Siglent Bench DMMs SDM3065X, SDM3055 and SDM3045X

[tautech]

Not sure I'll be the first to try the hack...

You’re way behind the 8 ball as it’s months old now.
Pop back to reply #1186 for the link to that thread and have a study up. 

[mushroom]

Yes, I know this thread. I read all discussions about Siglent hardware before I recently purchased SPD3303X-E, SDG2042X, SDM3045X and SDS1204X-E.
But still a bit shy. Until now, nobody made a video showing the results. Same for the Hantek DSO5102P : took ages before someone demonstrated the benefits (Tony Albus IIRC)

[tautech]

Yes, I know this thread. I read all discussions about Siglent hardware before I recently purchased SDG2042X, SDM3045X and SDS1204X-E.
But still a bit shy. Until now, nobody made a video showing the results.

It’s really not rocket science, go back and carefully study the first post in that thread to see why we went down this path which is really to provide better logging results without a glitch near the 2V level in the 6V range.

Like I said earlier, is this hack to the China only X-E version necessary for normal use of a SDM3045X, no however it might be useful for some users in some use cases.
Then there is the benefit of another LSD however without a precision divider in the 3045X this apparent windfall is of questionable benefit.

[Pinkus]

Then there is the benefit of another LSD however without a precision divider in the 3045X this apparent windfall is of questionable benefit.

Well there is a benefit: as I said above, I do not trust the absolute value of the LSD, but as the last digit is rock stable, it is very useful as an indicator (e.g. Volts at some slowly discharging part; or Ohms to find a shortage etc.) [where for the latter I often prefer my thermal cam as I get results much quicker]

[mushroom]

...Ohms to find a shortage etc.)...

Didn't think of that ! Thanks for the suggestion !
I just measured the voltage used for the 600 Ohms range : 6V. Could be dangerous for most micro controllers.
With the chinese version, there is a 200 Ohms range according to the datasheet. Is it using 2 Volts ? It would be a game changer !

[EDIT] Yes. 1 mA source for th two versions.

(was planning to build a Shorty)

But something's puzzling me. What about first upgrading to 07R1 firmware as suggested by Tautech ?
Currently, the device is "5.01.01.06.R1"
If it is first updated to  "5.01.01.07R1", it will anyway become "2.01.01.12". Will the 07R1 fixes survive or be overwritten ? (2.01.01.12 was released 2 months before 5.01.01.07R1)

[Kleinstein]

According to the datasheet for the 3055 and 3045 the test current is 1 mA for the lowest resistance ranges ( 200 / 600 / 2000 ohms). The upper limit for the current source is usually just set by the hardware and would not change with a different SW version. Just the point where the display shows overflow would change. For a large part the 600 Ohms range with the 3045 would be more like the 2000 Ohms range, just limited to showing 600 Ohms in the software and possibly changing the internal gain (using the gain setting at the ADC chip) at some 200 Ohm.
 I would consider such a hidden autoranging a bad thing. It is especially bad for the 6/2 V range, as this includes switching a relay and thus adds a delay or invalid data.
The open circuit voltage should be the same for the 200 and 2000 ohms ranges of the 3055E and 3045 and likely also the 3055. It is just the gain in reading the voltage that changes.


With the current limited to 1 mA this should not be a problem for digital chips, like a µC or similar. If at all it may be a problem for some sensitive FETs / RF low noise transistors that may just start to show a break through at 6 V. This may cause added drift / noise from hot electron effects and populating long lived defect states. Still 6 V is relatively low and most parts at least allow for 5 V. With such sensitive parts one would normally not measure with a DMM without some extra care, alone for ESD reasons.

The higher resolution can also be a plus for very low voltages like with thermocouples: with the 3055 FW it can resolve 1 µV opposed to 10 µV. Resolving such small voltage is a common reason to use a 5 or 6 digit meter.

[tautech]

But something's puzzling me. What about first upgrading to 07R1 firmware as suggested by Tautech ?
Currently, the device is "5.01.01.06.R1"
If it is first updated to  "5.01.01.07R1", it will anyway become "2.01.01.12". Will the 07R1 fixes survive or be overwritten ? (2.01.01.12 was released 2 months before 5.01.01.07R1)

All true but take a minute to think about this.....the 07R1 main improvement was better flash management that hasn't apparently been enacted in China X-E models that we can see from the translated Release Notes which then questions why any subsequent firmware upgrade or product ID change would muck with that particular part of the OS.
Maybe you're just overthinking this...... 

[Martin72]

It's not bad just annoying if you need work right where the 2V range change

When it´s only a annoying thing, that won´t stop me.
4.5 digits are enough for our purposes in the testfield.

[tautech]

It's not bad just annoying if you need work right where the 2V range change

When it´s only a annoying thing, that won´t stop me.
4.5 digits are enough for our purposes in the testfield.

Yep for the repair bench logging is rarely used and only when levels come and go over the '2' range step do glitches appear in the log.
Otherwise these fanless SDM3045X are a good bench tool, not precise but if you need that a 6-8 digit DMM should be in the budget instead. 

[Amithlon]

My SDM3605X has gone into a locked boot screen (siglent and tornado) - after 10 minutes goes to grey, was stored away for 12 months - and now does this,
is there a repair agent in Australia or can someone suggest a repair ??
thanks.

[tautech]

My SDM3605X has gone into a locked boot screen (siglent and tornado) - after 10 minutes goes to grey, was stored away for 12 months - and now does this,
is there a repair agent in Australia or can someone suggest a repair ??
thanks.

Welcome to the forum.

Either of the Siglent agents in Oz should have no problem guiding you through recovery with the Siglent recovery packages. Unfortunate you probably weren’t aware of the major update last year that all but fixes these freezes.

If they fob you off and don’t share the packages pop me a PM and we’ll get you all sorted.

[mushroom]

Feature request :

some black tape...

[tautech]

Feature request :

some black tape...

A little rub with sandpaper will take the shine away. 

[Johnny B Good]

Feature request :

some black tape...

A little rub with sandpaper will take the shine away. 

 Now I've had my attention drawn to that overly bright indicator LED (it hadn't bothered me until now), I've tried an even neater modification... with a black felt tip pen. It's a lot less bright now, plus when turned off, it turns into a black spot, enhancing the fact that it is indeed switched off (a sort of high contrast feature of modern LED displays over the light grey of the earlier CRT display technology effect).

 A little rub with sandpaper as Tautech suggests might help remove the slight unevenness of black felt tip applied directly onto the untreated surface as well as attenuate the brightness even further. The only snag with the sandpaper treatment being the need to carefully mask the surrounding panel to prevent collateral damage if you want to avoid taking it apart. in which case, you might as well wire an additional current limiting resistor in series and save the need to apply black felt tip - a little rub with sandpaper to convert the specular glare into a muted wide angle glow wouldn't come amiss, seeing as how you've gone to this much trouble by this stage anyway.

 Oddly enough, the SDM3065X is the only one of my six strong collection of Siglent gear that uses a naked LED power on indicator, The other kit relies either on a backlit on/off button or just the display (and the odd backlit button) to signal its powered up status.

 BTW, an alternative 'quick fix' would to use one of those stick on paper dots (green or yellow) over the LED (or even a small square of green PVC tape).

[coromonadalix]

loll i understand you, my computer has blue leds, and believe me at night they  light up the room pretty well,     black tape it is  for me too

[mushroom]

Of course, I mostly was kidding !

I also used some paint when these f****g blue LEDs pop'd everywhere with 10s of mA while they only need 10ths of mA.

This LED is needed when the screen saver is active. It could be turned off if the screen saver is not in use... Could even be a hack : OFF if backlight is ON (after waranty expires !)

IIRC, with older firmware versions, this LED was blinking if the device was powered by mains but OFF. Some complained while some others found it usefull.

The SDM needs a new menu, dedicated to the power LED.

[Peter_O]

The smart blinking of the led suggests some processing power running to maintain the fading effect. Maybe it's possilbe to change firmware and have a brightness setting.

In case this seems somewhat over the top: 

My 3055 sucks 2.9W when off, which amounts to 26 kWh per year. 
It's 8.9W switched on.

A power LED should be no more than 0.1W.

I disconnect mains completely when the DVM is not needed, which - as a hobbyist - is most of the time.

[klausES]

Now all detective skills awaken about the electricity costs... 

Apart from the fact that for the soft button it still has to run a bit slightly clocked,
it is actually a traditional transformer (which is nothing bad in this case), no switching power supply with almost no idle consumption.

If I know that I will not use it very soon, I also separate all measuring devices from the electricity. 

[Peter_O]

Now all detective skills awaken about the electricity costs... 
...

No need to run down this rabbit hole. 
Feel free to follow the idea of a firmware mod to configure the power led.   

[HamDancer]

I have an SDM3055 that I bought used on eBay (so no dealer purchase history). On two separate occasions it has bricked due to the well-known "freeze on boot" problem. Each time I recovered by using the microSD card (opening the case and soldering the two magic pads together). The most recent time it was already running the V25 firmware that was supposed to have solved this problem. Unfortunately, after this recent recovery the unit has been set back to factory defaults. The *IDN? command returns:

Siglent Technologies, ,0123456789,1.01.01.25

and the factory calibration appears to have been deleted (my voltage measurements are noticeably wrong).

I'm guessing Siglent is not going to want to fix this under warranty since it has a cracked case, modifications, and no purchase history. Is there any way to recover from this? I can deal with the bad *IDN? string, but how do you get it recalibrated? I don't have access to the necessary equipment to do it myself. I live in the US (California).

Thanks!

[MarkKn]

A few suggestions for Siglent based on initial use of tho 3045x. First is I would like leading zeros suppressed to make it easier to read. Second, I would like either control over unit of measure, or in the alternate, favor units of measure that put numbers to the left of the decimal. For example, 700 uv rather than .7 mv.

I confess I have not gone through the meter manual in complete detail, so if I missed some visual options, I apologize. I am aware there is a lot of depth to this product that I have only begun to explore. It's interesting for me to recall that as a child in the 1960s/70s I had a micronta type 20,000 ohms per volt multimeter, and its fun to be able to get gear that is far more accurate today. I think my first digital dmm was a fluke 37 I got new in I think the 1980s, I recall how cool I thought the auto-ranging was...

Amending my original post--I was hearing a relay clicking maybe once a second. I thought it was stuck in some error state, but now I think it was due to being in dual mode and the meter was switching back in forth as I might expect.

I want to compliment siglent on the easy and intuitive process for upgrading the firmware--sort of the same as with motherboard firmware. One of my meters was at the 16 level and I upgraded it.

For Siglent's information, I chose the 3045x over the 3055/65 because I didn't really need the precision--would have paid for it for the fun of it, but the fan in the 3055 deterred me from getting that model. I have lots of noisy fans in my test equipment, and I didn't want more.

To change the subject again, and if this is off topic, I can edit the post, but for the fun of it I put both meters on my lab network switch and got easydmm going. From what I can see of the documentation, I do not have an option to see multiple meter displays on the computer at the same time. There appears to be some sort of logging or sampling mode that will cycle through the meters at intervals and save the results in a log/tabular format, but a visual real time (alternating updates) multi-display would be nice. That naturally lead to my next question--whether there is more functional software able to read meter data and show a more sophisticated display.

I will also note that at this point I am right on the cusp of going beyond functional needs and into collector status, as my appetite for test equipment seems unslaked--I am looking into an older fluke that does have dual display capability... Is collecting simply an early stage of hoarding by one in denial?

[tautech]

MarkKN
You post reminded me to add some info about SDM3045X ranging into the POI list in the OP.
Suggest you take a few minutes to follow that link and have a study about why it is and how some are working around it. It might not apply exactly to A measurements, I haven't as yet checked.

[MarkKn]

Tautech, Thanks for the suggestion, I will do some reading.

I was able to get the dual mode working--current and voltage for load testing a power supply--I should have looked more closely into this feature before purchasing a second meter, but its all good. The meter does make a relay noise each second as it presumably switches the sensing circuitry. I wonder if all meters make a relay noise to implement dual mode? I presume the relays are designed for millions of actuations, so I need not be concerned about wearing them out?

Two questions:--I looked at the manual and the device pretty closely and was not able to locate a way to send a screen capture to the usb stick like I am able to do with the scope. Is this a capability of the sdm3045x?

I also noticed that when easydmm took it into remote mode, it switched the meter out of dual mode. Is there a way to avoid this? I presume this is a limitation of the meter or the software.

[tautech]

Tautech, Thanks for the suggestion, I will do some reading.

I was able to get the dual mode working--current and voltage for load testing a power supply--I should have looked more closely into this feature before purchasing a second meter, but its all good. The meter does make a relay noise each second as it presumably switches the sensing circuitry. I wonder if all meters make a relay noise to implement dual mode? I presume the relays are designed for millions of actuations, so I need not be concerned about wearing them out?

Not heard of any relays needing replacement and yes of course they are not switching any load so only contact material contamination is likely to impact on accuracy.

Two questions:--I looked at the manual and the device pretty closely and was not able to locate a way to send a screen capture to the usb stick like I am able to do with the scope. Is this a capability of the sdm3045x?

You can but it's hardly an optimal process and IIRC from the screen you want to capture you need go into the Utility menu and find the save screenshot function. Others will call me out if it's somewhere else.

I also noticed that when easydmm took it into remote mode, it switched the meter out of dual mode. Is there a way to avoid this? I presume this is a limitation of the meter or the software.

Again if IIRC  you can select Dual from within EasyDMM and toggle back and forth as required using the 2nd function of the Shift key.

[TheDefpom]

Screen shot is in Utility/Manage File/Save Screen/Yes

P.S. first you should choose to save it to "external" USB rather than internal memory (I don't see a way of viewing it again on the meter itself, so internal seems pointless)