Searching for the Best Logic Analyser + Software Offering

[friedrichfw]

Hey all I have been recently looking into a logic analyser of my own as I have up until now always used a friends or ones from work/school.

I am looking in the 300-600$ price bracket as I would want something that has lasting potential in both Hardware and Software.

The application I am looking for right now is some Can-bus debugging but future projects would surely also use this device for other situations.

I think I generally have a decent Idea of the hardware requirements and I would probably be fine with simply hardware but I am now looking for advice especially in the accompanying Software side of things.

My current top contendor is the Picoscope 2206B MSO as the hardware is good and the Software seems to be feature rich and relatively straight forward. My main questions with this one would be how is the software to use?  https://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/2000/picoscope-2000-overview

Next up is the Saleae Logic Pro 8 this seem to have very good reputation for the software in the pure logic analyser space. I think the picoscope scope functions could be useful addition but it might also just be worth buying a better separate scope (I don't have one a digital one of my own). My main Question is does anybody have an idea comparing the Software of this to the Picoscope? https://www.saleae.com/

Next would be the Digilent Analog Discovery 2. This seems like a solid choice and with all the functions it has it seems like a jack of all trades in terms of hardware. But how is the software and how does it compare? https://digilent.com/shop/analog-discovery-2-100ms-s-usb-oscilloscope-logic-analyzer-and-variable-power-supply/

Last option I have kept in the running so far is the DreamSourceLab DSLogic U3Pro16. This I would think of as a cheaper option to the Saleae where I don't think I would notice the hardware differences quickly so I would see software and service as the differentiation. Question here would be how's the Software? This I would probably also pair with a dedicated Scope eventually. https://www.dreamsourcelab.com/product/dslogic-series/

Any options I have missed?

In conclusion I am mainly looking for a logic analyser and am looking for some insights. The reason for the analyser is just to have one of my own finally so I want something of decent quality. As said before I think I have a good grasp of the hardware but it has been more difficult looking for evaluations of the software and any advice would be welcome.

Thanks for reading and any tips, tricks or advice is welcome

[TheDefpom]

In a higher price bracket, but of high quality in my opinion is the Zeroplus LAP-C Pro 32256M Logic Analyser, I did a review of it which you can see here:

[PathLoss]

@friedrichfw: In the title you are asking for a Logic Analyzer (LA), then in your post you want the $660 USD PicoScope 2206B MSO, which is an over-priced Windows-based MSO+LA+AWG multi-function box. So which do you want? More important, what do you really need?

If you want to invest in good bench test equipment I always recommend buying specific equipment for specific functions. Multi-function test equipment always comes with compromises, plus a multi-function device becomes a single point of failure (not good).

That said, getting back to your Logic Analyzer question, take a look at this device:

* Open Workbench Logic Sniffer $50 USD [FPGA Based]

https://www.seeedstudio.com/Open-Workbench-Logic-Sniffer-p-612.html

* Open logic sniffer probe cable $6 USD

https://www.seeedstudio.com/Open-logic-sniffer-probe-cable-p-619.html

* More Info

http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Open_Bench_Logic_Sniffer

http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/index.php?board=23.0

* Specs

- 200Msps captures up to 100MHz waveforms on 16 channels
- 100Msps captures up to 50MHz waveforms on 32 channels

- 16 buffered channels, 5volt tolerant
- M74LCX16245DTR2G transceiver tolerates voltages from -0.5V to +7V.

- 216K Block RAM supports following memory configurations*
- 8 channels with 24K sample depth
- 16 channels with 12K sample depth
- 32 channels with 6K sample depth

- External clock and trigger input
- Allows interfacing with external test equipment and daisy chaining OLS's for additional channels.

- Internal clock and trigger output
- 16bit wing expansion header
- USB interface, USB powered
- USB upgradable everything
- Designed for the SUMP logic analyzer client
- Open source
- Low price

- Memory depth is the maximum supported by the hardware, the current firmware implements the following memory depths:
- 8 channels with 16K sample depth
- 16 channels with 8K sample depth
- 32 channels with 4K sample depth

[2N3055]

Pico is very good for decoding.
Mixed signal is useful, because on a CAN bus, for instance, many problems can be seen in analog domain.
It can also load symbolic files with CAN descriptors. There are more than dozen other protocols..
It cannot trigger on specific packets. But neither can many of those cheap LA.

One other option is Digital discovery. Take a look at that one. It has some limitations and some very interesting features, like pattern generation and logic algebra (ROM simulations).. Also scripting..

I agree with Scott, Zeroplus is very good, but slightly more pricey. They have literally hundreds of protocols they decode.

I never understood the hype about Salae. It is an iPhone of protocol analyzers. Yeah it works, but compared to Zeroplus looks like a toy. Zeroplus Scott recommended is a much more powerful choice.

[rvalente]

I never understood the hype about Salae. It is an iPhone of protocol analyzers. Yeah it works, but compared to Zeroplus looks like a toy. Zeroplus Scott recommended is a much more powerful choice.

I'd say Saleae hooked their customer offering a simple to use device, very nice cases and beautiful software that just works. But, I totally agree they're very pricy.

[jjoonathan]

Saleae has ADCs (every channel simultaneously, if you want to spend the memory/bandwidth). It's not just a logic analyzer. For some workflows this doesn't matter at all and for others it's critical. Know your needs.

[Kean]

I'd say Saleae hooked their customer offering a simple to use device, very nice cases and beautiful software that just works. But, I totally agree they're very pricy.

Note that there are significant discounts available from Saleae for students/hobbyists (Logic 8 only), and smaller ones for startups/contractors (any model).

https://blog.saleae.com/saleae-discounts/

[2N3055]

Saleae has ADCs (every channel simultaneously, if you want to spend the memory/bandwidth). It's not just a logic analyzer. For some workflows this doesn't matter at all and for others it's critical. Know your needs.

Sounds good until you look at the specs: 5 MHz bandwidth and single +-10V range.. For Logic Pro 8, not the cheapest one. A 690 € tool.
That analog sampling is nothing more than a gimmick. Especially for looking at digital edges, that even Atmega in Arduino will have in 1 ns range..

At the same time you can get Zeroplus LAP-C Pro 16064M: 16ch 1GBit memory, 1 GHz sample rate, Live USB data transfer and fast memory mode, synchronous / asynchronous sampling (like real LA), option for pattern generator, and decoding of 130+ protocols... For price that is even less than Saleae Logic Pro 16.

I know which one would I choose for a better LA. without not very useful analog part.

That is why I say: if you need to debug hardware part you need MSO scope. If you are working on debugging protocol messages on a hardware that was already verified for signal integrity you need protocol analyser.
Pretty much hardware VS software development tools..

 

[jjoonathan]

Well, if you lack the creativity to even imagine the possible use cases then I suppose you won't ever be able to get value from the analog channels and shouldn't buy a Saleae. I have to hand you that one. Most people can figure it out, though, if they give it some thought.

Sometimes you want a lot of analog channels and 5MHz * 12bit is enough. It happens more often than you might think, especially when you start to realize how many things you weren't probing due to channel count limitations or probe clumsiness rather than because you truly knew that it wasn't the problem.

Personally, I get the most mileage out of my Saleae when doing repair or reverse engineering. I *could* reach for the logic pods on my 4GHz MSO. They're quite nice. Instead, I usually reach for my Saleae 16 because it enables a "shotgun" approach: I can pick 16 likely spots for analog signals, digital signals, and power rails. I hook up the leads, boot or exercise the DUT once, and immediately have a 100% complete time-correlated map of all relevant power and logic sequencing and levels. Maybe, if there are really a lot of probe points, I'll re-task some of the probes that landed on boring signals to potentially interesting unknown probe points and have another go at it.

The ease of collection, number of channels, guarantee of 100% time coverage and guarantee of 100% accurate time correlation has saved me a lot of effort that pre-Saleae I would have spent cycling the DUT again and again to build the needed intuition. Things like standby rails that go away, logic that bursts once to set things up and then goes quiet, idle-high signals, "what are the signal levels anyway?," "is that capacitive/inductive coupling or real data," and the good old "is it silent because it chose to be or because its power dipped" are all immediately trivialized by having lots of switchable analog channels alongside your digital channels. If you know exactly which signals to probe and how they behave, 4 analog channels is usually plenty -- but sometimes you don't. Depends on what you're doing.

On DUTs that I have designed, I use the Saleae considerably less, but I still take it out when I have to chase power rail problems, sensor problems, or actuator problems. There are usually more than 4 relevant signals and reproduction is often difficult (physical setup, inherent variation, intermittent issues, etc). So I take out the shotgun and make it happen in a single go. It's true, my shotgun isn't much use on an Antelope at 400 meters. That's why I own a rifle, too. The rifle doesn't replace the shotgun, though, and the shotgun doesn't replace the rifle.

Know your needs.

[2N3055]

Well, if you lack the creativity to even imagine the possible use cases then I suppose you won't ever be able to get value from the analog channels and shouldn't buy a Saleae. I have to hand you that one. Most people can figure it out, though, if they give it some thought.

Sometimes you want a lot of analog channels and 5MHz * 12bit is enough. It happens more often than you might think, especially when you start to realize how many things you weren't probing due to channel count limitations or probe clumsiness rather than because you truly knew that it wasn't the problem.

Personally, I get the most mileage out of my Saleae when doing repair or reverse engineering. I *could* reach for the logic pods on my 4GHz MSO. They're quite nice. Instead, I usually reach for my Saleae 16 because it enables a "shotgun" approach: I can pick 16 likely spots for analog signals, digital signals, and power rails. I hook up the leads, boot or exercise the DUT once, and immediately have a 100% complete time-correlated map of all relevant power and logic sequencing and levels. Maybe, if there are really a lot of probe points, I'll re-task some of the probes that landed on boring signals to potentially interesting unknown probe points and have another go at it.

The ease of collection, number of channels, guarantee of 100% time coverage and guarantee of 100% accurate time correlation has saved me a lot of effort that pre-Saleae I would have spent cycling the DUT again and again to build the needed intuition. Things like standby rails that go away, logic that bursts once to set things up and then goes quiet, idle-high signals, "what are the signal levels anyway?," "is that capacitive/inductive coupling or real data," and the good old "is it silent because it chose to be or because its power dipped" are all immediately trivialized by having lots of switchable analog channels alongside your digital channels. If you know exactly which signals to probe and how they behave, 4 analog channels is usually plenty -- but sometimes you don't. Depends on what you're doing.

On DUTs that I have designed, I use the Saleae considerably less, but I still take it out when I have to chase power rail problems, sensor problems, or actuator problems. There are usually more than 4 relevant signals and reproduction is often difficult (physical setup, inherent variation, intermittent issues, etc). So I take out the shotgun and make it happen in a single go. It's true, my shotgun isn't much use on an Antelope at 400 meters. That's why I own a rifle, too. The rifle doesn't replace the shotgun, though, and the shotgun doesn't replace the rifle.

Know your needs.

Gosh I'm stupid... Sorry for that.
Thank you for demonstrating your superior intelligence and for putting me in my place ..
And please don't shoot at me with either a shotgun or a rifle..

Because in a topic where a person asks for a good logic analyser you make a point that mediocre protocol analyser is great because you can use it as a streaming multichannel chart recorder that is useful for you to look at power sequencing and corelate timing of many points, provided that signal is in -10 to 10V range..
Single input range and very low bandwidth will limit it to large signals and timing correlations that are quite slow.
Power sequencing for instance.. I can see how that might be very useful when developing a multi channel voltage scanner with relays, for instance.
Basically single input voltage range improvised multichannel chart recorder.

Good point and while it seems to be very useful to you, how is  that relevant to comparison of purely logic analyser qualities?
Saelae, as a protocol analyser has advantage that it streams to PC and can capture very long sequences.
New Zeroplus can do both, stream and use memory for super fast 1 GHz sampling. It also has advanced triggering.. It is a more capable device.
That is my point.

[friedrichfw]

Thanks for the insights I didn't even realize dedicated protocol analysers exist although it should have been a obvious conclusion.

I decided to go for the Digilent Analog Discovery 2 as it will allow me to do most of my projects at home and only seek other Equipment later in the projects if needed.

Has anybody used a CAN protocol Analyser and if so what could you say about it. What benefit does it have over any random logic analyser?

Thanks for the tips and insight

[AaronLee]

Do a search on AliExpress for "kingst logic analyzer". the Kingst devices seem quite a step up from the typical Chinese logic analyzers, and if they'll do what you need it to do, might be quite a savings compared to Saleae and other non-Chinese solutions.

[Old Printer]

I am a big fan of the Analog Discovery, but be sure to read the specs closely. It was designed to be a Swiss army knife for EE students and it is very good at that, but input voltage, memory and bandwidth are limited. As a logic analyzer the Digital Discovery has better specs, but of course lacks most of the other functions.

[voltsandjolts]

Do a search on AliExpress for "kingst logic analyzer".

I agree, the Kingst is quite good value with big 128MB memory. Software is OK too.
http://www.qdkingst.com/en/products
https://sigrok.org/wiki/Kingst_LA2016

Code: [Select]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1DYs2I-_lU

[cgroen]

In a higher price bracket, but of high quality in my opinion is the Zeroplus LAP-C Pro 32256M Logic Analyser, I did a review of it which you can see here:

Thanks Scott for the headsup on Zeroplus ! I had not seen these before, I'm a long time user of the Saleae Pro 16 device which has served me well, the Zeroplus software and decoder does indeed look very nice, I think one of these is going on the wish-list here!

[ElectronMan]

In a higher price bracket, but of high quality in my opinion is the Zeroplus LAP-C Pro 32256M Logic Analyser, I did a review of it which you can see here:

Thanks Scott for the headsup on Zeroplus ! I had not seen these before, I'm a long time user of the Saleae Pro 16 device which has served me well, the Zeroplus software and decoder does indeed look very nice, I think one of these is going on the wish-list here!

I have one of these ZeroPlus devices. The hardware is nice, and the features of the software are pretty complete and useful, however the software has a LOT of bugs. It crashes a lot, and clears your decoder channels when you change certain settings.

It can probably do the job, but it is a bit frustrating to use. This is my experience and YMMV.

[cgroen]

In a higher price bracket, but of high quality in my opinion is the Zeroplus LAP-C Pro 32256M Logic Analyser, I did a review of it which you can see here:

Thanks Scott for the headsup on Zeroplus ! I had not seen these before, I'm a long time user of the Saleae Pro 16 device which has served me well, the Zeroplus software and decoder does indeed look very nice, I think one of these is going on the wish-list here!

I have one of these ZeroPlus devices. The hardware is nice, and the features of the software are pretty complete and useful, however the software has a LOT of bugs. It crashes a lot, and clears your decoder channels when you change certain settings.

It can probably do the job, but it is a bit frustrating to use. This is my experience and YMMV.

Thanks!
is the software being actively maintained/updated ?
If it is, then maybe one could hope that some of the bugs would be taken care of.
Regards,
Carsten

[2N3055]

In a higher price bracket, but of high quality in my opinion is the Zeroplus LAP-C Pro 32256M Logic Analyser, I did a review of it which you can see here:

Thanks Scott for the headsup on Zeroplus ! I had not seen these before, I'm a long time user of the Saleae Pro 16 device which has served me well, the Zeroplus software and decoder does indeed look very nice, I think one of these is going on the wish-list here!

I have one of these ZeroPlus devices. The hardware is nice, and the features of the software are pretty complete and useful, however the software has a LOT of bugs. It crashes a lot, and clears your decoder channels when you change certain settings.

It can probably do the job, but it is a bit frustrating to use. This is my experience and YMMV.

Which one do you have, specifically? I have older Lap C 16128 and don't have that  experience.
What settings changes will erase your setup?

It would be nice to know if the new ones are not as solid as old ones..

Thanks!

[playboy_shrek]

I would like to advise you that recently due to chip shortage the prices on these specifically almost doubled, at least some of them I noticed have literally doubled in price

the ADALM2000 was 100 now its over 200

[ElectronMan]

There have been occasional updates. The changelog doesn't mention fixes for my particular issues so far, but I have not tested it in about 90 days.

[ElectronMan]

In a higher price bracket, but of high quality in my opinion is the Zeroplus LAP-C Pro 32256M Logic Analyser, I did a review of it which you can see here:

Thanks Scott for the headsup on Zeroplus ! I had not seen these before, I'm a long time user of the Saleae Pro 16 device which has served me well, the Zeroplus software and decoder does indeed look very nice, I think one of these is going on the wish-list here!

I have one of these ZeroPlus devices. The hardware is nice, and the features of the software are pretty complete and useful, however the software has a LOT of bugs. It crashes a lot, and clears your decoder channels when you change certain settings.

It can probably do the job, but it is a bit frustrating to use. This is my experience and YMMV.

Which one do you have, specifically? I have older Lap C 16128 and don't have that  experience.
What settings changes will erase your setup?

It would be nice to know if the new ones are not as solid as old ones..

Thanks!

It is one of the Logic Cube Pro models, I believe the 16 channel 64M one.

Specifically when changing the number of channels to capture, or sample rate in the acquisition settings, it will *sometimes* reset the entire interface, clear all capture data and buses.

If it did this consistently I wouldn't consider it a bug, but it seems almost random. Lots of testing, and I have found no real pattern to it.

When using compression, captures take abnormally long to transfer, and often turn up completely blank.

I've also had a divide by 0 crash that bites me once in a while when the UI transfers a capture.

You can get useful captures done, but it can be a bit frustrating if you need to recapture and adjust settings a lot, as the UI seems to have a mind of its own. It is a good idea to save often so you can reload if necessary.

Finally, it is rated to 250MHz but captures can get a bit unreliable at about 180MHz. This could need a settings tweak on my part, or better probing setup though.

It is pretty nice device and can do all the jobs I have thrown at it, but I have not found the software very pleasant to use so far.

[Berni]

I vote for the Kingst Electronics logic analyzers too:
http://www.qdkingst.com/en


Yes they are chinese, but they are a step up from the rest of the chinese junk
Yes its cheep at <100$ for most models and can be easily found on AliExpress directly from manufacturer
Yes the software looks like SaleaeLogic but it is not pirating it. They rewrote the software to be similar, but it works well.
Yes it has protocol decoding, with support for a rather wide range of protocols too.

Sure it might not be a fancy professional logic analyzer like one of those 20kg boat anchors with 128 channels, 1GS/s sampling, state analysis, customizable protocol decoding, execution and register tracking for CPU memory buses etc... But its still good enough for most things i would need one. If i need to go faster than i have a scope that can look at and decode high speed diff pair protocols running at 1Gbit, the scope is just annoying to use for it as i find logic analyzers work much better when connected up to a PC.

[2N3055]

In a higher price bracket, but of high quality in my opinion is the Zeroplus LAP-C Pro 32256M Logic Analyser, I did a review of it which you can see here:

Thanks Scott for the headsup on Zeroplus ! I had not seen these before, I'm a long time user of the Saleae Pro 16 device which has served me well, the Zeroplus software and decoder does indeed look very nice, I think one of these is going on the wish-list here!

I have one of these ZeroPlus devices. The hardware is nice, and the features of the software are pretty complete and useful, however the software has a LOT of bugs. It crashes a lot, and clears your decoder channels when you change certain settings.

It can probably do the job, but it is a bit frustrating to use. This is my experience and YMMV.

Which one do you have, specifically? I have older Lap C 16128 and don't have that  experience.
What settings changes will erase your setup?

It would be nice to know if the new ones are not as solid as old ones..

Thanks!

It is one of the Logic Cube Pro models, I believe the 16 channel 64M one.

Specifically when changing the number of channels to capture, or sample rate in the acquisition settings, it will *sometimes* reset the entire interface, clear all capture data and buses.

If it did this consistently I wouldn't consider it a bug, but it seems almost random. Lots of testing, and I have found no real pattern to it.

When using compression, captures take abnormally long to transfer, and often turn up completely blank.

I've also had a divide by 0 crash that bites me once in a while when the UI transfers a capture.

You can get useful captures done, but it can be a bit frustrating if you need to recapture and adjust settings a lot, as the UI seems to have a mind of its own. It is a good idea to save often so you can reload if necessary.

Finally, it is rated to 250MHz but captures can get a bit unreliable at about 180MHz. This could need a settings tweak on my part, or better probing setup though.

It is pretty nice device and can do all the jobs I have thrown at it, but I have not found the software very pleasant to use so far.

I guess they have problems since going to new USB3 platform with streaming and much larger memories.
Software is not the prettiest, but I had none of the problems with stability on the old one..
That is definitely not good.
Thank you for feedback.

Does anybody use DSLogic U3Pro32 ??

[voltsandjolts]

While I find a simple logic analyser very useful (I use Kingst La2016), there are some missing features are would like to have:

Triggering on SPI or UART bit sequence.
Triggering on I2C device address.
Segmented memory, to make good use of the above triggering features.

The Keysight MSOX3024 has some of these features in the LA, but I prefer a PC screen for LA work.
There must be LA's which support these, but how much would I have to pay?

[Berni]

Triggering on I2C and SPI data is tricky to do since it means the logic analyzer has to have hardware protocol decoding capability, most do the decoding in software.

The segmented memory is not much of an lack for me since i always had the logic analyzers with no built in sample memory that stream data live over USB. Using the PCs RAM as sample memory and compression on top gives essentially infinite sample memory, letting you record for seconds, minutes, or even hours of data.