New Rigol DS1054Z oscilloscope

[bitseeker]

The new XY is neat. But failing to address even the simplest of bugs (i.e., misspelled labels) is .

No matter. Soon, we'll start fixing things ourselves.

[technogeeky]

The new XY is neat. But failing to address even the simplest of bugs (i.e., misspelled labels) is .

No matter. Soon, we'll start fixing things ourselves.

Does anyone know if the firmware can be simulated? Like would it be possible to run the firmware in an emulator?

[JPortici]

Jesus christ. What the hell have they been working at?

[bitseeker]

Does anyone know if the firmware can be simulated? Like would it be possible to run the firmware in an emulator?

Not that I'm aware of, but that would be nice for verifying "fixed" firmware before loading.

[bitseeker]

Jesus christ. What the hell have they been working at?

Ack! Someone said the "W" word!

[JPortici]

Now all my faith is in the custom hacked firmware

[urill]

I upgraded to the new firmware. Now all LEDs on my scope stay on after power-on self test. I am doomed...

[Wirehead]

The XY mode is all-new.

Care to share a screenshot of the changes in X-Y?

There's two display modes. One is "split" which shows the X and Y traces at the top of the screen with X/Y plot below that.

Flashed it straight away. That is MUCH better than the split-window one. Also, they seem to have gotten rid of a bug in that mode. I had the Y-channel configured as "mA"; and when using the "fine" controls, it would adjust the displayed scale "fine" but the actual measured data, would jump with the "coarse" scale, under some conditions. That seems to be gone 

[jusaca]

I did not see any capability to trigger on a given pulse length (e.g. min. 340µs or whatever). Is it hidden somewhere or is that not possible with this scope?

[Gabri74]

I did not see any capability to trigger on a given pulse length (e.g. min. 340µs or whatever). Is it hidden somewhere or is that not possible with this scope?

Pulse Trigger or Duration Trigger. See pag. 82 or 91 (may be different for newer manuals) of the User Guide :-)

[Assafl]

I may be wrong but I seem to remember Pluses was also in the menu and if so that was fixed. The labels indeed say Pluses.

[pascal_sweden]

On this forum there is a detailed bug list maintained for the Rigol DS1054Z.

Why does Rigol America not follow and pick up this bug list, and coordinate accordingly with their Chinese HQ?

They could easily go through the list, prioritize and filter it, before they pass over to the Chinese HQ.

This process would make sure that the showstoppers and major bugs are fixed first. Of course there should be a process in place to eventually fix the low priority bugs as well. That can easily be done by running different "swim lanes" in the development department. Short-term, Mid-term and long-term bug fixes are done in the different lanes.

Right now, some of the bugs that are reported, even major bugs might not even be known to Rigol in China.

[jusaca]

@Gabri74
Oh, you are right. I just watched Daves Video and couldn't see it there.
Should have had a look at the manual before^^

[Fungus]

I may be wrong but I seem to remember Pluses was also in the menu and if so that was fixed. The labels indeed say Pluses.

Does not parse.

[urill]

Contacted Rigol Chinese HQ about the malfunctioning front panel LED after upgrading. I have to send the scope back for repair.

I will avoid Rigol in the future...

[alsetalokin4017]

I may be wrong but I seem to remember Pluses was also in the menu and if so that was fixed. The labels indeed say Pluses.

No, the Horizontal Menu +Pulses and -Pulses items are correctly spelled in the 00.04.03.02.03 firmware. Just the measurement labels have the Pluses misprint.

So this is _not_ fixed in the new firmware?

I hope that nobody else has had the "LED malfunction" reported by urill. That is very scary.

While I like the idea of the fullscreen x-y display, I'd still like to know if some of the other bugs have been fixed before I update my firmware. The one I'm most interested in is the Measurements Fail bug that causes _all_ measurements to stop updating after a random time interval when Math is in use.

[alsetalokin4017]

I tried it. I can't see much difference. It still says "pluses" in the measurements.

What about the UI responsiveness? There were complaints regarding the previous version.

Seems the same to me. 

I think the complaints were only when all 4 channels were on and you were doing math.

I guess somebody would have to put two of them side-by-side to show a difference.

If I recall correctly, you said you did not install the 00.04.03.02.03 firmware that caused the big slowdown of the UI response and which introduced the Pluses typo and some other bugs. No, it did not happen _only_ when 4 channels+math were in use.

And I did in fact have two units for side-by-side testing for about 3 days, back when RigolUSA sent me a replacement for the scope that froze when persistence and zoom were selected.

[alsetalokin4017]

Contacted Rigol Chinese HQ about the malfunctioning front panel LED after upgrading. I have to send the scope back for repair.

I will avoid Rigol in the future...

Why didn't you contact RigolUSA?

http://www.rigolna.com/
https://www.rigolna.com/tech-support/

RIGOL Technologies Inc.

    10200 SW Allen Blvd., Suite C
    Beaverton, OR 97005
    Email Us
    Phone: 877-4-RIGOL-1
    Fax: 877-4-RIGOL-1

[urill]

Contacted Rigol Chinese HQ about the malfunctioning front panel LED after upgrading. I have to send the scope back for repair.

I will avoid Rigol in the future...

Why didn't you contact RigolUSA?

http://www.rigolna.com/
https://www.rigolna.com/tech-support/

RIGOL Technologies Inc.

    10200 SW Allen Blvd., Suite C
    Beaverton, OR 97005
    Email Us
    Phone: 877-4-RIGOL-1
    Fax: 877-4-RIGOL-1

I thought contacting the Rigol China HQ would be more efficient to make them aware of the bug. They believe the LED problem is not a bug in their firmware but just random error in flashing the firmware. (No checksum?) My next step will be contacting Rigol USA for repair.

I also asked about how to effectively report a bug. They said anything reported to Rigol USA will be reported to China HQ. When I asked why many reported bugs did not get fixed, they said probably the reporter did not follow up.

I reported the "Pluses" label bug directly to their China HQ. Let's see if it will be fixed in next update.


For the problem, all the LED lights up at start up, and they do not respond to any button press. 1-10 minutes later some LED randomly turn off, but they still don't respond to controls. Everything else work fine. Yes I tried pressing the 5th dark button on the left to reset the scope, reflashing the same version of firmware, unhack the options, and unplug and plug in again.

Software version: 00.04.04.00.07
Board version: 0.1.1
Boot version: 0.0.1.4
Firmware version:0.2.3.11
CPLD version: 1.1

[alsetalokin4017]

I see, thanks for the detailed reply.

When you tried re-flashing, did you use the same copy of the firmware you used initially? Have you tried re-downloading, re-extracting and using a fresh copy of the firmware?

It's worth a shot.

[urill]

I see, thanks for the detailed reply.

When you tried re-flashing, did you use the same copy of the firmware you used initially? Have you tried re-downloading, re-extracting and using a fresh copy of the firmware?

It's worth a shot.

I tried redownloading the firmware. It does not fix the problem.

People with successful upgrade, do you have the same system info as mine?

[Assafl]

Mine says:

Software Version 00.04.04.00.07
Board Version 0.1.1
Boot Version 0.0.1.2
Firmware Version 0.2.3.11
CPLD Version 1.1
Build Date Jun 16 2016 10:25:12|0 0:2/6 14:10
StartUp Criter 126

[pascal_sweden]

Most likely there are several flash memories in the oscilloscope, such as the main flash memory to hold the boot image for the oscilloscope (external flash memory in separate chips), and one or more smaller internal flash memories to hold dedicated configuration settings (internal flash memory in a microcontroller chip or a dedicated controller chip, such as a front panel controller, an Ethernet controller, etc.)

Typically a Resident Boot Loader resides in the OTP (One-Time Programmable) area of the flash memory, that will never be changed. The only task of the RBL at boot time is to check if the firmware needs to be updated, and if not, it will just transfer ownership to the Dynamic Boot Loader in the flash memory. If the firmware needs to be updated, it updates the DBL in the flash memory.

Good firmware implementations work with double copies of the DBL, where a pointer either points to the new DBL or the old DBL. Only after the updated firmware boots successfully, the pointer will be changed to the new DBL for good. This guarantees that there will always be a working DBL in the flash memory, and that the boot sequence will not get stuck, because of an active selected DBL that is corrupt.

The firmware upgrade would not only update the main flash memory in the external flash memory chips, but also the smaller internal flash memories in a microcontroller chip or a dedicated controller chip.
Maybe one of the smaller internal flash memories got corrupted during the firmware update.

It might be possible to fix that again, by performing another firmware upgrade, but one has to make sure that you force the flash memory update for the internal flash memory as well. As these don't change that often, it is probably not easy to find one that has a different version, which would force the update.

Maybe you have to look for a very old firmware update, to make sure it has a different flash memory version for the internal flash memory of a microcontroller chip or a dedicated controller chip.

If you try again with the same firmware upgrade, or with a recent firmware upgrade, it will probably not be effective at all, as it would not have an effect on the internal flash memory.

While you can force the firmware update on the main flash memory anyhow, even if the firmware version is the same, most likely you can't on the internal flash memory. There you can only force the firmware update by selecting one that has a different firmware version. Therefore I suggest to use a very old firmware upgrade, to increase your chances that the firmware version of the internal flash memory is different =)

[alsetalokin4017]

That sounds reasonable... but unfortunately the DS1054z does not seem to allow "downgrading" or loading an earlier firmware version than what is in the scope.

This is one of Rigol's design choices that seems to be utterly nuts.

If anyone knows how to load an earlier firmware version than the one that is running (or has failed to run) on the scope, please PLEASE publish the method.

The oldest firmware I have in my archives is 00.04.00.00.00. Note that there are two files in there, in directories called "Sparrow(ARM)update_00.04.00.00.00" and "Sparrow(Boot)update_00.04.00.00.00". Both directories contain a .GEL file with the same usual name "DS1000ZUpdate.GEL" but with different file sizes.

Unfortunately it is too large (2 MB) to attach to this post.

[Fungus]

For the problem, all the LED lights up at start up, and they do not respond to any button press. 1-10 minutes later some LED randomly turn off, but they still don't respond to controls. Everything else work fine. Yes I tried pressing the 5th dark button on the left to reset the scope, reflashing the same version of firmware, unhack the options, and unplug and plug in again.

It's hard to see how a firmware upgrade could cause that.

It makes no sense at all - sounds more like a hardware problem.