Hacking the Rigol DHO800/900 Scope

[alrox]

Thank you so much for a speedy and informative guide, I will certainly try it in next few hours.
Also to others pointing out to me my lack of understanding of the Rigol operating system foibles.
I thank you once more.

[alrox]

I have tried this now and it works perfectly for me, thank you zelea2. There are a few got-yers for people not proficient in how some of the supporting software works (no disrespect zelea2) and maybe not used to using command line ( I know most on the thread will say - in that case should not be here), but that's disingenuous. Most newbies want to learn and get advice from those more learned than they are.
If enough people with limited knowledge are struggling (post a request- if many) then I will try to do a fully detailed step-by-step for the totally inept newbies like me, when it comes to this scope's architecture, to get the job done.

[AceyTech]

( I know most on the thread will say - in that case should not be here), but that's disingenuous. Most newbies want to learn and get advice from those more learned than they are.

Good job! That was nice of @zelea2 to fire off a list for ya. -Amazing and talented person.

Sadly, despite best intentions, there are sometimes assumptions in the step by step guides that we, the uninitiated, have to figure out on our own.  That's great that you were able to get up and running. Kudos!  Proof that you DO belong here.

There's a very important post by Dave/EEVblog in the beginning of this Test Equipment thread that says "Regulars. please be nice to newbies who ask a question..."

  It's actually regarding searching, but it's good for everyone to remember that "we were all newbies once".

[Randy222]

So now that the options are back with 00.01.02.00.02, question now is, do I actually upgrade to that version?
Will post a question in the Bugs + Firmware thread to try and get what the new bugs are, and if any were fixed.

[shapirus]

So now that the options are back with 00.01.02.00.02, question now is, do I actually upgrade to that version?

Another question is what is actually better for, say, an 804 scope: activate all the 8xx options (i.e., 100, or what was it, 125 MHz bandwidth), or install the 900 firmware, which unlocks, IIRC, 200 MHz bandwidth. The question is, are those 200 MHz actually real, or, in other words, are they usable given the 1.25 Gsa/s max rate?

[axantas]

So now that the options are back with 00.01.02.00.02, question now is, do I actually upgrade to that version?

Another question is what is actually better for, say, an 804 scope: activate all the 8xx options (i.e., 100, or what was it, 125 MHz bandwidth), or install the 900 firmware, which unlocks, IIRC, 200 MHz bandwidth. The question is, are those 200 MHz actually real, or, in other words, are they usable given the 1.25 Gsa/s max rate?

As you are not drilling a hole into your machine and the option is revertable: go for the max. Other option: A 1:1 comparable setup on a 900 and a maxed out 800. Could we use the Batronix Demo Board for that? Third option: wait for the profs, who already tested that. There might be a difference regarding the non populated memory chip sockets on the 800 - but the 1.25Gsa/s is valid for both.

[Randy222]

So now that the options are back with 00.01.02.00.02, question now is, do I actually upgrade to that version?

Another question is what is actually better for, say, an 804 scope: activate all the 8xx options (i.e., 100, or what was it, 125 MHz bandwidth), or install the 900 firmware, which unlocks, IIRC, 200 MHz bandwidth. The question is, are those 200 MHz actually real, or, in other words, are they usable given the 1.25 Gsa/s max rate?

I made my 804 a 914, then added just a couple of options.
IIRC, someone said the bandwidth was good for 180MHz -3db.

I think you have to look at the actual hardware diffs between 800-900 series to understand how options work. IIRC, less the digi of 914-924S, less the sig gen, all the same hardware. (or something like that).

[Aleksandr]

Is there a complete list of options and a description of what they do (what are they for)?

[Randy222]

Is there a complete list of options and a description of what they do (what are they for)?

There are some posts about options.
I am not 100% of what they all do.
This list is from the gen tool for 900 vendor.bin

Is the list for the 800 vendor.bin longer? I am not sure, but you can perhaps do that diff using the gen tool. Make an options list for 800 and 900, then compare them.

Some did apply, some did not. My 804 has a 914 vendor.bin

Code: [Select]

DHO900-AERO
DHO900-ARINC
DHO900-AUDIO
DHO900-AUTO
DHO900-BND
DHO900-BODE
DHO900-BW100T20
DHO900-BW10T20
DHO900-BW15T25
DHO900-BW2T42
DHO900-BW2T8
DHO900-BW4T8
DHO900-BW7T15
DHO900-BW7T20
DHO900-CM_ENET
DHO900-CM_HDMI
DHO900-CM_MIPI
DHO900-CM_USB
DHO900-COMP
DHO900-COUNT
DHO900-DG
DHO900-EMBD
DHO900-EYE
DHO900-FLEX
DHO900-MSO
DHO900-PWR
DHO900-RLU
DHO900-RTSA
DHO900-UPA

[Fungus]

Another question is what is actually better for, say, an 804 scope: activate all the 8xx options

I say activate all the 804 options. That's 200Mhz real (measured+confirmed) bandwidth even though it only says 100Mhz, and 50M memory.

The question is, are those 200 MHz actually real, or, in other words, are they usable given the 1.25 Gsa/s max rate?

Yes it's real, up to 280MHz if you change it to a DHO924, but ... do you want that given the sample rate?

200MHz seems more sensible to me. 200MHz lets you use two channels without aliasing.

[Randy222]

Another question is what is actually better for, say, an 804 scope: activate all the 8xx options

I say activate all the 804 options. That's 200Mhz real (measured+confirmed) bandwidth even though it only says 100Mhz, and 50M memory.

The question is, are those 200 MHz actually real, or, in other words, are they usable given the 1.25 Gsa/s max rate?

Yes it's real, up to 280MHz if you change it to a DHO924, but ... do you want that given the sample rate?

200MHz seems more sensible to me. 200MHz lets you use two channels without aliasing.

But if you swap vendor.bin, then only some options apply. I find it easier to swap vendor.bin and then apply a few options.

[Fungus]

But if you swap vendor.bin, then only some options apply. I find it easier to swap vendor.bin and then apply a few options.

??

There's only two options that do anything - bandwidth upgrade and 50M memory.

If you make it a DHO900 then you already get both of those.

If you want to apply them to a DHO804 then you don't need to touch vendor.bin

[shapirus]

200MHz seems more sensible to me. 200MHz lets you use two channels without aliasing.

...and if I leave only one channel on? Will the higher BW be of any use? For those special occasions, you know, when one needs to grab a bottle of beer, sit in a comfortable chair and watch the sharp rise and fall edges.

[Fungus]

...and if I leave only one channel on? Will the higher BW be of any use? For those special occasions, you know, when one needs to grab a bottle of beer, sit in a comfortable chair and watch the sharp rise and fall edges.

It's not really much more bandwidth. You'd have to go to 400Mhz to halve the rise time.

Even so, you can switch to another model in about 10 seconds for those "special occasions". Just send a different vendor.bin then kill the 'scope task. It will auto-restart after a few seconds as the new model. You can even make a .bat file to do it. 

[Randy222]

But if you swap vendor.bin, then only some options apply. I find it easier to swap vendor.bin and then apply a few options.

??

There's only two options that do anything - bandwidth upgrade and 50M memory.

If you make it a DHO900 then you already get both of those.

If you want to apply them to a DHO804 then you don't need to touch vendor.bin

Bode lic took on a 914 vendor.bin

If you just swap vendor.bin to a 914, you get more BW right there, hence in the 804 you need to apply an option, so less option setting if you swap the vendor.bin, etc.

[zelea2]

There's only two options that do anything - bandwidth upgrade and 50M memory.

I have further analyzed the firmware and I've created a list with all available options for each series:

Code: [Select]

rigol_vendor_bin -l
Available options for Series: 800 900
 0 BND                          0 0 
 2 COMP                         5 4 
 3 EMBD                         3 2 
 4 AUTO                         4 3 
19 RLU                          1 . 
20 BODE                         . 5 
21 BW7T10                       2 . 
25 BW15T25                      . 1 
Bandwidth 'StaticSysBand' range [4-17] depending on options and hardware:
4 (default), 5 (21,23), 6 (21-hw4-5,23-hw4-5,24), 7 (25 series 900)
This library also covers Rigol series 1000 and 4000 on top of 800 and 900 so not all the options are available.
First option BND stands for bundle and it is activated by default and covers the basic options for each series.
I only enable RLU and BW7T10 for my DHO804
The bandwidth is just a number from 4 to 17 (only 8 cases) - probably sent to the FPGA - and only certain hardware allow some of these higher numbers.

[Fungus]

I only enable RLU and BW7T10 for my DHO804

Can you enable CAN/LIN on DHO800?

[Randy222]

There's only two options that do anything - bandwidth upgrade and 50M memory.

I have further analyzed the firmware and I've created a list with all available options for each series:

Code: [Select]

rigol_vendor_bin -l
Available options for Series: 800 900
 0 BND                          0 0 
 2 COMP                         5 4 
 3 EMBD                         3 2 
 4 AUTO                         4 3 
19 RLU                          1 . 
20 BODE                         . 5 
21 BW7T10                       2 . 
25 BW15T25                      . 1 
Bandwidth 'StaticSysBand' range [4-17] depending on options and hardware:
4 (default), 5 (21,23), 6 (21-hw4-5,23-hw4-5,24), 7 (25 series 900)
This library also covers Rigol series 1000 and 4000 on top of 800 and 900 so not all the options are available.
First option BND stands for bundle and it is activated by default and covers the basic options for each series.
I only enable RLU and BW7T10 for my DHO804
The bandwidth is just a number from 4 to 17 (only 8 cases) - probably sent to the FPGA - and only certain hardware allow some of these higher numbers.

In last iteration of the gen tool (I guess for Key.data FW's), it only gave me one Comp, but nine BW options for 914 vendor.bin.
Now you show in chart four Comp options for 900 series?

Am I reading the chart correct? The numbers under series means how many options there are for that type of option (COMP, AUTO, etc etc).

[zelea2]

Am I reading the chart correct? The numbers under series means how many options there are for that type of option (COMP, AUTO, etc etc).

The numbers are just what the scope uses to identify the options. If the option is not available it's a dot, otherwise it's this number.
I've removed all options for the 1000 and 4000 series. Use the -l option if you want to see the entire list.

[zelea2]

Can you enable CAN/LIN on DHO800?

From what I've disassembled I think the answer is no but I might be wrong.
One thing that I couldn't figure out is what are the default bundle options for each series and that's something I looked long time for but it's well hidden in that C++ code.

I don't really understand what's the attraction of a L.A. on this scope. You usually want your L.A. to be integrated with your computer as tightly as possible and a scope's
not good for this. I have several L.A. at home and at work but the one that I'm using most often is this: https://www.dreamsourcelab.com/product/dslogic-series/
It can sample 16ch@400MHz has all the possible decoders and you can even write your own decoders and it's only 150$. You can dump all the waveforms as .vcd files
and load them in powerful processing software on your PC. One of the best features is RLE encoding for signals with few transitions and you can record hours of transactions.
Or you can go even cheaper at 10$ https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003649856071.html and that still covers half of your typical L.A. captures.
Although I have a 10k$ Tektronics L.A. at work I rarely use it.

For CAN sniffing / probing what I found best was any STM32 part with a CAN driver and a USB interface. That makes a very powerful development environment.
I even have a board with an STM32 + FPGA  so I can watch for certain CAN messages in real time and knock them off before they even finish and replace them with my own ones.

[AceyTech]

I have several L.A. at home and at work but the one that I'm using most often is this: https://www.dreamsourcelab.com/product/dslogic-series/
It can sample 16ch@400MHz has all the possible decoders and you can even write your own decoders and it's only 150$. You can dump all the waveforms as .vcd files
and load them in powerful processing software on your PC. One of the best features is RLE encoding for signals with few transitions and you can record hours of transactions.

+1 for DreamSourceLab gear.  Their UI and software design is top notch.

I really wanted to do the Logic Analyzer upgrade hack to my DHO, but the more I looked into it, the less appealing it became.

[Fungus]

From what I've disassembled I think the answer is no but I might be wrong.

That's what I thought.

One thing that I couldn't figure out is what are the default bundle options for each series and that's something I looked long time for but it's well hidden in that C++ code.

It's the RS232/SPI/I2C decoders.

[MalikovVV]

On my DHO-812, after updating to version 1.0.2, a CAN trigger appeared (without LIN), but with restrictions (Limited), after activating the AUTO option it switched to Forever.
It turns out that Rigol included the AUTO option as a bonus for buyers of DHO-812 and 814?

[AndyBig]

I don't really understand what's the attraction of a L.A. on this scope.

Agree. I think that LA on an oscilloscope is not serious. You can quickly look at a short data packet, but for normal analysis and debugging of protocols you still need a normal separate LA connected to a computer.

[ebastler]

I don't really understand what's the attraction of a L.A. on this scope.

Agree. I think that LA on an oscilloscope is not serious. You can quickly look at a short data packet, but for normal analysis and debugging of protocols you still need a normal separate LA connected to a computer.

I think the main attraction is the support for mixed signal analysis: Observe an analog signal which is measured or controlled and at the same time watch the digital control signals; observe a large number of digital channels and check whether the suspicious behaviour of some channels is due to bad signal quality, etc.

Yes, you can do that by keeping two separate devices in sync, but it is more convenient to use an integrated MSO. For purely digital analysis, a PC-based logic analyser will have many advantages -- memory size, data management, choice of decoders, screen resolution, ...