Please suggest a good cheap USB 16CH logic analyser

[Ian.M]

Please suggest a good cheap USB 16CH logic analyser, mostly for 5V work on legacy 8 bit systems.  I intend to use Sigrok Pulseview and would prefer not to infringe Salae (or anyone else)'s firmware copyright.  Some pulseview-compatable analog capability would be nice but is not essential.

[Gandalf_Sr]

I've struggled with this one and ended up with a real Saleae Logic 8.  I bought cheap clones and wasted a lot of time on them and their crappy software.

There are 2 aspects to logic analysis (in my world anyway):
1. Are the signals correct from an amplitude, timing, and noise perspective?
2. What is the actual data traffic running on the bus?

1 is best met by a mixed signal scope that has a 16-channel analyzer (like a Rigol MSO2072A or better).
2 once you know that the signals are OK, this is the real problem.  Saleae does an awesome job in their ease of use and capture of data but has the major (almost unforgivable) missing feature that you can't send data out over the bus; to get around this, I own a Bus Blaster and a Bus Pirate but the Pirate (vn 3.6 or 3.8, don't bother with 4.x) gets most use.  The interface for the Bus Pirate is a serial terminal window (Teraterm recommended) and it can be made to do some really useful stuff but there's a learning curve and the documentation is all over the place.

I went with Saleae Logic rather than Logic Pro because I don't need to look at buses running over 50 MHz but, if you do, then the (way more expensive) Logic Pro is perhaps worth consideration.

Some will suggest that you can buy an old logic analyzer on eBay, not sure what this will achieve other than take up a lot of bench space.

[Gyro]

There are cheap clones of the original Salaea logic 16 available on ebay eg. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Saleae-16-Logic-Analyzer-USB-100M-Max-Sample-Rate-Support-1-2-10-Software-U/163266339370. There was no analogue support on the original one.

Generally they use a different FPGA from the original genuine one and do not rely on the Saleae downloaded bitmap. Most of them are supported by Sigrok Pulseview.

The sigrok supported devices page shows the internals and f/w details.


P.S. They don't have the switchable input threshold of the original - they're 3v3 with 5V tolerance.

[ptricks]

What do you consider cheap ?
to avoid infringement  get the ones that have open source firmware. 
16 channels really drives up the cost because you usually are going to see an fpga involved.
I'm working on designing one that uses one of the cypress PSOC chips so it is really fast, the chip handles everything from capture to decoding,  the boards would cost probably under $20 but it is still in design phase and it will not support 16 channels , just 8.

[snoopy]

I bought one of these. Pretty good spec and memory depth

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Kingst-LA5016-USB-Logic-Analyzer-500M-max-sample-rate-16Channels-10B-samples-MCU-ARM-FPGA-debug/32774297984.html

[cv007]

I have a dslogic basic that can be had on ebay for about $80 (which I consider a good price for up to 400MS/s). You can upgrade to a plus by soldering on a ram chip. You can use dsview (their version of pulseview), or you can use pulseview (I have not tried it).

Analog Devices ADALM2000 ($~100) seems to be available now, it looks like a nice device that also uses pulseview under the hood for the logic analyzer.
https://wiki.analog.com/university/tools/m2k/scopy/logicanalyzer
This will have the added benefit of having other options like analog along with the logic analyzer. It says it can do 100MS/s, but I'm sure that is with minimal pins and am guessing buffer size is minimal also (unless streaming at a lower sample rate, whatever that may be).

Maybe my 'cheap' bracket does not match up with yours, though.

[Stray Electron]

  Good HP brand Logic Analyzers can be had on E-bay with the pods and cables for as little as $50.  Shipping is expensive so look for one in your area and go pick it up in person and save on that costs.  Don't bother with one that doesn't have the pods and cables, those alone will costs far more than a complete and working LA.

   I bought an HP last year for $35 just to rob the HP feet off it.  I had to drive 12 miles to pick it up.

[TK]

I use the Zeroplus LAP-C 16032, 16 channels and 32K samples per channel.  The software runs on Windows and you can decode more than 100 protocols.  I think they are around $140 in the US

[Electro Fan]

There are cheap clones of the original Salaea logic 16 available on ebay eg. [url=https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Saleae-16-Logic-Analyzer-USB-100M-Max-Sample-Rate-Support-1-2-10-

This one looks pretty good
16 channels
+/- 50V (good for early RS323)

Is it confirmed that it works with Sigrok PulseView?

[0xdeadbeef]

While I have a (patched) Zeroplus LAP-C, I haven't used it for years. IMHO, at the ~100€ price point, the best option is still a DSLogic Plus. Trigger options are somewhat limited, but it's just working and since the Win10 driver problems were solved, I can recommend it wholeheartedly again. The SW progress is incredibly slow though but it's open source, you can write your own Python decoder scripts and there's Sigrok support for it.

In the few hundred Euro league, there's also the Ikalogic SP209. The Ikalogic SW is generally nicer than the one for the DSLogic (much better trigger options, easier manual measurements) but for most people, it's probably not worth the 400€ for 9 channels.

[Gyro]

There are cheap clones of the original Salaea logic 16 available on ebay eg. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Saleae-16-Logic-Analyzer-USB-100M-Max-Sample-Rate-Support-1-2-10-Software-U/163266339370. There was no analogue support on the original one.

Generally they use a different FPGA from the original genuine one and do not rely on the Saleae downloaded bitmap. Most of them are supported by Sigrok Pulseview.

The sigrok supported devices page shows the internals and f/w details.


P.S. They don't have the switchable input threshold of the original - they're 3v3 with 5V tolerance.

This one looks pretty good
16 channels
+/- 50V (good for early RS323)

Is it confirmed that it works with Sigrok PulseView?

The one I bought does, but there are several variants as I indicated.

Mine is the "2015-01-08 variant" as shown in the attached link but housed in a black case like the ebay listing example. I'm not up to date with what PCBs are in the currently available ones - the Sigrok supported LAs page has more up-to-date information on support than I do. The version I have has series resistors and protection diodes (the 50V protection).

2015-01-08 variant... https://sigrok.org/wiki/Mcupro_Logic16_clone

General Sigrok LA support page... https://sigrok.org/wiki/Supported_hardware#Logic_analyzers


P.S. Incomplete quote fixed.

[Ian.M]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions so far. 

My main usage is likely to be debugging code for 8 bit MCUs when attempting to bring them up, before I've got enough working I/O to support using a monitor ROM.

It looks like I'm going to need to budget roughly $100 for one of the FPGA based options to get a decent sample rate in 16CH mode.  OTOH if I am willing to settle for only 12MHz sample rate in 16CH mode, the Sigrok FX2LAFW firmware running on a Cypress FX2 EZ-USB eval board clone will do that with change from $10.  That may be acceptable if I'm happy with an 8 bit CPU system clock upper limit of a couple of MHz.  Of course there's no input protection, and its fixed 3.3V logic thresholds, albeit 5V tolerant.  If I'm going to go dirt cheap, it probably more sense to regard the FX2 board as disposable and concentrate on protecting the host USB port as adding on a daughterboard to provide protection, variable thresholds and a probe connector with one ground per channel, and a set of decent probes wont leave me with much change from that $100.  If I want analog, it looks like one can add one analog channel to a FX2 with just a fast parallel ADC, and a unit gain stable video OPAMP to buffer its input.   

With any of the non-pro grade logic analysers, complex triggering, and clocking from the D.U.T don't seem to be available options.   I was planning to use external hardware for complex triggering anyway, as by the time I've hooked up an 8 bit data bus + CPU control signals, there aren't very many channels left on a 16CH LA, and one does need to see A0 and A1 for many 8 bit peripheral chips to be able to see which register is being accessed.

I haven't had a chance to review all the LAs linked yet - that's a job for the weekend!

I would certainly welcome further suggestions, so please don't stop making them.

[gslick]

As was mentioned back in Reply #6, depending on where you are located and how much bench space you have, picking up something like an HP 16500 series logic analyzer could be an option, but that would only be cheap if you could find one local to you. Otherwise the shipping alone can exceed the value.

[Ian.M]

Thanks for the suggestion (and for helping me refine my requirements)  but it doesn't look like there are any cheap HP LAs anywhere near me, and I don't have the bench or storage space anyway.  PC connectivity for them also seems to be a whole multi-layer can of worms that could end up being rather expensive. 

Also the limited 'tether' range of the probe pods on a non-USB LA concerns me, as I'd basically need clear bench space directly in front of the instrument, rather than being able to set up a USB LA anywhere within a 2m range of the bench PC.  Topic title amended to include 'USB'.

[rsjsouza]

I bought one of these. Pretty good spec and memory depth

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Kingst-LA5016-USB-Logic-Analyzer-500M-max-sample-rate-16Channels-10B-samples-MCU-ARM-FPGA-debug/32774297984.html

I got a Kingst LA2016 and it is a very good unit with good software. Unfortunately Sigrok does not support it.

[Gandalf_Sr]

My interest was peaked but after reading through this thread on the ADALM2000 it sounds like a product that is not ready for release (understatement). Someone waited a year for a delivery from Mouser.

[thm_w]

My interest was peaked but after reading through this thread on the ADALM2000 it sounds like a product that is not ready for release (understatement). Someone waited a year for a delivery from Mouser.

Not saying you should buy it, but availability is not an issue. Mouser has 248 in stock. AD themselves have ~1,800 in stock, according to Digikey.

Their wiki is down, which is not too encouraging.
But scopy program seems to be under some development: https://github.com/analogdevicesinc/scopy

[tai]

I own both ADALM2000 and DSLogic Plus.
IMHO, DSLogic Plus is better if what you want is logic analyzer only. It has better sampling rate, trigger features, and less bugs (Scopy crashed more often).
Being said that, Scopy (of ADALM2000) is also quite usable.

The best part of ADALM2000 is that it comes with everything - oscilloscope, signal generator, logic analyzer, programmable power supply, digital I/O, etc.
And most of them can be used in parallel, as long as pin doesn't conflict. Scopy can create separate window for each function, so you get to use all features concurrently.
ADALM2000 is capable of setting up a simple end-to-end complete lab test configuration.

So if you just want a logic analyzer, then just go with DSLogic Plus.
But if you do not have other equipments and do not need advanced features of DSLogic Plus (advanced trigger, 400MHz sampling), then go with ADALM2000.

[GigaJoe]

kinda:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/usb-logic-analyzers/


had Saleale clone 16ch is that on ali for $40,  its OK, but wasn't deep enough on 4+ channel usage due to short buffer , after that the speed drops dramatically,   12Mhz, If i remember correctly ... usb 2.0 speed ... , buffer for 8ch ,maybe fraction of seconds....

so i purchase DSLogic, it has 2 versions , basic and pro,
price:  https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32905798335.html
conversion:  https://time4ee.com/news.php?readmore=453

there are 2GB buffer: but it significantly beyond my budget
https://www.ikalogic.com/pages/logic-analyzer-sp-series-sp209

you may consider usb scope + 16ch :
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32816631452.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32691450768.html

[picitup]

I've recently had my interest peaked on logic analysers.  First I bought a 24Mhz Cypress 8 channel Sale clone for £8.95 in the UK.  It's cheap and cheerful and works with PulseView and there's a short video on how to set it up here:



The issue I had with this setup, is sometimes the unit seems to go dead and unplugging/replugging the device didn't help, only a reboot seemed to fix it.  It does work with the latest Salea software, but if you've used it with PulseView, you need to go into device manager/update driver/let me choose/Salea driver.

Unsurprisingly, the next issue was speed.  At 4 samples minimum, you're looking at 24/4 = 6Mhz max speed.  I'm playing with an ILI9341 display and understand the SPI can work up to 30Mhz which I'd like to do.

after some poking around, I came up with the LA5016 from Kingst here:

http://www.qdkingst.com/en/products

It's a shame that it's not supported by PulseView atm although the LA2016 is planned.  The things I liked about it were:

1) At 500Mhz, that's around 125MHz signals max @16CH
2) It has 1Gbit on board memory
3) It has compression (run length encoding)
4) The manufacturer's software looks good http://www.qdkingst.com/en/download
5) I emailed them some questions and they answered same day.

It should be delivered either Saturday or Monday so I'll report back with any comments.

Although I'm still new and playing, I've found logic analysers with a PC to be *much* easier that my "improved" DS4014 with serial decode.  27 button presses later....

[picitup]

Well the LA5016 arrived and I've had a play.  My first impressions are I wonder how I ever managed without one.  I found a timing discrepancy on a PIC32MX chip with little effort between the Data/Command line to my LCD and the SPI output.

Once the proper work was done. and my LCD worked, I spent some time trying to speed things up.  I found that depending on which instructions I used on my PIC32MX, I could obtain better SPI throughput.  This was easy with the LA.  Now the SPI is running at a blistering 30MHz clock lol.

The software seems very good.  I mentioned above, there is (1Gbit edit: 2Gbit) of ram on board and RLE compression but you can also configure it to run across USB directly, so the best of both worlds.  The only thing I've missed so far is the sample 'blobs' on PulseView which are pretty handy to find out if your sampling rate is right.  I emailed Kingst and once again, they replied within a day, but said they won't support the blobs in the near future.  Pity.

The FPGA is an Altera Cyclone IV and there's also a Cypress CY7C68013A which I guess manages the USB interface.  There's also a couple of Samsung (K4T1G164DG edit: K4T1G164Q): 1GB ram chips.

The USB and data cables are covered in silicone and are super flexible and the case is aluminium.

I chose this LA over the Saleae due to the big price difference - LA5016 was £131.00 (used) and the Logic Pro 16 at £819.00 + VAT =  £982.80.  The Salea device only seems to support direct mode, so you need a USB 3.0 port to get the bandwidth and I'm assuming there's no buffer in it.

The Saleae does have analogue ports and the Kingst has none.  The Kingst has 2 PWM outputs and the Saleae has none.The Saleae will only do 500MHz on up to 4 channels, but the Kingst will do 500Mhz on all 16 channels at once.

So all in all, I think the Kingst is  a cheaper price and better hardware/features.

That's all for now....

[0xdeadbeef]

I'm not so sure if "Kingst" is actually a real manufacturer's name. Most of the time this thing is sold as Jiankun LA5016. Also it's usually advertised to have 512Mbit HW memory or 32M/channel. So 1GBit might be wrong.
Honestly I still think the open source DSLogic Plus is a better bet. E.g. does the "Kingst"/JianKun software allow to write your own protocol decoders or change/fix the existing ones? I used this quite a bit with my Ikalogic ScanaPlus and would not buy another LA without this possibility. Btw: it also doesn't seem to have a clock input or trigger output.

[2N3055]

I really like Scanaquad device but IkaLogic Scanastudio looks and feels like "Teletubbies" ...
Everything is huge on screen, and only very basic things are there. Channels are too big, scroll bar is too small.
You cannot control basic parts of U/I. And it throws errors on exit.

It's horrible.  As I say, device is working fine, and I wanted custom scripting too. Also it has basic triggering, which was also interesting.
Custom scripting is also weird, because it's poorly documented. As in not documented.
In new version it wants you to install Atom editor. I guess it's better than if they made their own editor, because that one would probably only have open and not save button.... Just because...
And is buggy..

It feels like they are not making device you USE to work on something else, but as if you are going to buy their device to play with Scana device and program for it, spending more time playing with LA that to use LA to fix something else...

If you need something to look at simple I2C packets and such, it can be used, in same manner like you can use decoding on Rigol 1000Z. It's better than nothing.
But DSLogic Plus looks like Keysight compared what you get from Ikalogic.

[picitup]

Hi @0xdeadbeef

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?

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.

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.

I suppose it would be nice to prove the storage memory out.  Maybe I can get a USB 1.1 hub and run at 500Ms/s for 4 seconds and see if it works.

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.

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.

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.

You may be surprised about what I say about Kingst.  I am too.  I've bought lots of Chinese hardware in the past and found a reasonable bit of kit, with crap software and no support, but Kingst seems different.

[0xdeadbeef]

I really like Scanaquad device but IkaLogic Scanastudio looks and feels like "Teletubbies" ...
Everything is huge on screen, and only very basic things are there. Channels are too big, scroll bar is too small.
You cannot control basic parts of U/I. And it throws errors on exit.
It's horrible. 

Hm, I used differerent versions of Scanastudio over many, many years and despite of minor issues with some versions, I liked it very much.
IMHO, it's a far better GUI than that of DSLogic in nearly every aspect, specifically with custom measurements and triggers. Plus storing setups and measurement works perfectly well (in contrast to DsView).
I'm not happy with every decision they made, but they listened to suggestions as long as the forum was still there.
It was a big disappointment for me as they first crippled and then closed the forum but this seems to become an industry standard as the same thing happened on the DreamSourceLab site a few years later.
In both cases combined with a very (!!!!) slow development that makes you wonder if more than one or two persons are working on the Software. In case of DSView, I'm tempted to believe there is only one guy who looks at the SW every few months for a couple of hours.

As I say, device is working fine, and I wanted custom scripting too. Also it has basic triggering, which was also interesting.

The ScanaPlus actually has (had) the most complex triggering of all affordable LAs. There was a time when I (thought I) nearly convinced Ibrahim Kamal (the founder of Ikalogic) to implement a proper multi-stage (event/time) triggering approach but most of that was removed again in later versions.

Custom scripting is also weird, because it's poorly documented. As in not documented.

I wrote the SENT decoder that is now part of the default decoders I think, so I know what you mean. It was a bit of trial and error at some point, but I've seen worse. Actually, at this point, I also had the impression that most (other ) decoders were implemented in a somewhat ugly and unprofessional way. And I have to note that this was my first JavaScript implementation ever.
As a side note: most decoders hat an awful lot of updates because of bugs. At some point, not even the SPI decoder was working properly and I had to fix the script locally. But all of that happened many years ago.

In new version it wants you to install Atom editor. I guess it's better than if they made their own editor, because that one would probably only have open and not save button.... Just because...
And is buggy..

I have seen that but didn't update yet. For my own scripts, I always used an external editor. I hope this is still possible.

It feels like they are not making device you USE to work on something else, but as if you are going to buy their device to play with Scana device and program for it, spending more time playing with LA that to use LA to fix something else...
If you need something to look at simple I2C packets and such, it can be used, in same manner like you can use decoding on Rigol 1000Z. It's better than nothing.
But DSLogic Plus looks like Keysight compared what you get from Ikalogic.

I'm actually still using the ScanaPlus at home and at work, where I analyze SPI and SENT communications, measure SPI load and things like that. I borrowed it to several colleagues and all of them liked it a lot. One of them even ordered the SP209i. Personally, I'm slightly disappointed that the SP209 series is so much more expensive than the ScanaPlus and still only features 9 channels. That was an odd choice and still is. Still, if I could get one for <= 200€, I would buy it.
For the time being, I use my ScanaPlus for this and my DSLogics (I actually own two) for that which is OK for me. Still, in my dream, I'd like a LA that combines the strengths of both.