New bench scope - Fnirsi 1014D, 7", 1GSa/s

[mkstevo]

I've seen a few reviews of these "fnisi" things and I find it appalling. (The fnirsi, not the reviews).

...

Decent scopes start at around EUR250.

With respect though, that is nearly double the price of the FNIRSI.

I have an OWON that I use at work which cost close to £400 five years ago and it is worse in every single way to the FNIRSI. Not only is the user interface worse, it takes in advance of 60 seconds to start, it constantly needs the self-calibration running, the display isn't as bight and any measurements are laid over part of the (much smaller) screen. Worse still is that if you move the trigger point to view more of the waveform on the OWON if you change the horizontal timebase the trigger point moves relative to the timebase making the trigger point move right off the screen and somewhere into last/next week.

I too have used some very high end oscilloscopes, I have worked in the technical department for a Technical College, for a company that manufactured measuring equipment in the aerospace and oil extraction industries and for consumer electronics companies, I'm now working for a small company where money is restricted for test equipment and so bought the OWON, I wish I'd had the chance then to buy the FNIRSI. I don't seek to claim that Hameg should be worried by FNIRSI, the two are polar opposites, but for the life of me I can't understand the snobbery towards FNIRSI.

It is a superb little oscilloscope and function generator, bought with realistic expectations I doubt you would be disappointed. Yes, I'd love a Hameg at home like I used to work with, but I can't justify the expense for something I'll use only a few times a year. I would also like to justify replacing the OWON with a FNIRSI, it would save me pulling my hair out quite as often.

[tautech]

I don't seek to claim that Hameg should be worried by FNIRSI, the two are polar opposites, but for the life of me I can't understand the snobbery towards FNIRSI.

Despite your experience you have overlooked the most basic of scope requirements, input sensitivity and input ratings !

With a max sensitivity of only 50mV/div and 40V max at 1x input attenuation severely limits this scope for even basic use. Only by adding a 10x probe is the input rating increased to 400V, a rating that is standard at 1x for most other DSO's available however with a 10x probe max sensitivity becomes 500mV/div !

Snobbery, be buggered, practical usefulness is what really matters.

[badz]

It is a superb little oscilloscope and function generator, bought with realistic expectations I doubt you would be disappointed. Yes, I'd love a Hameg at home like I used to work with, but I can't justify the expense for something I'll use only a few times a year. I would also like to justify replacing the OWON with a FNIRSI, it would save me pulling my hair out quite as often.

You can watch few teardown videos for this scope, its hardware design is worse than 1013d tablet scope. For 1014D they have to use software averaging and interpolation algorithms to deal with ringing and noisy inputs.

[JOSM]

I have bought a unit of the FNIRSI 1014D. I like the idea of having the 5V power supply. That makes it portable.
So, here is my mod.
I am using an USB power bank RealPower PB-5000C. The good thing about this powerbank is, it does not need to be switched on prior to usage. That makes it easy to hide inside the oscilloscope.

[Jackster]

Just got one of these today. Jesus, they must have gone out of their way to get the worst encoders they could get. I'm sure there are cheaper ones better than this 

For what I need, this scope works great.

I am binning ultrasonic sensors and just wanted an easy way to certify each transducer and receiver with a 100Hz step.
At 20-60Hz, this scope I think is more than accurate enough to selectively bin components?

Got it off Amazon UK for £150, https://amzn.to/33sQ1Os and it is branded "YEAPOOK ADS1014D" on the listing and box but the actual scope just has "Oscilloscope" as the brand on the top left.
Had a few free £20 coupons to use up so only cost me a few quid and got it same day.

Is the firmware worth updating? I don't know how to tell which version I am on. Right now it works fine and I sort of don't want to touch it.

[joseph4511]

Hello folks, i got my 1014D off Amazon. Scope was working fine till yesterday. Now it does turn on but thats it, freeze on fnirsi logo. I think firmware is gone, disassembled the device and connected the W25Q16 chip to pc. Compared the partial binary codes with update firmware, seems they re same. I guess scope firmware is gone, hope you guys can extract the whole bin file for me from the W25Q16. Thanks

[pcprogrammer]

Attached is the content from my flash.

I made it with the firmware backup-er I wrote, which is also attached. It runs from the SD card. Since your scope is not booting the only way to load it is to remove the SD card and use a card reader/writer.

For more info on the firmware backup program take a look here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/fnirsi-1013d-100mhz-tablet-oscilloscope/msg3807689/#msg3807689

In that thread is a lot of information about how the 1013D works, and the two scopes are very much the same software wise. A lot of info can be found here: https://github.com/pecostm32/FNIRSI-1013D-Hack

Success with the repair.

[joseph4511]

thank you so much for your effords, uploaded the whole firmware. Logo does not shift anymore but still stuck, does not boot to the scope program. Also firmware version v3.0 text disappeared. Should i upload the firmware with your backup loader ?

Also i attached my whole firmware file, your .bin file has too many blank spaces compared to my fw.

[pcprogrammer]

The fact that the firmware version v3.0 text disappeared means that the flash has been reprogrammed. This image is being displayed by the boot program. It looks like it has problems with reading from the part where the actual program sits in the flash. At address 0x27000 in the flash it expects a BROM header.

Try to replace the flash ic. It has to be at least 2MB, but does not have to be W25Q16. A W25Q32 or W25Q64 will also do.

My backup program will only make a copy of the flash onto the SD card. It does not write to the flash. It might show the problem though, because it is the scope's own CPU reading the flash.

[joseph4511]

Well i tried with genuine Macronix MX25L6405 8 MB ic flash, flashed with neo programmer which i always use for bios programming with verify option, nothing changed.

[pcprogrammer]

That makes it a problem then. The fact that the display has back-light tells us that the FPGA is doing something. Not sure if the GD32 chip in there for the knobs and buttons can block the boot up.

If you know your way around software the disassembly of the 1014D is also in the Ghidra archive in the 1013D hack repository. Maybe with the info from there you can determine why it hangs.

I gave up on reverse engineering this scope. Done the 1013D and that was educational and fun, but also frustrating.

[joseph4511]

Dont want to repair if its more then firmware issue. I ll send it back while i can, thank you so much.

[joseph4511]

they sent me a new motherboard which works perfect. Couplings work as they should. My old broken board has allwinner F1C100S and new one has f1c200s, could it be the issue ?

[YurkshireLad]

they sent me a new motherboard which works perfect. Couplings work as they should. My old broken board has allwinner F1C100S and new one has f1c200s, could it be the issue ?

Does the motherboard have a different revision number than the original?

[joseph4511]

there s no rev. number written. Only 1014D OSC, nothing is different than old board but F1C100s

[pcprogrammer]

there s no rev. number written. Only 1014D OSC, nothing is different than old board but F1C100s

The only difference between the F1C100s and the F1C200s is the size of the DRAM. 32MB for the 100 and 64MB for the 200. It might be that they ran out of the 100 and used the 200 instead. Doubt that they changed the firmware to make use of the extra memory.

Would be interesting to see what is wrong with the old board

[joseph4511]

i tried to reflash every rom from new board nothing changed. Checked all boosters and xtals. Also checked with flir nothing gets hot than usual. Afaik problem occured when its off and plugged to voltage source. If you have any idea to start somewhere, i d be grateful

[pcprogrammer]

The fact that the board is (was) able to load and display the startup image tells us that part of the system is working as it should. The fact that it hangs after displaying it tells us that it fails in either loading the real program or that the real program itself hangs before clearing the screen.

Running the firmware backup program I wrote will show if the system is capable of reading the whole flash and interact with the display. So that is one test you could do.

Other things that come to mind are:

• The DRAM in the F1C100s has a problem
• A peripheral in the F1C100s has a problem
• The GD32 chip for handling the buttons and knobs has a problem
• The FPGA has a problem

A test to perform is measure all the voltages on the board. The hardware is very similar to the 1013D so look at the schematics in the repository.

In the hack repository https://github.com/pecostm32/FNIRSI-1013D-Hack a lot of information is available to research the problem.

It could be a fun learning experience. It is possible to run linux on the F1C100s, but it needs a serial connection to one of the chips UART, so you have to figure out if it is possible to connect a USB -> serial converter to the one connected to the GD32 chip. There is a linux image in the repository that should work. (It does on the 1013D)

I myself would write my own test programs to check things, but that is me

Have fun with it

[joseph4511]

i replaced F1C100s with 200s and worked on working board, broken is still same. Swapped GD32 with working one nothing have changed. I swapped SE 98 marked component and i have 2 dead board with same issue now

[pcprogrammer]

Is also a way to get to the broken component. Requires good soldering skills and tools

I looked at my board but did not see a chip with SE 98 marking on it. Can you take pictures of the board and show which component you are talking about?

Attached is a picture of my board.

Edit: Made markings on the board picture to identify some of the parts on it.

[joseph4511]

It was special i2c ic that i changed. I have Quick 816dw Hot air station and aixun t3a soldering station with genuie jbc c245 tips. Amscope trinocular microscope, uni t ut61e+ multimeter, vision 8 bga machine and vice versa. I can solder everything without a doubt I have pretty good soldering skills and tools.

Edit: the making on the IC is SE 98, when i checked for datasheet there s only one which is ddr temperature sensor.

[pcprogrammer]

Well then I hope you still have one that is working, because this IC is unknown to what it is. Most likely some micro-controller with a forgiving I2C interface. (The I2C implementation in the FPGA is not very good timing wise)

In the original firmware it is used as some lookup device. It is also found in the 1013D but I found that it is not actually needed for reading the sample data from the FPGA.

It might well be possible to implement the needed functionality in a tiny85 or similar type of MCU. The defective board can be used without it, but needs firmware that is stripped from using this special IC. Not an easy task since it still needs the response values to have the rest of the system behaving properly.

[joseph4511]

They both dont work now i dont know why

[pcprogrammer]

They both dont work now i dont know why

Ouch  that is a bummer.

In the 1013D thread there is info about what the IC does and also some talk about measurements on the I2c data between the FPGA and the "special ic". For example a bit here https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/fnirsi-1013d-100mhz-tablet-oscilloscope/msg3880016/#msg3880016

I guess there are three paths you can take:

• Do nothing and accept the device is bricked.
• Try to make code for a tiny85 MCU that mimics the "special ic". A lot of information can be found in the 1013D thread and repository.
• Try to hack the original firmware and kill of the code that interfaces with the "special ic". For this there is also a lot of information in the 1013D thread and repository.

A defective touch panel is what lured me in to reverse engineering the 1013D, so maybe the defective "special ic" is your lure for the 1014D

[joseph4511]

i do not have free time for this device Going to send it back to china, they will fix it in 10 minutes ) Im curious about the 100mhz, can this device measure 100 mhz correctly ?