OWON HDS 200 Handheld Oscilloscope w/ builtin DMM/AWG

[blurpy]

Should work fine to see the signal from the generator. Sure you turned on the signal?

[pmaggi]

Things are moving quickly in the firmware, with version 1.8.0, 2.01 and 3.10 being released in the 6 weeks since I got mine.
Anyone know what's changed? Almost sounds like something big should have happened when going to version 2 and 3.

Does anyone knows from where these firmware files can be donwloaded?
How is the process to update the firmware?
And, which bugs are corrected or what new functionallity added in each version?
Thanks

[blurpy]

How is the process to update the firmware?
Thanks

Press the System button, and Upgrade. It will ask you to reboot the scope. Upon reboot it will complain about no firmware on the USB. Reboot again to get back into the scope.

At least that's what happened when I was curious and clicked it.

[rhb]

1) Turn on the AWG  (big red/green button on RHS)

2) Connect a 50 ohm thru termination at the CH1 input and a 50 ohm BNC cable to the AWG

Have Fun!
Reg

[sijmen]

2) Connect a 50 ohm thru termination at the CH1 input and a 50 ohm BNC cable to the AWG

Thanks Reg.

With the 50 Ohm thru terminator, I assume this is the sort of thing you're talking about? https://au.banggood.com/Cleqee-P57-1PCS-50Ohm-Feed-Through-Terminator-BNC-Female-Seat-50KY-Device-Q9-adapter-Load-Resistor-p-1610070.html?cur_warehouse=CN&rmmds=search

Whats the purpose of the 50 ohm load, and why can't I just connect the AWG directly to Channel 1?

Regards,
Sijmen.

[rhb]

That's the item, but a bit pricey.

I've generally used these from various vendors.  Certainly should serve for the HDS272S.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/114257830287

The DSO input is 1 M ohm.  The AWG output is 50 ohms as is the cable.  This leads to a very large  (1e6-50)/(1e6+50), almost 100%   reflection coefficient at the DSO BNC if you don't have the thru termination.   That in turn, leads to significant distortion of a step edge.

I designed and built a <1 ns rise time square wave generator 25 years ago.  I always thought it didn't work properly.  I found it recently and testing showed that adjusted properly it produced a clean <1 ns  rise time square wave.  The reason I thought I'd failed is 25 years ago neither I nor the EE that provided access to the Tek scopes at work recognized the termination issue.

There is no reason not to simply connect the AWG to a channel and look at the waveform.  It just won't be accurate unless you have the 50 ohm thru.

The insidious aspect of mismatch is its cable length dependence.  That can really leave you scratching your head.

Have Fun!
Reg

[sijmen]

Thanks Reg,

I have it all working now.  I didn't realise the Start/Stop button was modal.  Clearly, I'll need to spend more time in the user manual.

Currently not using a BNC thru terminator, but have one on order.

Regards,
Sijmen

[rhb]

It had me scratching my head until I gave up and looked in the manual.  Then I went, "Duhhh"

They are trying to cram a lot of functionality in very few buttons.  Not an easy UI to design.

The Hantek 2D42 I'm returning didn't have a manual and the one I found on line was wrong. 

Big question right now is what connector to use for the serial port on the HDS272S.  I also want to bring the programming port out to a case mounted connector.

I need to find out a lot more.  so far I've not been able to download anything from Owon's site.

Reg

[julius.gl]

Does anyone knows from where these firmware files can be donwloaded?
How is the process to update the firmware?
Thanks

Hi all,
This is my first post in EEVblog.

I got my HDS242S earlier Jan 2021 in Banggood, with firmware version 1.2.0.
Unfortunately the firmware updates are not available yet to download from OWON support webpage.
I sent an email to info@owon.com.cn asking for the latest firmware update and the procedure to do it, and they replied my request.
For my surprise and dissapointment, not all HDS200 can be updated to the latest version 3.10 or even old ones like 1.8.0, 2.01.
Mine belongs to the first lot sold in Banggood (serial like 2047xxx) and can be updated to firmware version 1.7.0 only.

Attached the procedure I prepered with OWON indications and firmware v1.7.0 zip file
Hope this helps
Regards
Julius   

[wolfy007]

Well thats a great first post Julius and welcome to eevblog.

Unfortunately if there is bit of a draw back to Owon equipment support, it is that their software updates usually only work for specific batch of serial numbers, or so I have found. Discovered this when I got a cheap but faulty Owon desktop oscilloscope and was looking for a software update for it after the repair. Sure enough the downloads page showed various downloads of various versions based on serial number ranges.

Looks like this still continues.

[blurpy]

I sent an email to info@owon.com.cn asking for the latest firmware update and the procedure to do it, and they replied my request.
For my surprise and dissapointment, not all HDS200 can be updated to the latest version 3.10 or even old ones like 1.8.0, 2.01.
Mine belongs to the first lot sold in Banggood (serial like 2047xxx) and can be updated to firmware version 1.7.0 only.

Did it take long to get a response? I sent them a feature request 7 weeks ago, to that very same email address and I haven't heard back yet.

Did you hear anything about what was fixed in the different releases?

Really disappointing to hear about the firmware being limited by serial number ranges. Mine is 2048xxx. Wonder how far I can go. Maybe I'll try sending another email some day.

[julius.gl]

It took a couple of days only to get response. It was inmediately considering I sent the email last Saturday Aug 7th.
They just replied.....

"....Mon., Aug 9, 2021 8:36, Lilliput (OWON) <info@owon.com.cn> wrote:
Hi Julio,
The HDS242S with your version can only upgarde to 1.7.0. ...do you like to upgrade? ...."

I said yes and next day I received a new email with the firmware file and a brief explanation how to do it. There was not a log file with the history of fixes or improvements, I got just the "Scope.upp" file

The upgrade process took me about 5 minutes (3min to read the indication, connect the scope via USB and copy the file into the scope memory, 1min since reboot to complete the upgrade, 1min to search how to change the language back to english instead default chinese)

Tray to email them again

[rhb]

I inquired about mine with V 2.0.1.  They said, "no bug, no need".

Reg

[ExaLab]

On my unit (FW 3.1.0 and received a few days ago...) the pulse waveform of the signal generator for frequencies above 1MHz (included) supports 50% duty-cycle only.
Has anyone else noticed this limitation?

[rhb]

I just checked mine and it cannot actually do a pulse.  It's just a square wave by another name.

Reg

[ExaLab]

In the waveform sequence, "Pulse" is in fourth place (Sine, Square, Ramp, Pulse and Arbitrary).

[rhb]

At 50% duty cycle, a pulse is a square wave ;-)

[blurpy]

On my unit (FW 3.1.0 and received a few days ago...) the pulse waveform of the signal generator for frequencies above 1MHz (included) supports 50% duty-cycle only.
Has anyone else noticed this limitation?

Mine works the same way, on 1.6.0.

[ExaLab]

A bit strange...

Anyway, differently to the square wave, "pulse" gives the possibility to adjust rising and falling edges therefore... even with the limits mentioned, welcome the "pulse" mode!

[giovannirat]

I've got it today.  Serial number: 2128xxx, firmware release 3.2.0.

[sotos]

I've got it today.  Serial number: 2128xxx, firmware release 3.2.0.

Which model do you have ?

[giovannirat]

Model HDS272S

[sotos]

I received mine before 5 days its the model HDS242S with version v3.0.0

[dagobird]

Another HDS272S here with Serial 2128xxx and Firmware 3.2.0. Ordered from Banggood 2 weeks ago.

[HerrieMan]

Hi,
I'm new to this forum and also the new owner of a nice Owon HDS272S 
I spend a couple of hours with this device and I really like it, the standard software delivered by Owon is not so nice though
So I was looking at this thread: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59105167/pyusb-reading-from-a-usb-device and that seemed to work almost out of the box.
I modified the script a bit to get it better suitable for the HDS2xx device and created the attached python script, feel free to use it or expand on it.