OMEGA - Logic Analyzer

[Carrington]

The best I found, obviously there are better, but not at this price: 

- Extremely large event memory (512 megabit)
- Real-time hardware data compression
- Up to 400 MHz sample speed
- Up to 16 inputs, futher expandable by linking more analyzers together using synchronization header Windows and Linux
- Flexible trigger options
- "Logic probe" mode
- Controlled and powered by USB (High-Speed, 480 Mbps)
- Advanced software (for Windows and Linux)
- Function generator

http://www.asix.net/tools/dbg_omega.htm

ASIX offers other interesting products, unfortunately I think they are not well known.
I hope that thanks to this forum stop being not well known. 

[rkupka]

And ?

[rkupka]

and ?
is this an Ad ?  Or product review ? Or just copy/paste from their web ? What did you want to say by posting it ?

[Carrington]

and ?
is this an Ad ?  Or product review ? Or just copy/paste from their web ? What did you want to say by posting it ?

Just I want share, make it known. I have one, and I love it.
You already knew the existence of this product?

[rkupka]

No, I didn´t know it anything about it, though it surprised me it is developed and produced in Czech republic, which is my fellow neighbour country. But I would have expected a little more information in your post...  so it doesn´t look like an Ad from facebook and we´re suppose to click on "LIKE" button somewhere...
So... if you like it, post more info about it. Get it, make a review. This is EEV forum afterall.

[Carrington]

Yes, maybe later.

[jucole]

and ?
is this an Ad ?  Or product review ? Or just copy/paste from their web ? What did you want to say by posting it ?

Just I want share, make it known. I have one, and I love it.

I'm not convinced I like the look of the software - looks like a version 1.0 to me ;-)




A review would be great perhaps showing the software in action and perhaps give the reasons why you picked this one over the others.



[edit]

In my book a nice UI is just as important as the hardware;  here's a pic of more colorful way to do it.

[nack]

Exactly. I am currently looking at an LA, but tend to prefer the Intronix Logicport. I have played around with their software and operation is really nice (using the stored demo signals provided). The Logicport also does CAN bus decoding, which for me is a really nice feature for future projects.

[jucole]

lol - also you can't just change your post text from this..

The best I found,

to ..

The best I found, obviously there are better, but not at this price: 

as it makes poor "rkupka" look like he has an attitude problem when you read his replies to your edited post text! ;-)

[c4757p]

In my book a nice UI is just as important as the hardware;  here's a pic of more colorful way to do it.

Now to me, that looks just the same, except somebody let the art people out again...

lol - also you can't just change your post text from this..
to ..
as it makes poor "rkupka" look like he has an attitude problem when you read his replies to your edited post text! ;-)

Oh, I hate that! When I edit my posts, I always make sure you can tell what edit was made so I don't make someone look like a dick.

[nctnico]

I'd prefer a UI which works well over a crappy 'Christmas tree'. I must say the Bitscope display looks cleverly designed though.

[Carrington]

Apologies, is not my intention to embarrass anyone. I edited because I thought it would be convenient.
The software is not very colorful, but for me that's not important.

Make a review? On its website is quite well documented. As I said, I only want to make it known.
And: "To taste colors". Each of us has different needs.

[Stonent]

Make a review? On its website is quite well documented. As I said, I only want to make it known

Uh huh...

[rkupka]

Oh. How nicely handled, Carrington. Well done.

[senso]

Apologies, is not my intention to embarrass anyone. I edited because I thought it would be convenient.
The software is not very colorful, but for me that's not important.

Make a review? On its website is quite well documented. As I said, I only want to make it known.
And: "To taste colors". Each of us has different needs.

But the manufacturer review will always talk how good their instrument his, and that it spits rainbows and unicorns over the competition, but an independent review will not be biased (at least it shouldn't)....

[Carrington]

Uh huh...

Are those grunts of a wild animal? In that case I'm sorry I do not speak your language.

Oh. How nicely handled, Carrington. Well done.

If you say it with sarcasm, then I think that c4757p was wrong. You don't look like a dick.

But the manufacturer review will always talk how good their instrument his, and that it spits rainbows and unicorns over the competition, but an independent review will not be biased (at least it shouldn't)....

It seems that not only have I found a lot of funny boys.
Believe me, everything he says about this instrument on their website is true.
Unlike others manufacturers this is honest.

[nctnico]

Maybe from your point of view but there are always nit-pickers who find flaws. Lots of people like the Logicscope while I have had nothing but trouble with it and wouldn't buy a logic analyser with only 2k of memory... 

[Carrington]

Maybe from your point of view but there are always nit-pickers who find flaws. Lots of people like the Logicscope while I have had nothing but trouble with it and wouldn't buy a logic analyser with only 2k of memory... 

You're absolutely right. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

ASIX offers other interesting products, unfortunately I think they are not well known.
I hope that thanks to this forum stop being not well known. 

Their PRESTO  programmer is excellent - very fast and all sorts of useful options for serialisation, one-button programming etc. Probably the best device programmer software I've used.
They were also very helpful when I needed support for a fairly new PIC -it was added in a few days.

[Stonent]

Uh huh...

Are those grunts of a wild animal? In that case I'm sorry I do not speak your language.

I was pointing out how to us, people who do not know you personally, see that you don't have a whole lot of posts here and now appear to be promoting a product under the auspices of being the average guy that found a product they liked, but when pressed for more information you appear more like you're just a representative of said company and trying to sneak in free clicks.

Now if you had said "Hello, I work for XYZ corporation and we have a product which we think offers a great value when compared to similar products and would like for you guys to comment on it."

That might have met with more positive and constructive comments.

This may very well be an excellent product but I think the somewhat deceptive seeming posts you made caused a negative opinion by people who probably won't even look at it now.

[free_electron]

Onethingi always find funny with these kind of logic analyser doohickeys is that they claim absurd capabilities.

400MHz ...  With those stupid idc connectors and flatcables ? Once you hit that kind of speed you need to start looking at a bit more exotic connectors like Mictors.

Not a peep about trigger levels.. Signals at that speed are not ttl anymore... They may even be differential.

Not a peep about triggering capabilities. From what i can tell this is just another streamer....

512 megaBIT 16 channels ... 32 megasamples per channel. Ok not bad.

User interface is poor. See the post of the other ui. Lack of list view, lack of analog display , markers, lots of other things.

A lot of these cheapo thingies are kludged together by people who have never used nor seen a real logic analyser user interface. Real analysers let you create multiple viewports into the same datapool. Each viewport can be different, it can be waveform , bus format, analog , table, bus decod ; and if the machine really has balls : inverse assembly or even sourcecode through an OMF link.

According to its specification this thingie should be capable of hooking up to something relatively simple like a pci bus running at 66MHz . In practice it will be introducing so much loadon the bus that the bus becomes unreliable. Then the dilemma is : you are trying to debug a problem with a piece of equipment that causes problems....

These things are toys. Nothing more. Not until they get more advanced trigger capabilites (like sequential trigger) and get a way better user interface. From a hardware perspective they also need a better probing interface.

[firewalker]

They seem to support GNU/Linux for their products! 

Alexander.

[alm]

400MHz ...  With those stupid idc connectors and flatcables ? Once you hit that kind of speed you need to start looking at a bit more exotic connectors like Mictors.

Agreed.

Not a peep about trigger levels.. Signals at that speed are not ttl anymore... They may even be differential.

Yep, just a simple 74LVC245 input buffer with a fixed threshold (probably about 2V) according to the manual.

Not a peep about triggering capabilities. From what i can tell this is just another streamer....

Either they just added it, or you missed it. From their website:

Many various triggering options in the 16 inputs/200 MHz mode:

  -  Any value or edge on any input condition
  -  Defined duration of the condition ("longer than" and/or "shorter than")
  -  Sequence of two different conditions
  -  16-bit counter - triggering after N-th occurence of the condition
  -  Extensive condition definition options using logical functions (N)AND,(N)OR,(N)XOR

Standard triggering options in the 8 inputs/400 MHz mode - triggering on the input signal edge.

Apart from the basic 400 MHz triggering, this seems quite decent, although not at the same level as the HP logic analyzers with their state machines.

A lot of these cheapo thingies are kludged together by people who have never used nor seen a real logic analyser user interface. Real analysers let you create multiple viewports into the same datapool. Each viewport can be different, it can be waveform , bus format, analog , table, bus decod ; and if the machine really has balls : inverse assembly or even sourcecode through an OMF link.

Inverse assembly? How many designs with an external memory bus are you going to troubleshoot with this kind of device?

[free_electron]

Inverse assembly? How many designs with an external memory bus are you going to troubleshoot with this kind of device?

Since you can gang a few of these together i was hoping to hook ten or so together to probe a 80486 running at 100MHz and follow the boot process 

Here is a simple, stupid test case.
Teka an i2c bus. 5 volt 400khz.' Old skool'

Please analyser : trigger on a missing acknowledge. Any missing acknowledge.

See if it can do that.
The trigger script is easy :
If scl=1 and falling(sda) then arm
If armed : count 8 falling edges of scl then check sda. If low : trigger.

This is a trivial task that even the cheapest onehung low logic oscilloscopes can do.
None of streamers can cope with that.

These things are toys. You can frequently pick up a big iron analyser for a few 100$. I got a 16900 for 200$ ... When i get back i will post a teardown of a real analyser. It'l become painfully obvious then that these usb boxes are not worthy of the name analyser.

[Carrington]

A mini teardown. 

Note: Sigma image belongs to an old version.
http://sigrok.org/wiki/ASIX_SIGMA