Siglent SDS1104X-E and SDS1204X-E Mixed Signal Oscilloscopes

[tubularnut]

@tautech No problem, I'll go through them tomorrow, and pass back the results.

[Performa01]

What do you think about my other question of the scope being bogged down, with full memory used? Especially with measurements enabled.

Well, in contrast to some other DSO brands/models, the SDS1000X-E series always uses the full record length for everything, including automatic measurements.

For example, if you acquire data at 1 GSa/s at a timebase of 1 ms/div, then you get a record length of 14 Mpts which equals the maximum memory you can set. Now every single trigger event causes a 14 Mpts long record that has to be mapped to the screen - this is done with heavy HW support, hence it is still reasonably fast (but would certainly be even faster if there were less data). With mautomatic measurements enabled, the entire record needs to scanned for certain measurements, this is done in software on the ARM core and this takes time. Think of the peak-peak measurement for instance - it has to scan the entire memory to find the correct answer. Also time measurements like signal period, almost the full memory needs to be searched in some cases to find a full period of a low frequency signal.

You can now either limit the max. memory to e.g. 140 kpts, which will reduce the sample rate to 10 MSa/s but also divides the record length by 100 and screen mapping speeds up in any case. For automatic measurements it depends on the specific measurement, but processing time will also be reduced for many of them.

There are DSOs that only use a small secondary buffer of some 64 kpts for display and measurements (Keysight MSOX) or even just the screen memory, which is less than 1 kpts (Rigol DS1000) which means simplicity and speed is paramount, but measurements aren't accurate at times. By contrast, Tek or LeCroy are the "analyzing scopes" that use much larger buffers or even the full memory for final signal processing, but they slow down on long records. Siglent has joined the latter group for several years now. Thanks to adequate processing power, the sowdown isn't dramatic in Siglent scopes though.

[C.J.S.]

Updated mine tonight and unfortunately WiFi is still not usable.
Yes, the UI options to connect to WiFi that were completely missing in the previous version have returned, but I can't get a usable WiFi connection.
Sometimes it says connected, usually it says WLAN connection failed. Even when it does say connected I'm unable to ping it let alone log into the web interface.
It's about 1.5 metres from the base station...
* Full disclosure - I'm not using the "official" wireless adaptor however it is a TP-Link TL-WN725N which did work with version 6.1.35R2, although to be honest the connection was never very reliable or fast.
Oh well back to Ethernet for me... I hope others have better luck!

FYI, I just updated firmware on my SDS1204X-E ("upgraded" from SDS1104X-E) from v6.1.35R2 to v6.1.37R6, and remote control using the wifi connection with the scope's web server works fine for me. After the firmware update I needed to re-enter SSID and PSK of the wifi connection. After this was done the wifi connection was working but initially the connection was very slow. But after restarting the scope with the wifi dongle plugged in the wifi connection works fine without delays.

With respect to the TL-WN725N wifi adapter, I know that there are 3 hardware revisions of this adapter (v1, v2 and v3). As far as I understand, v2 uses a different Realtek wifi chip than v1 and v3. I am not sure if all 3 HW revisions of the adapter are supported by the firmware of the SDS1x04X-E.

[tautech]

Thought I'd mention this version doesn't fix the issue where USB thumb drives won't auto-mount on boot, not that I was expecting it to.

Every time I boot up with a thumb drive still connected I have to unplug it and plug it back in again before it is recognised. Is there any way to feed this issue back to Siglent and does anyone else have the same issue ?

It's an 8GB Sandisk Cruzer which works fine for doing firmware updates and saving screenshots as long as it is plugged in after booting not before booting...

It's normal for USB sticks or any device that's connected not to be reported as connected at boot however for USB, LAN and WiFi their OSD indicators will show after boot in the lowest RH box.

One catch for many after doing an OS update is not removing the OS files from the boot sector of a USB drive where if connected to the scope will run each time the scope is booted.

[tubularnut]

Unfortunately it hasn't fixed the use of a $ in the PSIK, unless it is used at the end.

Are the special character tables you sent me still accurate/unchanged ?

I only checked the $ character, I’m assuming the others still work. I can do a random check if needed?

Thanks, yes please check some as we are posting about the special characters problem on Siglents forum again.
Email if you like. 

Special characters retested for WiFi password on  6.1.37R6

[tautech]

Unfortunately it hasn't fixed the use of a $ in the PSIK, unless it is used at the end.

Are the special character tables you sent me still accurate/unchanged ?

I only checked the $ character, I’m assuming the others still work. I can do a random check if needed?

Thanks, yes please check some as we are posting about the special characters problem on Siglents forum again.
Email if you like. 

Special characters retested for WiFi password on  6.1.37R6

Thanks, same result as beta 37R5 FW you tested.

[DBMandrake]

Thought I'd mention this version doesn't fix the issue where USB thumb drives won't auto-mount on boot, not that I was expecting it to.

Every time I boot up with a thumb drive still connected I have to unplug it and plug it back in again before it is recognised. Is there any way to feed this issue back to Siglent and does anyone else have the same issue ?

It's an 8GB Sandisk Cruzer which works fine for doing firmware updates and saving screenshots as long as it is plugged in after booting not before booting...

It's normal for USB sticks or any device that's connected not to be reported as connected at boot however for USB, LAN and WiFi their OSD indicators will show after boot in the lowest RH box.

It's not just that the icon doesn't appear if I boot the scope with the USB stick already connected, it doesn't mount it either.

If I boot with the USB stick already connected and try the print button for example, it just complains that there is no USB storage device connected. I have to unplug and reconnect the USB stick after boot up for it to work.

This is clearly a bug.

One catch for many after doing an OS update is not removing the OS files from the boot sector of a USB drive where if connected to the scope will run each time the scope is booted.

Yes I'm aware of this, but this is nothing to do with the USB stick not mounting automatically on boot.

It's not a big deal but it would be nice of them to fix it.

[DBMandrake]

Updated mine tonight and unfortunately WiFi is still not usable.
Yes, the UI options to connect to WiFi that were completely missing in the previous version have returned, but I can't get a usable WiFi connection.
Sometimes it says connected, usually it says WLAN connection failed. Even when it does say connected I'm unable to ping it let alone log into the web interface.
It's about 1.5 metres from the base station...
* Full disclosure - I'm not using the "official" wireless adaptor however it is a TP-Link TL-WN725N which did work with version 6.1.35R2, although to be honest the connection was never very reliable or fast.
Oh well back to Ethernet for me... I hope others have better luck!

FYI, I just updated firmware on my SDS1204X-E ("upgraded" from SDS1104X-E) from v6.1.35R2 to v6.1.37R6, and remote control using the wifi connection with the scope's web server works fine for me. After the firmware update I needed to re-enter SSID and PSK of the wifi connection. After this was done the wifi connection was working but initially the connection was very slow. But after restarting the scope with the wifi dongle plugged in the wifi connection works fine without delays.

It's unreliable for me. Sometimes it works OK and the web interface is fairly usable. Sometimes it just won't connect or it connects but there is no useful data throughput.

One thing that may be an issue for me is that I have 3 wireless AP's in the house all broadcasting the same SSID's as our internal walls are far too thick to cover the house with one AP. This allows devices to roam between AP's automatically as they move around the house.

Even though one of the AP's is in the same room (about a metre away) from the scope, there's a possibility that the roaming support on the device is poor and it's sometimes connecting to a far away AP and thus not getting a usable signal. I'll need to do some more testing to see if this is the case.

With respect to the TL-WN725N wifi adapter, I know that there are 3 hardware revisions of this adapter (v1, v2 and v3). As far as I understand, v2 uses a different Realtek wifi chip than v1 and v3. I am not sure if all 3 HW revisions of the adapter are supported by the firmware of the SDS1x04X-E.

I think mine is V3 but I would have to check. It's definitely supported (in as far as there is a driver that loads for it) otherwise it wouldn't work at all as there are only 2 or 3 wifi drivers present in the firmware image.

I have four other wireless adaptors of various models and chipsets and none of them are detected at all.

I don't have the scope in front of me at the moment but I can check via telnet to see which driver is loading for my adaptor - I did look last night but forgot to write down the driver name.

Part of the problem I suspect is its just not a very good adaptor - 2.4Ghz only and an extremely miniature antenna.

[tautech]

Thought I'd mention this version doesn't fix the issue where USB thumb drives won't auto-mount on boot, not that I was expecting it to.

Every time I boot up with a thumb drive still connected I have to unplug it and plug it back in again before it is recognised. Is there any way to feed this issue back to Siglent and does anyone else have the same issue ?

It's an 8GB Sandisk Cruzer which works fine for doing firmware updates and saving screenshots as long as it is plugged in after booting not before booting...

It's normal for USB sticks or any device that's connected not to be reported as connected at boot however for USB, LAN and WiFi their OSD indicators will show after boot in the lowest RH box.

It's not just that the icon doesn't appear if I boot the scope with the USB stick already connected, it doesn't mount it either.

If I boot with the USB stick already connected and try the print button for example, it just complains that there is no USB storage device connected. I have to unplug and reconnect the USB stick after boot up for it to work.

This is clearly a bug.

One catch for many after doing an OS update is not removing the OS files from the boot sector of a USB drive where if connected to the scope will run each time the scope is booted.

Yes I'm aware of this, but this is nothing to do with the USB stick not mounting automatically on boot.

It's not a big deal but it would be nice of them to fix it.

No it's your USB stick incompatibility for whatever reasons. 
Below are 2 screenshots both grabbed soon after boot with 2 different USB sticks inserted before boot.
One = no-name 8GB and Strontium 8GB of which I have 2 in constant use for screenshots and FW updates.

Updated mine tonight and unfortunately WiFi is still not usable.
Yes, the UI options to connect to WiFi that were completely missing in the previous version have returned, but I can't get a usable WiFi connection.
Sometimes it says connected, usually it says WLAN connection failed. Even when it does say connected I'm unable to ping it let alone log into the web interface.
It's about 1.5 metres from the base station...
* Full disclosure - I'm not using the "official" wireless adaptor however it is a TP-Link TL-WN725N which did work with version 6.1.35R2, although to be honest the connection was never very reliable or fast.
Oh well back to Ethernet for me... I hope others have better luck!

FYI, I just updated firmware on my SDS1204X-E ("upgraded" from SDS1104X-E) from v6.1.35R2 to v6.1.37R6, and remote control using the wifi connection with the scope's web server works fine for me. After the firmware update I needed to re-enter SSID and PSK of the wifi connection. After this was done the wifi connection was working but initially the connection was very slow. But after restarting the scope with the wifi dongle plugged in the wifi connection works fine without delays.

It's unreliable for me. Sometimes it works OK and the web interface is fairly usable. Sometimes it just won't connect or it connects but there is no useful data throughput.

One thing that may be an issue for me is that I have 3 wireless AP's in the house all broadcasting the same SSID's as our internal walls are far too thick to cover the house with one AP. This allows devices to roam between AP's automatically as they move around the house.

Even though one of the AP's is in the same room (about a metre away) from the scope, there's a possibility that the roaming support on the device is poor and it's sometimes connecting to a far away AP and thus not getting a usable signal. I'll need to do some more testing to see if this is the case.

With respect to the TL-WN725N wifi adapter, I know that there are 3 hardware revisions of this adapter (v1, v2 and v3). As far as I understand, v2 uses a different Realtek wifi chip than v1 and v3. I am not sure if all 3 HW revisions of the adapter are supported by the firmware of the SDS1x04X-E.

I think mine is V3 but I would have to check. It's definitely supported (in as far as there is a driver that loads for it) otherwise it wouldn't work at all as there are only 2 or 3 wifi drivers present in the firmware image.

I have four other wireless adaptors of various models and chipsets and none of them are detected at all.

I don't have the scope in front of me at the moment but I can check via telnet to see which driver is loading for my adaptor - I did look last night but forgot to write down the driver name.

Part of the problem I suspect is its just not a very good adaptor - 2.4Ghz only and an extremely miniature antenna.

Yet from another close to the house building with a single Router/WiFi AP I still have full signal strength as shown in screenshots.
Signal passes through multiple walls.
Genuine TP Link ***725* dongle Gold version.

Had similar issues to you with a previous modem that were never solved except with a replacement.
Ubiquiti airCube:
https://store.ui.com/collections/operator-airmax-devices/products/aircube-ac-wifi-router


Or you have some WiFi issues/clashes from your multiple AP's that the TP Link dongle and Siglent SW can't manage.

[modoran]

Having USB stick always inserted works fine for me, it boots with it, show the icon and save screenshots just fine without reinsert every time.  No issue here.  Try to use different stick.

[CharlotteSwiss]

Is removing-inserting the key a problem? Think that the 1202x-e model often NEVER recognizes the key, and many times when you try to save a screenshot the device crashes. But maybe they are releasing FW for the 4 channel model only and have forgotten about the 2 channel model. Disappointed 

[borjam]

Is removing-inserting the key a problem? Think that the 1202x-e model often NEVER recognizes the key, and many times when you try to save a screenshot the device crashes. But maybe they are releasing FW for the 4 channel model only and have forgotten about the 2 channel model. Disappointed 

I have used different USB keys with the 1202X-E several times and never ran into issues. It just worked.

Have you tried different models? The manufacturers of USB sticks and SD cards have an unprecedented talent to botch specs.

[CharlotteSwiss]

Is removing-inserting the key a problem? Think that the 1202x-e model often NEVER recognizes the key, and many times when you try to save a screenshot the device crashes. But maybe they are releasing FW for the 4 channel model only and have forgotten about the 2 channel model. Disappointed 

I have used different USB keys with the 1202X-E several times and never ran into issues. It just worked.

Have you tried different models? The manufacturers of USB sticks and SD cards have an unprecedented talent to botch specs.

hello Borjam, well found. I have tried about 10 different models of keys, the problem remains. I believe it depends on some "different" chip hardware version on the same model .. Maybe the problems could be for example in a range of serial numbers. I believe yours is prior to mine...

[borjam]

Is removing-inserting the key a problem? Think that the 1202x-e model often NEVER recognizes the key, and many times when you try to save a screenshot the device crashes. But maybe they are releasing FW for the 4 channel model only and have forgotten about the 2 channel model. Disappointed 

I have used different USB keys with the 1202X-E several times and never ran into issues. It just worked.

Have you tried different models? The manufacturers of USB sticks and SD cards have an unprecedented talent to botch specs.

hello Borjam, well found. I have tried about 10 different models of keys, the problem remains. I believe it depends on some "different" chip hardware version on the same model .. Maybe the problems could be for example in a range of serial numbers. I believe yours is prior to mine...

I'm not at home now, I will check later and let you know.  If I forget ping me with a private message or something.

Are you using USB3 keys? Maybe too modern? I will try a USB3 key as well.

[CharlotteSwiss]

Is removing-inserting the key a problem? Think that the 1202x-e model often NEVER recognizes the key, and many times when you try to save a screenshot the device crashes. But maybe they are releasing FW for the 4 channel model only and have forgotten about the 2 channel model. Disappointed 

I have used different USB keys with the 1202X-E several times and never ran into issues. It just worked.

Have you tried different models? The manufacturers of USB sticks and SD cards have an unprecedented talent to botch specs.

hello Borjam, well found. I have tried about 10 different models of keys, the problem remains. I believe it depends on some "different" chip hardware version on the same model .. Maybe the problems could be for example in a range of serial numbers. I believe yours is prior to mine...

I'm not at home now, I will check later and let you know.  If I forget ping me with a private message or something.

Are you using USB3 keys? Maybe too modern? I will try a USB3 key as well.

I don't have usb3 keys, but i am 15 years old and even recent ones (not usb3). 

[borjam]

Are you using USB3 keys? Maybe too modern? I will try a USB3 key as well.

I don't have usb3 keys, but i am 15 years old and even recent ones (not usb3). 

OK I was wondering, some newer USB devices may have incompatibility problems with older USB ports.

How are you formatting the keys? I have just plugged a key and I was surprised to see a "removed" message. It wasn't recognized.

Turns out I had used that key for a different purpose and it was formatted with a Unix (FreeBSD) filesystem. After formatting it as FAT. Do not use exFAT, it seems it doesn't work.

@tautech
Note to Siglent: Why don't you add a message warning "incorrect format" instead of just ejecting it and not letting the user know the reason? It can be a hardware problem (even bad USB connector contacts) or a format problems. It would be helpful to know the reason! It would be good to have a format option in the "Utility" menu so that you can make sure the drive is properly formatted.

The drives I have tried work, all of them with a caveat. I have two apparently identical Kingston Data Traveler G4 and one of them shows a "USB flash drive removed" before it gets detected. The rest (more Kingston drives, a very fast drive supplied with a Juniper router, etc) hace worked.

The key, probably, format.

- MBR partition table. It supports GUID but it's better to be safe.

- FAT format, never exFAT.


How are you formatting the drives? Also, the larger I have tried is 32 GB.

My scope runs UBoot version 5-0, FPGA 2019-06-12, Hardware version 0c-01, Serial SDS1EBAX1R1809.

And I forgot. You can try whether the USB interface works by plugging an optical mouse. If the mouse doesn't emit light probably the USB port is broken/defective. I have tried with an Apple mouse and despite not being recognized it was powered on (red light underneath).

[CharlotteSwiss]

thanks borjam 
I have tried various formatting, sometimes it goes and sometimes it doesn't. Mine is newer than yours. Once the mouse is connected, it turns on. If you try the penultimate FW, you will see that the key is recognized much faster and there will be no problem 

[Neutrion]

What do you think about my other question of the scope being bogged down, with full memory used? Especially with measurements enabled.

Well, in contrast to some other DSO brands/models, the SDS1000X-E series always uses the full record length for everything, including automatic measurements.

For example, if you acquire data at 1 GSa/s at a timebase of 1 ms/div, then you get a record length of 14 Mpts which equals the maximum memory you can set. Now every single trigger event causes a 14 Mpts long record that has to be mapped to the screen - this is done with heavy HW support, hence it is still reasonably fast (but would certainly be even faster if there were less data). With mautomatic measurements enabled, the entire record needs to scanned for certain measurements, this is done in software on the ARM core and this takes time. Think of the peak-peak measurement for instance - it has to scan the entire memory to find the correct answer. Also time measurements like signal period, almost the full memory needs to be searched in some cases to find a full period of a low frequency signal.

You can now either limit the max. memory to e.g. 140 kpts, which will reduce the sample rate to 10 MSa/s but also divides the record length by 100 and screen mapping speeds up in any case. For automatic measurements it depends on the specific measurement, but processing time will also be reduced for many of them.

There are DSOs that only use a small secondary buffer of some 64 kpts for display and measurements (Keysight MSOX) or even just the screen memory, which is less than 1 kpts (Rigol DS1000) which means simplicity and speed is paramount, but measurements aren't accurate at times. By contrast, Tek or LeCroy are the "analyzing scopes" that use much larger buffers or even the full memory for final signal processing, but they slow down on long records. Siglent has joined the latter group for several years now. Thanks to adequate processing power, the sowdown isn't dramatic in Siglent scopes though.

Thanks again for the detailed explanation! So is it normal what I see? It doesn't annoy me too much just wanted to doublecheck it with others. (After mine has a higher standby consumption than that of others, you never know ...)

[1audio]

I upgraded to the latest firmware and the WIFI is working with the Trendnet module. However the NTP is not wanting to work. Is there a known to work NTP server in North America I can try? The usual NIST and Google servers don't seem to work. They were funky before with a wired connection but not working at all wired or wireless now.

[tautech]

I upgraded to the latest firmware and the WIFI is working with the Trendnet module. However the NTP is not wanting to work. Is there a known to work NTP server in North America I can try? The usual NIST and Google servers don't seem to work. They were funky before with a wired connection but not working at all wired or wireless now.

Based on your location from your profile here are some NTP servers close to you:
https://commons.lbl.gov/display/itdivision/NTP+-+Network+Time+Protocol

Be sure to set your region/district in the scopes NTP menu so to have the correct local time displayed.

[1audio]

NIST servers did not work BUT the Lawrence Berkeley servers did work. Thanks.

[dophuc]

I just tested my SDS1104X-E with the ADF4351. This is probably the cheapest oscilloscope bandwidth test, around $30 including shipping



Default Bandwidth (100Mhz)

200Mhz Bandwidth

[blurpy]

How accurate is the amplitude output of that device? And doesn't it produce a square wave signal? If it's actually usable for measuring bandwidth I might get one myself.

[dophuc]

Yes, it can generate square wave from 35Mhz to 2.2Ghz (2.2Ghz to 4.4GHz is sine wave). This is a simple rf generator so the functionality is very limited. The frequency can be adjusted but the amplitude can only be selected from 4 available levels.



You can see more details here

[tautech]

This needs posting here and maybe rf-loop can link it in the OP.