked the unit up again.

After rebooting I was able to connect to the serial port and check the settings - this was the response:

Code: [Select]

*IDN?
     Rigol Technologies,•–•–––––––•••–••••–––••––––––––•–––••––•–••—–––––•––•–––
–––•••–—••–•–•––•–•–••—•––•––•–•–••–•––•–•–•––––•––––•––•–•–––—••–•–––••

,••–•–
•––•–•–••—•––•––•–•–••–•––•–•–•––––•––––•––•–•–––—••–•–––••

,00.02.02.02.00

I reset the model and serial number again and it cured the problem and now persists through power cycles.

Tristan

[rossmoffett]

 guess I'll be soldering my caps back in soon as I get back to Oklahoma.

I will not, because my 1102E has even greater bandwidth without them and I don't need BW limit function  

Those are really great illustrations, given that, maybe I'll leave mine alone too!  I'm sick of taking the thing apart, for sure.

So far as there still being room for hardware improvement, that I'm not sure about.  According to an earlier post here, the real -3dB bandwidth is about 160 MHz on the DS1102E, and according to Dave, 1/10 of sampling rate is about the best a real-time readout can do.  That means that boosting the analog bandwidth more is only going to reduce the equivalent-time sampling noise, I think.  Your posted image has me wondering though, how far it could be pushed before it's really untrustworthy.  We have 400 MS/s 100 MHz model C Rigol scopes at school, and I know that they pale in comparison to the DS1052E.  The low sample rate makes it look like all noise anywhere over 50 MHz or so.  That makes me thing that probably this scope will do the same as it approaches 200 Mhz.

I'm extremely pleased as it is!

[rf-loop]

ADC clock phasenoise and jitter can be better. (maybe not impossible)

Analog channel after BNC to ADC can be better. (less noise and BW flatness better)

Both scopes 1102 and original or (commandmod) 1052 suffer BW flatness problem. Not so bad but.. >1.7dB @ 100MHz (1052Emod and 1102E original) is not good. Also same or more bad but different frequency in 1052Eorig. It is maybe still acceptable in this priceclass. But nobody can not tell that it is good today. It is better if it is more flat, after 100 or more it can drop more fast. Now it continues nearly "endless". I can find components after digitzing even over 500MHz. Some may be ..oh nice... but I think it is more bad. (these over Nyquist frequencies are not allways good to see in digital oscilloscopes, they make many bad effects in my opinion. These scopes need more flatness and then better BW limiting after some reasonable freq.

But if we think these rigol prices and not want hobby class "High-End" (professional High-End is totally other case)... after commandmod 1052 looks like lot lot of value for money ... unbelievable exellent for many purposes.

Now we can wait what Rigol do.
In China this mod case have make some discussions.

I wait this day come soon we can see DS1102E's ... not original factory made...
It is unbelievable cheap to make lot of labels to front and back... some RMB and you have lot of.
How peoples can know that they have buy original Rigol made 1102E  
Maybe we can think what they think in Rigol.... what is in next FW update...this is only quessing.

[Simon]

I'm sure rigol will find a workaround in the new firmware. it's only those of us with early 1052's that are blessed with this ability to mod. later scopes will be jamed for sure

[flolic]

Ok, new day for a new test  
I made sub nanosecond avalanche-mode pulse generator as described here:  http://www.i9t.net/fast-pulse/fast-pulse.html
I cheated a little and used 2N708 instead 2N2369 which I didn't have. Good thing is that it works   , bad thing is that I don't know exact
pulse rise/fall time.

Anyway, let's see the pictures  

These are with high bandwidth resistive 50 ohm terminated probe. You can see excessive ringing, this is most likely because of bad termination (I used old & cheap 10Base2 ethernet T-BNC and terminator)

CH2 unmodified:


CH1 modified:





Next two pictures are with original 150MHz probes:

CH2 unmodified:


CH1 modified:

[dimlow]

So were is Dave ? he should see this

[Mark_O]

We have 400 MS/s 100 MHz model C Rigol scopes at school, and I know that they pale in comparison to the DS1052E.  

Hi, Ross.  I'm a bit surprised to hear you say that, because I had thought they were pretty close, performance-wise.  The specs certainly aren't all that different.

The low sample rate makes it look like all noise anywhere over 50 MHz or so.

But now you've lost me.  The maximum (real-time) sample rates on the 1000C are 200 MSa/400 MSa, for 2 and 1 channel respectively.  The sample rates on the 1000E are 250 MSa/500 MSa under the same conditions.  The oft-quoted 1 GSa/sec sampling rate is limited to single-channel operation, capturing into the smaller ShortMemory only.  That's because there's not enough channel bandwidth to transfer acquistions at 1 GSa into the larger ISSI memory.  ShortMemory is retained internal to one of the VLSI chips, possibly the Cyclone, though probably the BlackFin, since that's where all the processing is done.  I'm sure someone here would know for certain.

So you're saying that a 20% slower (maximum) sampling rate makes a huge difference in performance on the 1000C scopes?

- Mark

[Mark_O]

rf-loop wrote:
> It is better if it is more flat, after 100 or more it can drop more fast. Now it continues nearly "endless". I can find components after digitzing even over 500MHz. Some may be ..oh nice... but I think it is more bad. <

I agree with your assessment, but can see why some would like the ability to detect higher-frequency components, and think it was a good thing (More is always Better, right?).

> these over Nyquist frequencies are not allways good to see in digital oscilloscopes, they make many bad effects in my opinion. These scopes need more flatness and then better BW limiting after some reasonable freq. <

And there's the rub.  Without proper BW limiting, after digital sampling you wind up with foldover into the desired passband.  AKA, aliasing.  These alias-imaged components can create some real anomalies, both in measurements, and in interpreting waveshapes.  You go, "Hmm, where did that frequency bump/spike come from?"  And the answer is that it was a phantom.  Chasing phantoms is not a productive use of engineering time, IMO.

- Mark

[Mark_O]

...according to Dave, 1/10 of sampling rate is about the best a real-time readout can do.

I'm surprised to hear that Dave made that claim.  Especially since it's not true.  You don't need 10-times oversampling to be able to accurately reconstruct a waveshape.  Assuming a gaussian-distribution (the normal case), you can exactly reconstruct any arbitrary waveform, using sin(x)/x with as little as 2.5x oversampling of the highest frequency component.  However, to accomplish that requires very good filters (i.e., expensive), and with the quality of filtering on most consumer-grade instruments, you actually need ~4x oversampling to achieve the same results.  (To get technical, it varies, depending on the instrument, from 3-5x... but 4x is a good rule-of-thumb.)

But 10x is really overkill.  Thus even the 400MSa on the earlier 100MHz 1000C-series was perfectly fine.  Based on your claim, they'd only be good to 40 MHz (and the 100 MHz-version of the 1000E would top out at 50 MHz).

- Mark

[Mark_O]

So were is Dave ? he should see this

I'm pretty sure he is/has been seeing this.  The question is why he doesn't participate?  Most likely because he's busy working on his next Video Blog. 

- Mark

[Mark_O]

These are with high bandwidth resistive 50 ohm terminated probe. You can see excessive ringing, this is most likely because of bad termination (I used old & cheap 10Base2 ethernet T-BNC and terminator)

F.Lolic, your undamped ringing is at 200 MHz, which is the resonant frequency of your cabling setup.  Someone here (and my apologies for not going back to give proper credit), has already pointed out that terminating your probes with 50-ohms externally, is not equivalent to using a scope with proper 50-ohm internal terminations.  The reason is that internally, the Rigol scopes still have 1Meg-ohm || ~15 pF.  Unless you remove that capacitance, that internal value will set an upper limit on what you can achieve on the high end.  

Which is why expensive scopes have relays or other switching elements to physically remove them from the circuit, in 50-ohm mode.  At the same time, they also dramatically reduce the ability of the front-end to handle high voltages!  ~400V drops to around 5V or so.  If you're a newbie (which lots of Rigol owners wold be), it would be posible to fry your front-end just by accidentally switching from the 1M to 50-ohm setting.  (And yes, I know it's possible to add protective circuitry to clamp the inputs, but that adds cost and complexity, as well as increasing residual/parasitic elements you don't want to have at the front-end of a sensitive instrument.)

- Mark

P.S.  BTW, I wanted to say "thanks" for those exceptional detailed photos you did of the Rigol internals.  The combined panoramic shots were phenominally good, and extremely well lit.  Really amazing.  Thanks!

[Mark_O]

Someone here (and my apologies for not going back to give proper credit), has already pointed out that terminating your probes with 50-ohms externally, is not equivalent to using a scope with proper 50-ohm internal terminations.  The reason is that internally, the Rigol scopes still have 1Meg-ohm || ~15 pF.

It was David, aka Tesla500, in another thread.  

- Mark

[rossmoffett]

The low sample rate makes it look like all noise anywhere over 50 MHz or so.

But now you've lost me.  The maximum (real-time) sample rates on the 1000C are 200 MSa/400 MSa, for 2 and 1 channel respectively.  The sample rates on the 1000E are 250 MSa/500 MSa under the same conditions.  The oft-quoted 1 GSa/sec sampling rate is limited to single-channel operation, capturing into the smaller ShortMemory only.  That's because there's not enough channel bandwidth to transfer acquistions at 1 GSa into the larger ISSI memory.  ShortMemory is retained internal to one of the VLSI chips, possibly the Cyclone, though probably the BlackFin, since that's where all the processing is done.  I'm sure someone here would know for certain.

So you're saying that a 20% slower (maximum) sampling rate makes a huge difference in performance on the 1000C scopes?

- Mark

You're saying it's 20% slower maximum, but that's actually the minimum.  The maximum would be 600 MS/s slower with both scopes in single channel operation, and 300 MS/s with both scopes in dual channel operation.  That's 50% and 50% maximum difference.  The minimum difference would be 20% with the DS1052E in dual-channel operation and the C model in single channel operation.. I do say this makes a huge difference in performance, I operated them side by side to test my modifications and the noise in the C model made the readings far worse than even my 50 MHz unmodified channel.

...according to Dave, 1/10 of sampling rate is about the best a real-time readout can do.

I'm surprised to hear that Dave made that claim.  Especially since it's not true.  ...

It is true.  I said "real-time" and you're talking about equivalent-time sampling.

Thanks for all of your posts at the RC forum Mark, the amount of information in the Rigol post there is overwhelming and if you hadn't mentioned the serial commands being cracked by mxmxmx I would have never seen them!

Dave has taken a break, he posted a note in the "Announcements" forum saying he's going walkabout for a while.  I'm sure the deluge of e-mails and consistent output of quality video blogs has been taxing his time for a while now!

For those reading this without the proper serial cable, when I get off of spring break I'll make it a priority to write a simple program to send VISA commands via USB.  I tried to find all of the proper connectors at school one day and just gave up, serial ports are everywhere, but practically antiques now, so it's understandable most people won't have them.

The really interesting thing here for me is that they can go ahead and change the firmware, but the hardware mod will live on until they re-design the analog section, after which it will still be a trivial matter to modify now that we know what they're up to!  The new schem from Mr. JimBeam illustrates that I can still just remove a single resistor and effectively cancel the 50 MHz bandwidth limit.

[Simon]

...according to Dave, 1/10 of sampling rate is about the best a real-time readout can do.

I'm surprised to hear that Dave made that claim.  Especially since it's not true.  You don't need 10-times oversampling to be able to accurately reconstruct a waveshape.  Assuming a gaussian-distribution (the normal case), you can exactly reconstruct any arbitrary waveform, using sin(x)/x with as little as 2.5x oversampling.  However, to accomplish that requires very good filters (i.e., expensive), and with the quality of filtering on most consumer-grade instruments, you actually need ~4x oversampling to achieve the same results.  (To get technical, it varies, depending on the instrument, from 3-5x... but 4x is a good rule-of-thumb.)

But 10x is really overkill.  Thus even the 400MSa on the earlier 100MHz 1000C-series was perfectly fine.  Based on your claim, they'd only be good to 40 MHz (and the 100 MHz-version of the 1000E would top out at 50 MHz).

- Mark

Why is that not so, basically he saif that to accurately reconstruct a wavefor with no artificial intervention you need 10 points per cycle, if your then goung to use other methods on top of that then whatever but to get a true view you need 10 samples so that you can join the dots up