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| Please suggest a good cheap USB 16CH logic analyser |
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| 0xdeadbeef:
--- Quote from: picitup on October 21, 2019, 07:43:33 am ---Yes I've seen both the devices called Jiankun and Kingst, maybe they are a re-seller, but I've even found links from the Kingst site to pictures of a Jiankun device so who knows? --- End quote --- I tend to believe that JianKun is the original name and Kingst a rebranding for the Western market. But indeed, that's up to speculation. --- Quote from: picitup on October 21, 2019, 07:43:33 am ---Yes, if you check their download link http://www.qdkingst.com/en/products, you can write your own protocol using their SDK. I'm not sure about modifying existing protocols, but the SDK has a couple of examples for you to modify AKA Serial and SPI. --- End quote --- Well, an SDK is better than nothing, but personally I'm a big fan of using scripting languages for decoders. --- Quote from: picitup on October 21, 2019, 07:43:33 am ---As far as the memory goes, in the above post, I did identify the 2 ram chips which are Samsung K4T1G164QG chips and are 1Gbit each (sorry about the typo before) so that ties up with 2Gbit hardware memory (not 1Gbit like I said before. --- End quote --- Well, I can't say as I only found blurry pictures of the PCB, but actually the Kingst homepage also says 2GBit now (?). --- Quote from: picitup on October 21, 2019, 07:43:33 am ---I may be being dumb, but what's a specific clock or trigger input? The analyser just reads specified data lines and the software has options to trigger on edges/high/low. --- End quote --- Purists would say that a LA without clock input isn't a LA but a protocol analyzer. With a clock input you can adjust the sample rate to that clock and thus guarantee that you store the levels at the correct moment. I must admit though that I never really used the clock input of the DSLogic myself yet. Still nice to have one. --- Quote from: picitup on October 21, 2019, 07:43:33 am ---I took a look at the DSLogic Plus and thought it looked good. At USD 149.00 I think it's good value (much better that Salea) although the specs of the LA5016 are better. The DSLogic has a slightly lower max sample rate, at 400Sa/s and this is only with 4 Channels which, rather cheekily, they don't mention on their data sheet. It's only got 256Mbit memory, so 1/8th of the Kingst. --- End quote --- The sample rate is somewhat meaningless without proper analog bandwidth and these probe cables add quite a bit of inductance at higher frequencies. The DSLogic at least has shielded cables. About the memory: while I agree that having more can't hurt, I never ran into limitation with the DSLogic Plus. Usually sampling more than 1 or 2 seconds is just not convenient. Besides, you can always switch to "stream mode" with lower sampling rates and sample up to 16G. --- Quote from: picitup on October 21, 2019, 07:43:33 am ---After saying the above, I think the DsLogic Plus would probably meet my needs as mostly my issues are with serial protocols such as RS232 and SPI so 2/3 lines are enough although I'd still go for the Kingst as the specs are better and hopefully more future proof. As mentioned above, I'm not sure about modifying Kingst existing protocols but that would be a good feature. --- End quote --- Nothing is really future proof nowadays. At least the DSLogic is Open Hardware and Open Source. AFAIK even the code for the FPGA is open source. So if everything fails, the community could take over. This being said, in contrast to the OpenBench Logic Sniffer, there doesn't really seem to be a community for the DSLogic and closing down the forum didn't really improve the chances that there will be one. |
| picitup:
--- Quote ---Well, an SDK is better than nothing, but personally I'm a big fan of using scripting languages for decoders. --- End quote --- I agree. I think their SDK uses Microsoft Visual Studio to create DLLs and scripting is much easier and maintainable. --- Quote ---Well, I can't say as I only found blurry pictures of the PCB, but actually the Kingst homepage also says 2GBit now (?). --- End quote --- Well I've seen 2 x 1Gbit chips on the board, so 2Gbit it is :) --- Quote ---The sample rate is somewhat meaningless without proper analog bandwidth and these probe cables add quite a bit of inductance at higher frequencies. --- End quote --- Yes I agree and the cables are long. I'm making my own up, so will take your recommendation of using screened cables. --- Quote ---With a clock input you can adjust the sample rate to that clock and thus guarantee that you store the levels at the correct moment. --- End quote --- That's interesting thanks. I've learnt something ;D --- Quote ---Nothing is really future proof nowadays. At least the DSLogic is Open Hardware and Open Source. --- End quote --- No, nothing is, but you want to get the best chance and better and faster hardware with more memory will help. Open Source is definitely desirable. I like PulseView, but the LA5016 is not supported yet. The LA2016 is planned. Yes, forums are very helpful and are always my first go-to. It doesn't look like Kingst has one, which is a pity but as I mentioned, they reply to emails in a day so that's a +1. Anyway after all this detail, I'm really pleased with my first analyser. So much easier than a scope LA. I'm so glad I didn't fork out EU 500.00 for the Rigol decoders! I also ordered the LA2016 which is somewhere between here and China so that will go up onto eBay when it arrives. Onward and upward.. Steve |
| 2N3055:
--- Quote from: 0xdeadbeef on October 21, 2019, 08:14:48 am --- --- End quote --- I also liked original Scanastudio, and had have bought ScanaQUAD because i liked that software and because ScanaQUAD had triggering. Then I realized that it doesn't work with old software, and that new software is not written yet. That was 2 years ago, and in meantime, like you said, triggering was reduced to almost none compared to what was promised at the time of purchase, and software is so simplistic that it is sad. I was active on forum, and some user interface decision were made based on my input.. I basically gave up on them when Mr. Kamal decided to kill of forum to shut up negative feedback. Instead of developing their basic software to be at least as capable as old one they killed off, they spent two years developing wanky pen scope that nobody cares about.... Talking about going extra mile to ignore users and truth... And then after 2-3 years, software is still in it's infancy... I had high hopes for them, but they keep on doing things that are not in benefit of users. In order for me to respect them again they would need to : - return multistage triggering - make U/I that is more informative and uses was screen estate that is there - write detailed documentation on object model for Scripting - drop prices. The way they are now, I wouldn't recommend their products to anyone... |
| 0xdeadbeef:
--- Quote from: 2N3055 on October 21, 2019, 12:22:07 pm ---I also liked original Scanastudio, and had have bought ScanaQUAD because i liked that software and because ScanaQUAD had triggering. Then I realized that it doesn't work with old software, and that new software is not written yet. That was 2 years ago, and in meantime, like you said, triggering was reduced to almost none compared to what was promised at the time of purchase, and software is so simplistic that it is sad. --- End quote --- I understand that the newest version of ScanaStudio is supposed to be scriptable. Didn't check it yet. And yes, as far as I recall, the improved triggering was partly done in V2 which stayed in Beta for years until it was replaced by V3 with more limited triggering. Still, to be fair, the triggering of most USB LAs is even more limited. The serial protocol triggering is somewhat unique (but again unfortunately not implemented in a generic way to actually use it for any protocol). Agreed, you can actually create some (!) complex triggers also in DSView but it's a GUI nightmare and you need to plan it on paper before even starting to program the trigger. --- Quote from: 2N3055 on October 21, 2019, 12:22:07 pm ---I was active on forum, and some user interface decision were made based on my input.. --- End quote --- The original forum was one of the reasons I bought the ScanaPlus. --- Quote from: 2N3055 on October 21, 2019, 12:22:07 pm ---I basically gave up on them when Mr. Kamal decided to kill of forum to shut up negative feedback. Instead of developing their basic software to be at least as capable as old one they killed off, they spent two years developing wanky pen scope that nobody cares about.... Talking about going extra mile to ignore users and truth... --- End quote --- Maybe it's too long ago but I can't remember a terrific fight there. Yeah, people were nagging about releases and the team kept up making promises and became silent when they were not kept. But nothing totally unusual. Also before the forum was completely shut off, there was this abomination of a forum where you could ask questions which then were posted in one chaotic thread where you couldn't find it your own post half an hour later. About the same thing that NXP did with their forums a bit later. --- Quote from: 2N3055 on October 21, 2019, 12:22:07 pm ---And then after 2-3 years, software is still in it's infancy... --- End quote --- Again, I wouldn't say so and all I usually need is working in V3. I actually think the GUI is fast and intuitive compared to others. I'm a bit disappointed though that triggering is worse than in V2 and development is generally very slow. But my main gripe with my ScanaPlus is that I think its input circuitry is not optimal and due to its lack of (USB) data consistency checks, it can display total garbage signals now and then if it's overwhelmed by picked up noise. Regarding slow development: the same is true for DsView. Actually, it's even worse. Some years ago, they introduced the dark design without any possibility to change colors. But I need a light background colors to use screenshots in reports. I complained about that in the forum until it was closed down. Now, several years later, they finally added an option to switch back to light mode, but they did only exactly that. You still can't define your colors. All signals are gray by default and while you can change (only!) the signal colors manually, this change is not persistent. Hell, you can't even really store/restore a full setup in DSView. E.g. if you store a measurement and load it later, the "device" is changed, so you can't do any new measurements with this setup. Now this is missing basic functionality. And there is actually little to no progress in the DsView SW in the last five years. The only big improvement during its whole development was the speed-up of the Python protocol decoders which happened when the forum still existed. Since then, the development stalled. --- Quote from: 2N3055 on October 21, 2019, 12:22:07 pm ---I had high hopes for them, but they keep on doing things that are not in benefit of users. In order for me to respect them again they would need to : - return multistage triggering - make U/I that is more informative and uses was screen estate that is there - write detailed documentation on object model for Scripting - drop prices. The way they are now, I wouldn't recommend their products to anyone... --- End quote --- I'm actually puzzled that they still exists. Few shops sell their products. Since they took so long to come up with the SP209, they didn't have a replacement for the ScanaPlus for several years. Instead, as you said, they developed that stupid scope pen thing that nobody ever wanted. And they wasted years developing that USB synchronizing absurdity for the ScanaQuad. It's not surprising that they had to raise the prices. They've just shut down their online store btw. Let's see if the SP209 can save them but I'm honestly skeptical. |
| egonotto:
Hello, if I make no error 0xdeadbeef has earlier (few years) written that you can buy reduced ScanaPLUS. I bought one. Now my ScanaPLUS is a ScanaPLUS V2. The software is ScanaStudio 2.305.011 Are more ScanaPLUS now ScanaPLUS V2? Best regard egonotto |
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