The Rigol DS1052E

[KTP]

Thank you flolic! (and Jahonen) for the link to the pulse source...reading it now.

[Simon]

ok  so I followed rigols example instructions and get nothing ! now I'm using a null modem serial cable, is that the right one ? I hope it is after spending 11 quid !

[anthonycroberts]

Simon,

Null modem would be the wrong cable (assuming you're trying to connect to a normal PC serial port).

Cheers,
Tony

[miki]

Simon, you shouldn't be using null modem cable (which has crossed signals) but a straight one.

Since you already bought null modem type perhaps you can disassemble one of the connectors (if it's not molded) and try to reverse the order on the TX and RX pins.

[Simon]

I knew it ! trust flipping maplin ! any chance of cutting it in the middle and changing the right wires ? or maybe I can pull the plug apart but it "looks" molded, so do I need to rewire the cable so that each connector is connected to the same pin on the other end ?

oh and just to make it clear, the maplin website says straight, the cable sold is null, maplins: home of first class idiots !, like i said before your safer on ebay than with maplin !

[anthonycroberts]

Split the cable in the middle and swap pins 2&3.  Leave 5 (gnd) connected.  Based on previous posts pertaining to the use of simple 3-pin serial, the rest of the pins should be OK to be left disconnected.

-Tony

[flolic]

Yes. Cut it in the middle and reconnect wires in a right way. Of all wires, you need only pins 2, 3 and 5 to be connected 
http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/1EE0DD8AF67922FA86256F720071DECF

[Simon]

well I just prised the connector open only to have the end pop out and leave wires sealed inside, ah this will be one big mess to rewire, looks like a hacksaw and stanly knife job and a complete rewire together again

EDIT: I think I'll just cut the rest of the plug off and start from scratch

[luky315]

There's another possibility to generate very fast pulses:
Take a fast D-Flipflop (AHCT series) and connect the output directly to the CLEAR input. The result is a Pulse with a length of <3ns on each rising Edge of the input clock signal.
Not fast enough? Then connect this output to the base of a HF npn Transistor with a ~30Ohm resistor on the collector to 5V and the Emitter connected to GND. After the collector use a matched 50Ohm Coplanar Waveguide with an approximately 4mm long stub to GND. The result is a positive and a negative Puls with < 150ps duration. If you don't like the negative pulse, use a fast Schottky Diode to cut it away. Than you have presumably the fastest hobby pulse generator.
The bad  news is that the DS1102 isn't fast enought for this...

[Mastro Gippo]

Thank you rf-loop for the good suggestions, but I won't have access to the R&S SG for the next week, so you'll have to wait for the updated results, if you're still interested.

I don't see the reason for people to be smug or try and hide the information (or make vague references to how "easy" it is but not describe anything).

Usually people do this to encourage people to figure it out themselves. But not with bad intentions! Especially in this case, the solution is really trivial and can be found by anyone reading the hints given in previous posts. By "forcing" them to learn and search a bit, you help them getting familiar with what they are going to do and take more responsibility for their actions.
By the way, I didn't change the serial number on mine, I just changed the single character 'D' to 'B' so the number still matches the old one.
I saved the log file of the session for future reference too.

[dimlow]

Instead of all this Alt 0 1 0 business why dont you just download a simply terminal program that does the job nicely, I found this http://www.compuphase.com/software_termite.htm looks like it will do the job! All you need to do is set the com port up and your done.

[KTP]

Instead of all this Alt 0 1 0 business why dont you just download a simply terminal program that does the job nicely, I found this http://www.compuphase.com/software_termite.htm looks like it will do the job! All you need to do is set the com port up and your done.

Because the only fracking computer I could find that actually HAD a RS232 serial port was the one in my garage shop running a cnc mill, and it was not connected to the internet.  I guess I could have dug around for a usb dongle and transfered a downloaed terminal program to it, but pressing alt 010 seemed easier?

I really lament the loss of rs232 serial ports and also parallel ports from modern computers.  Those were great reliable interfaces when you just needed to get the job done quick and dirty.  Now you have to go all USB, and nothing is quick and easy anymore

[KTP]

I should express to everyone playing with their DS1052E serial port to beware of static discharge.  I have no idea what the level converter chip is inside the Rigol scope but I know I personally have fried chips that supposedly had 15KV of static protection.  Ground yourself by touching a screw on your computer power supply or the bnc on the front of your scope before you touch the physical pins of your scope or computer serial port (if you are doing rewiring and such).

[Simon]

Split the cable in the middle and swap pins 2&3.  Leave 5 (gnd) connected.  Based on previous posts pertaining to the use of simple 3-pin serial, the rest of the pins should be OK to be left disconnected.

-Tony

Am I right in connecting each pin in the plug to the same numbered pin of the other plug ? I'd rather reconnect them all to save having wires floating around, I may also be using this at work so need it to look like its not that crazy

[KTP]

Usually people do this to encourage people to figure it out themselves. But not with bad intentions! Especially in this case, the solution is really trivial and can be found by anyone reading the hints given in previous posts. By "forcing" them to learn and search a bit, you help them getting familiar with what they are going to do and take more responsibility for their actions.
By the way, I didn't change the serial number on mine, I just changed the single character 'D' to 'B' so the number still matches the old one.
I saved the log file of the session for future reference too.

Ok I agree with you that usually it is good for people to discover how to do something with research...like for instance a homework problem or something where they are going gain insight through experimentation.  In this case though there were a number of inconsistancies (some people saying it is ok to write serial number first then model number, some people saying be careful not to put an enter into the serial string, etc.) that a somewhat detailed explanation of how one person did the conversion is of some value.  I don't mind deleting my explanation post though if you guys think this would be better served by discovery.

[dimlow]

I really lament the loss of rs232 serial ports and also parallel ports from modern computers.  Those were great reliable interfaces when you just needed to get the job done quick and dirty.  Now you have to go all USB, and nothing is quick and easy anymore

Oh yes, the loss of the Serial port...

I have 5 PC's here, 2 have serial ports, all have windows 7. Not one of them with hyper terminal. One dual boots to XP, but that does not have serial, so i tried a USB - Serial dongle, no luck there, then the main PC but i had fried the serial port on that only a few weeks ago. So i had to install a PCI serial card in that, and download Hyper terminal. Still that didn't work. Eventually i found my sons PC had a Serial port, i downloaded Hyper Terminal to that and finally got a connection to the Scope. Once i had got that far, it was easy, but just getting a PC with a working serial port to talk to the scope took an age.

 It was only later after i had already done the scope did i think of downloading an alternative terminal program to stop all that Alt 010 business. So i searched found one and thought id share.

[anthonycroberts]

Split the cable in the middle and swap pins 2&3.  Leave 5 (gnd) connected.  Based on previous posts pertaining to the use of simple 3-pin serial, the rest of the pins should be OK to be left disconnected.

-Tony

Am I right in connecting each pin in the plug to the same numbered pin of the other plug ? I'd rather reconnect them all to save having wires floating around, I may also be using this at work so need it to look like its not that crazy

For the simple case of PC serial port -> scope, yes.  2,3,4 straight through to 2,3,4.  frolic's link provides a pretty solid diagram.

[Simon]

Well I did it ! I'm so pleased.

now I'm getting quite enthusiastic about this thing where you can control the scope via a pc, is there any way of making use of this to setup the whole scope to the defaults you want ? say some sort of batch file ? I suppose there is also the possibility of having a uC control the scope.

[KTP]

by did it, do you mean you also did the 1052 to 1102 conversion?

If you look at the files on the disk that came with your scope there is a document that gives example code for controlling your scope from a visual basic or visual c program (although maybe over usb, i can't remember and don't have the file in front of me).

[Simon]

by did it, do you mean you also did the 1052 to 1102 conversion?

If you look at the files on the disk that came with your scope there is a document that gives example code for controlling your scope from a visual basic or visual c program (although maybe over usb, i can't remember and don't have the file in front of me).

yes I did the conversion,

I have also been able to nail the scope down on the inherent noise it suffers from (fine use of the trig knob) I would guess it is sinusoidal as it is quite weak and i estimate the frequency (its so small an amplitude the scope can't actually do any measuring functions in respect of time) to be 100 MHz: the speed of each of the 10 ADC's

EDIT: the duration of each waveform of noise is 10 nS that does work out to be 100 MHz dosen't it ?

[Mark_O]

I'm getting quite enthusiastic about this thing where you can control the scope via a pc, is there any way of making use of this to setup the whole scope to the defaults you want ? say some sort of batch file ? I suppose there is also the possibility of having a uC control the scope.

You can send a list of individual commands, to configure all the settings.  Unlike the 1000B series, it has no commands to save and reload all the configuration settings at once (*LRN?, and :SYSTEM:SETUP?).  So you have to do it the "hard way", but that does let you tailor individual settings more easily.

You do know that you can create 10 custom configurations and store them directly on the scope itself, correct?  You can reload any of up to 10 Setups you've saved using the Storage submenus.  And you can save an unlimited number, and recall them by name (rather than just #0-9), to an external USB memory stick.

And, yes, the scope can be controlled by anything that can send serial text commands... via RS232 or USB.

- Mark

[Mark_O]

The firmware images don't appear to be signed, so they could be modified easily

I wouldn't be so sure.

they are 4194325-byte files, which seems to me like a 21-byte header plus a 4MB firmware image.   The header is:

0000000: 4453 3130 3030 4520 2020 3032 2e30 322e 3032 2e30 30  DS1000E   02.02.02.00

That part is correct.

There's no room for a hash, so you could do whatever you want to the file.

There's no room for a hash in the header, but that desn't mean that one (or a CRC) isn't embedded in the firmware images, to detect corruption or tampering.

Unfortunately, this means that there's no sort of bootloader which could recover corrupted firmware, so your options would be to desolder the NOR flash holding the firmware and reprogram it using a chip programmer, or try to get the 13-pin JTAG-looking connector working.

Actually, there IS a bootloader in the BlackFins, in protected space.  But I doubt it would have the ability to read files off a USB stick.  So in that sense, you may be right that once corrupted software was loaded, recovery would be difficult.

OR, they may have a dual-image system, where they can load a 2nd set of firmware into the other half of Flash, but not toggle control over to it until it had been successfully validated.  Otherwise, once they started a reflash cycle, they'd have to blow away the original firmware first.  From which point there'd be no recovery on power fail or by the time it knew the image it loaded was bad.

That could explain how they utilize 8 MB of Spansion Flash, when the firmware only occupies 4 MB.  And during operation, the remaining 4 MB can be scratchpad space (like 1 MB for Reference waveform memory, as Andreas and Drieg pointed out).

- Mark

[Mark_O]

Actually I didn't read this until I had spent 10 minutes trying to figure out why I couldn't send commands to the DS1052E..it was because I was trying to use the enter key and instead should hold down alt and press "0","1","0"

I believe HyperTerm will let you configure the line terminator, but if not if may be easier to type ^J (that's control-J, not uparrow-J) to end a command line (a bit less clumsy way to get an LF without the ALT-nnn sequence).

- Mark

[Mark_O]

How many pictures we can find what are take inside PCB's from both models. If original factory made 1102 or 1052, are there differencies or are these seen differencies only revision differences. (specially in PCB just after BNC connector.)

So far, none of the DS1052E internals I've seen have the 2nd switching relay in the front-end, which the 1102E seem to have.

- Mark

[Mark_O]

I can't imagine the R&D that would be involved in accurately counterfitting the Rigol DS1052E and getting it to perform similar to the true model, not to mention creating all of the injection molds for the various plastic components and buttons.  Then they would have to source all of the analog parts....

Well, see ATTEN (now also Siglent).  That's exactly what they do.  The insides are like a photocopy of the Rigol's.  Some people think that Rigol manufactures them for ATTEN, but they actually do the cloning themselves.  And yes, that's theft of IP, and copyright infringement.  And yes, that's China.

(But, no, that's not what anyone here was talking about.  Just making up fake labels for real Rigol scopes.)

- Mark