Siglent SDS 1104X-E saved image time stamp

[pOM]

New member here, with a new SDS1104X-E.  A great advance over the 100 Mhz Meguro analog scope I've been working with for the past 20+ years.  (And, I'll add, over the venerable Tek 500 series that I serviced and calibrated years before that.)

I'm picking up most of the newer capabilities of the 1104, but have come across a few things that don't seem to be addressed anywhere:

1) I was using "Sequence Mode" to record the start-up of the PWM heater control circuit for an engine O2 sensor.  I had about 150 frames in the "History" record, spaced about 0.3 seconds apart, and wanted to save them all to an external flash drive.  No problem saving them, except, it seemed the only way to do that is one-by-one.  Is that correct, or is there a way to batch save all the frames in a History "list" in one step?

2) When I look at the list of saved frames in, e.g. Windows File Explorer, they each have the same time stamp:  1979-12-31 11:00 PM.  Is this a time stamp that the scope attaches to saved images, and if so, how do I adjust the "clock" to record the actual current time the image was saved? 

3) I downloaded the SDS 1000X-E series User Manual from the Siglent (North America) website (UM0101E-E03C) which I presume is the latest.  However, I found the 239 page document is not keyword searchable using, e.g., Acrobat Reader.  Is there a different version that is, or is there any way around this? 

Thanks for the great forum, and the great videos (reviews, use) that members have made.

Be well

[TK]

It happened the same to me the other day.  I could not find where to change the date on the scope... I looked everywhere

[tautech]

Welcome to the forum.

1. I suggest you do this in another manner, namely with a slow timebase and dedicated Roll mode with some trigger setting to capture what you need to see. If you need to get the results in data form export the capture in the small  .BIN format then convert it to .CSV for graphing or whatever. A BIN to CSV conversion tool is available within the webrowser UI.

2. Unfortunately there is no RTC in these models so all analysis is based in scope time (s/div) from the trigger event.

3. From P XVI (P17) the list of contents is clickable to take you to that particular topic.

[pOM]

Welcome to the forum.

1. I suggest you do this in another manner, namely with a slow timebase and dedicated Roll mode with some trigger setting to capture what you need to see. If you need to get the results in data form export the capture in the small  .BIN format then convert it to .CSV for graphing or whatever. A BIN to CSV conversion tool is available within the webrowser UI. . .

I can try Roll mode, but I'm still not very familiar with it.  Will it work in my case:

The voltage being monitored is 12 V with ignition On, engine Off.  When the engine is started, the voltage rises to around 14 V as the alternator starts up.  Within a second or two, the switching circuit starts up.  It's at 7.8 Hz.  Initially the duty cycle is low, then increases to a high duty cycle 95%), and then stabilizes at a mid-point. 

So would a .bin file bring the full Roll period together so that the signal is a single series that can be plotted over time?

(Any link to posts or articles on using the .bin save would be appreciated.)

[tautech]

Welcome to the forum.

1. I suggest you do this in another manner, namely with a slow timebase and dedicated Roll mode with some trigger setting to capture what you need to see. If you need to get the results in data form export the capture in the small  .BIN format then convert it to .CSV for graphing or whatever. A BIN to CSV conversion tool is available within the webrowser UI. . .

I can try Roll mode, but I'm still not very familiar with it.  Will it work in my case:

The voltage being monitored is 12 V with ignition On, engine Off.  When the engine is started, the voltage rises to around 14 V as the alternator starts up.  Within a second or two, the switching circuit starts up.  It's at 7.8 Hz.  Initially the duty cycle is low, then increases to a high duty cycle 95%), and then stabilizes at a mid-point. 

So would a .bin file bring the full Roll period together so that the signal is a single series that can be plotted over time?

(Any link to posts or articles on using the .bin save would be appreciated.)

Yes dedicated Roll mode will serve your needs but the trigger selection is your most powerful tool in a DSO.
Use the Roll mode button and dedicated Roll mode works differently to auto Roll mode.

First decide what trigger type or channel will start a capture and use another channel and Single trigger mode if necessary.
To maximise the amount of memory vs timebase setting split the inputs onto each or the ADC's, eg use channels 1 & 3, 2 & 4 etc to gain the full memory available.

Video
https://siglentna.com/video/binary-to-csv-x-e/

[pOM]

Yes dedicated Roll mode will serve your needs but the trigger selection is your most powerful tool in a DSO.
Use the Roll mode button and dedicated Roll mode works differently to auto Roll mode.

First decide what trigger type or channel will start a capture and use another channel and Single trigger mode if necessary.
To maximise the amount of memory vs timebase setting split the inputs onto each or the ADC's, eg use channels 1 & 3, 2 & 4 etc to gain the full memory available.

Video
https://siglentna.com/video/binary-to-csv-x-e/

Very much appreciated!

I'll experiment with using Roll mode and saving to .csv using the utility.  Might have some questions along the way, but it's looking good just now. 

[pOM]

Yes dedicated Roll mode will serve your needs but the trigger selection is your most powerful tool in a DSO.
Use the Roll mode button and dedicated Roll mode works differently to auto Roll mode.

First decide what trigger type or channel will start a capture and use another channel and Single trigger mode if necessary.
To maximise the amount of memory vs timebase setting split the inputs onto each or the ADC's, eg use channels 1 & 3, 2 & 4 etc to gain the full memory available.

I might not need a separate trigger.  Based on some bench experimenting, for the ultimate application I can probably start the Roll, then start the engine.  In this way it should capture details of the duty cycle start up.  After some time (probably less than one minute) I can manually stop the Roll and turn the engine off.
 
For the bench tests/learning:
 
Source:  square wave gen circuit at ~7.5 Hz (variable), ~10 V peak
Horizontal: 5 or 10 sec/div,
Acquisition: 1.00 kSa/s and 140kpts.
Input: 10X probe and scope channel set to 10X. 

Roll, save BIN and convert to CSV seem to be working as expected -- a big step forward. 

Some observations that I have to search here:

In regard to "dedicated Roll", is there another form and, if so, what is the difference?

In the resulting CSV table, the Vertical settings are shown as 1/10th the actual setting; e.g., when scope was set to 2V/div, the log shows "Vertical Scale CH1: 0.20", and all the voltage data is 1/10 of what it should be.  It's not a significant issue, but I'm wondering why it's not showing the actual setting and results.

The BinToCSV tool seems to have a bit of a quirk: It converts each BIN file to a csv entitiled Analog_Trace.  If there's a previously converted file in the same folder, it doesn't name the next one sequentially, e.g., Analog_Trace(1) etc.  Instead, when Convert is pressed, it seems to work, and indicates when the conversion is "completed", but no file appears.  However, if the first CSV file is deleted, moved, or renamed before the next BIN file is converted, then it works, again using the same Analog_Trace title. 

When in page 2/2 of the Acquire menu, there's an "Acq Mode" softkey with Fast or Slow options.  I don't recall seeing this mentioned in the User Manual when I went through it earlier, albeit quickly, and it's not in the page 17 Table of Contents.  Document keyword search capability would be useful, but I would imagine it has been discussed so we'll see what my search can provide.

[tubularnut]

I seem to recall it's possible to setup NTP for setting the time if you have a network connection?

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds1204x-e-released-for-domestic-markets-in-china/msg1812089/#msg1812089

Read reply #969

[pOM]

I seem to recall it's possible to setup NTP for setting the time if you have a network connection? . . .

Thanks for that link.  Quite the discussion. The suggested "fixes" are somewhat above my level, and as I generally power down when not using the scope,would necessitate resetting each time. 

The question was raised because I was saving a lot of individual frames from one History session.   If there were an on-board clock, even not network synced, each saved frame would have a different, in sequence created date/time. With the suggestion to use the Roll function and converting the BIN to CSV, the need to save multiple frame images is significantly reduced.

But it does respond to my question about the odd time stamps, and whether or not there is an accessible on-board clock.

Much appreciated.

[pOM]

Welcome to the forum.

1. I suggest you do this in another manner, namely with a slow timebase and dedicated Roll mode with some trigger setting to capture what you need to see. If you need to get the results in data form export the capture in the small  .BIN format then convert it to .CSV for graphing or whatever. A BIN to CSV conversion tool is available within the webrowser UI.

. . .

I thought I had it working with Roll, but it seems not.  It works with one channel, but, not with two.  Am I not using it correctly?

Below is a screen shot showing two channels on the same source signal in a Roll display.  It's a square wave signal, approx 7 Hz, and about 10 V p.  Looks straight-forward. 



However, when the bin file is converted to csv, and both data series plotted in Excel, instead of two identical graphs, the second is partially attached to the first, but offset downward (attached jpg):



The offset amount in the graph, interestingly, corresponds to the vertical offset used to display CH3 lower on the screen. 

Any idea why the data file (attached xlsx) doesn't correspond to the screen?

[tautech]

Sorry I've not tried to graph 2 traces but some comments that should help to capture what you need to see.

We can make any channel invisible and we might do this for a trigger channel when the data we wish to see is on another. The switch for this is in the channel menu on P2. Maybe you can do what you need with just one channel. 
It seems you are using the dedicated Roll mode and Single trigger ....... good ! 
Now move the Trigger position to near the left edge of the display so to allow for a longer record time of data before Single activates. Note, in other than Roll mode this left position would be used for best/most post trigger info as the sweep starts from the left not right as in dedicated Roll mode.

Once you have a captured trace as in Single you are using you can zoom using the timebase and pan using Horizontal Position to inspect in detail all of the captured waveform. Maybe History also can help you look through the full record.
Come back if you need further pointers. 

[pOM]

Sorry I've not tried to graph 2 traces but some comments that should help to capture what you need to see.

I do think the comments have done it!

We can make any channel invisible and we might do this for a trigger channel when the data we wish to see is on another. The switch for this is in the channel menu on P2. Maybe you can do what you need with just one channel.

The current objective is to compare the two signals, which in the real application are somewhat different over the test period, and also to be able to share the data, so both have to be recorded.  (And there might be cases where it's 4 signals/4 channels, thus the 1204.)  That's where the csv is useful, in place of my earlier attempt to collect multiple screen images from the history file (which, incidentally, is not available when using Roll mode). 

Now move the Trigger position to near the left edge of the display so to allow for a longer record time of data before Single activates. Note, in other than Roll mode this left position would be used for best/most post trigger info as the sweep starts from the left not right as in dedicated Roll mode.

It doesn't seem to make any difference in Roll.  As soon as Single is pressed, the sweep starts. 

Once you have a captured trace as in Single you are using you can zoom using the timebase and pan using Horizontal Position to inspect in detail all of the captured waveform. Maybe History also can help you look through the full record.

Yes, I've varied the sweep and the cursors to measure period and duty cycle along the full length of a record.  It's fine on screen, but not readily share-able.

It seems you are using the dedicated Roll mode and Single trigger ....... good ! 

Kept this till the end because this comment was instrumental in identifying the cause, but not yet the solution.

My approach (this is all bench testing with the sq wave generator, but the anomaly was originally found with the car data) was to set up the two vertical channels for placement and deflection, and the horizontal sweep rate while in Roll.  I then I would press Stop then Roll. The sweep would usually be Auto because I had set the rate anticipating I would be manually stopping it before the trace reaches the left edge.  (Typical might be using 5s sweep, and stopping at around 50 seconds.)

However, with your note about Single sweep, which I was not particularly using, I tried various sweep speeds using Single, and found that even on a long 5s or 10s/div Single Roll sweep, if I left it to complete and stop on its own, the log is fine.   But regardless of whether using Single, Manual or Auto, if I manually Stop it, the anomaly appears in the data file. 

I guess I could just set the sweep rate to encompass the needed time frame in each instance and allow Single to complete, but I have to wonder why this happens when manually stopping and whether it might be a glitch in the recording firmware.  There could be instances where one might be watching a roll sweep and want to capture an anomaly quickly by stopping it at, or immediately following, that point. 

I'll try another "real" test on the car tomorrow, and report back.  In the meantime, any thoughts welcome, and again my appreciation for the guidance.

[tautech]

Interesting about the data Stop abnormality. 

In Single mode while there is no data/input and the trigger is set to an appropriate level and position I would think the Roll continues but Stop's only when the trigger conditions are met. If so then your bin file should be error free as it has a start and end.
Assumption only as I don't have a chance ATM to check for you and the exercise will help you learn more about the scope. 

[pOM]

Was following up on Single mode and Roll functions, and came across another puzzle:

The bin waveform file appears to be limited to 100,000 samples.  In other words, a displayed waveform is not necessarily fully saved in the bin file.

Example:

Sweep: 5 sec/div
Sa rate: 2k Sa/s

Based on the formula, Memory depth = sample rate (Sa/s) x waveform length (s/div x div), the above combination gives a Memory depth of 140,000. 

When the scope Mem Depth is set to 140k, or even 1.4M, and a Single Roll sweep is run, the displayed waveform extends the full 70 seconds, and appears intact throughout.

However, when the waveform bin file is downloaded and converted, there's only 100,000 data samples (lines in the csv), spanning 50 seconds.  The last 20 seconds are missing.

If the Mem Depth is set to 14k, then the full waveform record is intact; there's 14,000 sample lines, spanning the full 70 seconds.  But that also reduces the Sa rate to 200 Sa/s rather than 2k Sa/s, with accompanying loss of detail.

If in the first case the equation is matched by selecting Mem Depth of 140k or 1.4M, then why does the bin not have the complete 70 second record, or anything near it?

[pOM]

Interesting about the data Stop abnormality. 

I wrote to Siglent.

In Single mode while there is no data/input and the trigger is set to an appropriate level and position I would think the Roll continues but Stop's only when the trigger conditions are met. If so then your bin file should be error free as it has a start and end. . . .

Yes, that is the case. 

I ran tests on the car while monitoring both sensors using Roll in Single sweep (5s/div), having set the trigger level within the vertical range of the signal, thereby enabling the sweep to stop on its own.  In both cases the resulting bin files did not have the manual Stop abnormality. 

In regard to the bin files, I ran one test at 14k Mem Depth, the other 140k.  The former, as expected, is clearly less detailed, but the bin file covers the full 70 seconds.  The latter, although better detailed, has only 50 seconds of data in the bin file, again 100,000 sample lines.   Certainly seems as if the bin record has a preset limit.  Unless I find confirmation beforehand, I might follow up with Siglent on this.

Definitely learning. . . . Thanks