HINT: If your not sure how to install the License Key once you've activated it online with Rigol. Take your new 28 digit KEY, open the Generator via USB via NI VISA or other VISA tool and use the following to install the key:
:LICense:INSTall 1234567890123456789012345678
(the 12345.. above is just an example.. please use your real activated Key there)
QuoteHINT: If your not sure how to install the License Key once you've activated it online with Rigol. Take your new 28 digit KEY, open the Generator via USB via NI VISA or other VISA tool and use the following to install the key:
:LICense:INSTall 1234567890123456789012345678
(the 12345.. above is just an example.. please use your real activated Key there)
I REALLY do not like the sound of that NI VISA crap. I know NI (National Instruments) sells VERY EXPENSIVE software (dwarfing the price of the function generator I just bought). Is there ANY alternative method to install the license key in the function generator?
QuoteHINT: If your not sure how to install the License Key once you've activated it online with Rigol. Take your new 28 digit KEY, open the Generator via USB via NI VISA or other VISA tool and use the following to install the key:
:LICense:INSTall 1234567890123456789012345678
(the 12345.. above is just an example.. please use your real activated Key there)
I REALLY do not like the sound of that NI VISA crap. I know NI (National Instruments) sells VERY EXPENSIVE software (dwarfing the price of the function generator I just bought). Is there ANY alternative method to install the license key in the function generator?
Yes, stay away from NI VISA. It's massive and it's awful. :scared:
Usually with Rigols you just connect an ethernet or USB cable, use telnet to connect to them on port 5555, then send the string shown above.
nb. It's just plain ASCII text. You can also connect via a Python script or whatever and send it that way.
Hello,
You can finde SigmaDelta in the Downlaod section o the device side:
https://www.rigolna.com/products/waveform-generators/dg1000z/ (https://www.rigolna.com/products/waveform-generators/dg1000z/)
https://beyondmeasure.rigoltech.com/acton/attachment/1579/u-0003/0/-/-/-/-/ (https://beyondmeasure.rigoltech.com/acton/attachment/1579/u-0003/0/-/-/-/-/)
VISA is a really good thing because it generalises control and you don't have to install new drivers for each device.
Most manufacturers have their own package of VISA drivers (e.g. Keysight and R&S) and there is even a pure Python implementation.
Alternatively you can try to connect via Lan, this is the way I usually use my DG1022z and according to the manual you can also use a USB Thump Drive to activate a licence.
I think that simple control of this device shouldn't require a driver+software combination exceeding about 10MB, if it had its own standalone driver and control software, rather than depending on some kind of 3rd party platform.Actually it does, the problem VISA needs drivers for all devices, but you can send commands to the network socket as suggested earlier.
There is no license file on the Rigol licensing website. I just get a plain text file with the authorization code in it, and need to send that specific text string to the device, unless there's some way to convert the plain text file to a usable license file the device will recognize. Regarding the USB drive, I already tried putting the plain text file on a USB drive, and tried getting the func-gen to load it the text file. It says it doesn't recognize the file format.
BIG THANKS! But what is SigmaDelta? I've never heard of that before. Is that a simpler version of UltraSigma? With either UltraSigma or SigmaDelta, are those standalone alternatives with their own dedicated Rigol equipment drivers, that don't require a full install of NI-VISA? NI-VISA is HUGE, so if possible I would like to uninstall it.
So I connected my Rigol function generator and my Windows device manager shows a device called "DG1000Z Serials", which seems to indicate that the USB circuit in the func-gen is a USB-to-serial converter, but it will need a driver to function, as the device manager also shows that this device has no driver installed. I would LOVE to be able to follow your instructions by serial comm to my func-gen, but the problem is no drivers, which is where the NI VISA thing comes in.
Yep. I got it working. By the time you replied with how to get it to work with a lic file on a USB drive, I'd already managed to install UltraSigma and send the command to get it to work over USB cable.
Is this the page in the manual you were talking about.
(https://i.imgur.com/MqHKSty.png)
I wish that was posted plainly in the instructions that they emailed me, or even somewhere on the main rigolna.com website, so I that I didn't have to go hunting down software like the UltraSigma and NI-VISA.
Now that I do have the 16M upgrade installed though, how do I actually generate a 16M waveform for it? All the official Rigol waveform making software (UltraStation) has is the ability to make a 4096 or maybe 8192 point waveform. Is there documentation for the actual waveform file format, so I could maybe write my own software to generate a proper waveform file? I want to be able to generate very complex waveforms for special signals. With 16 million points, that's enough for 30 full frames (1 second's worth) of NTSC video with with each frame containing well over 500000 pixels (including image pixels and sync/blanking pixels), with a total width of over 1000 pixels (counting both image and sync/blanking pixels). So that's one full second of video stored as a single waveform! I could EASILY use this to turn my func-gen into a TV test signal generator (which actually was my motive for spending $180 on the 16M point memory upgrade in the first place). I would just need to output it from the func-gen to a TV's composite video input RCA connector. It's great too, because both the output of this func-gen and the composite video input of a TV are rated at 50 Ohms, so it's a good impedance match.
I always used Ethernet. Connect it to your router with an Ethernet cable (you may have to set the IP address in the device) and use telnet on windows command prompt.
OTOH it should be possible without using anything at all. Deep in the device menus there'll be a place where you can enter serial numbers manually.
So now that I have VISA and everything installed on my PC, how do I send raw waveform data over the USB cable to the DG? Is there a visa.dll or something that I can add to a program I'm writing, in order to make it communicate over USB to my DG?
So now that I have VISA and everything installed on my PC, how do I send raw waveform data over the USB cable to the DG? Is there a visa.dll or something that I can add to a program I'm writing, in order to make it communicate over USB to my DG?
Nope. It's just ASCII text. You send ASCII strings to the device over the connection.
Also, if I do go the Ethernet route, connecting my DG directly to my PC, will I need to have a normal Ethernet cable? Or will I need a crossover cable? I know for PC-to-PC you need a router between them or are forced to use a crossover cable. I don't want to use a router between my PC and my DG, because it will introduce some latency.Most modern network interfaces are able to handle this, so usually no crossover cable is needed.
NI visa provide examples for C:
https://www.ni.com/de-de/support/documentation/supplemental/18/ni-daqmx--ni-visa--and-ni-488-2-visual-c---example-locations.html (https://www.ni.com/de-de/support/documentation/supplemental/18/ni-daqmx--ni-visa--and-ni-488-2-visual-c---example-locations.html)
R&S proivdes an overview of diffrent Languages:
https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/de/driver-pages/fernsteuerung/why-visa-_231254.html (https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/de/driver-pages/fernsteuerung/why-visa-_231254.html)
And I recomend always pyvisa:
https://pyvisa.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ (https://pyvisa.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)Also, if I do go the Ethernet route, connecting my DG directly to my PC, will I need to have a normal Ethernet cable? Or will I need a crossover cable? I know for PC-to-PC you need a router between them or are forced to use a crossover cable. I don't want to use a router between my PC and my DG, because it will introduce some latency.Most modern network interfaces are able to handle this, so usually no crossover cable is needed.
I have never been able to send large data sets to the unit over a remote connection, the scpi command :SOUR1:DATA VOLATILE, <value>,<value>.... only supports 16k points.
This is the reason I switched to thump drives, but maybe others here can help.
[:SOURce[<n>]][:TRACe]:DATA:DACVOLATILE,{<binary_block_data>|<value>,<value>,<value>... }
:SOURce:TRACe:DATA:DAC VOLATILE,#510000<<RAW DATA GOES HERE>>Unfortunately this method doesn't seem to work for a number of samples larger than 16384 samples for the waveform, even WITH the 16M memory expansion installed.
The programming manual says that you can send several data packets with 32 kBytes with the command "[:SOURce[<n>]][:TRACe]:DATA:DAC16". The "<flag>" is available for this.
Peter
Can you maybe tell me where this PDF file came from? It seems to show commands NOT listed in the normal programming guide.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/source-for-arb-waveforms/?action=dlattach;attach=472052 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/source-for-arb-waveforms/?action=dlattach;attach=472052)
But VISA doesn't emulate serial or anything. It provides a special link that software like UltraSigma can use, but I want to write my own control software. I don't want to keep depending on UltraSigma software to send commands. I assume UltraSigma is communicating with the VISA driver using a DLL file that provides a VISA interface. What is the name of that DLL file, and what functions does it export that I can call from within my own program?