EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: MatCat on February 25, 2014, 07:56:28 am
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Just got a new DS1074Z-S, noticing that the arb waveform can be 16kpts I am wondering if anyone knows a good resource to find per-existing arb waveforms? Maybe even start a little thread to keep a repo of them if there isn't already a good source for them.
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Wow, 24 hours and nothing! Does anyone even know of any software that can read / edit them even?
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For the DG series there is Ultra Signal Studio.
http://www.rigol.com/prodserv/DG4000/software/ (http://www.rigol.com/prodserv/DG4000/software/)
(advanced function are time limited)
screenshot http://www.mikrocontroller.net/attachment/136072/rigol-ultra-signal-studio-1.png (http://www.mikrocontroller.net/attachment/136072/rigol-ultra-signal-studio-1.png)
I don't know if the format is the same, but I can upload some that I made.
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This software makes no sense, it supports my DS1074Z-S so it says, however the software does not see my scope, no problems I can save it, of course it wants to use extension .raf which makes no sense but if I rename it to .arb my scope will see it however it has no data.
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Yeah, I can't figure it out either.
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Seeing how I couldn't find a solution I made one! Thanks to ktempkin poking around the binary the file format was figured out and I made a simple C command line to convert from .csv to .arb, it currently expects a value from -1 to 1 (Based on ArbExpress output), though I do plan to add a way to specify the min and max values.
You can find the source here: https://github.com/MatCat/csv2arb (https://github.com/MatCat/csv2arb)
And a screenshot of a waveform I created in ArbExpress and converted:
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/source-for-arb-waveforms/?action=dlattach;attach=83199)
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Oh one thing to note, for now the input has to be exactly 16,384 sample points, I plan to add interpolation support.
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Excellent, thank you.
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At first I couldn't figure out how to compile that on Windows, so I ported it to C#.
Then, I wanted something to compare the output of my program against, so I figured out how to compile yours on Windows in Visual Studio.
They produce the same output, if you ignore a difference in rounding, but the output from my .csv file apparently fails to produce a valid .arb file, while .csv files created by ArbExpress work fine. They're both full of values between -1 and 1, inclusive, and they're both 16384 points. Not sure what's up.
Anyway, I was able to get the siggen in the DS1000Z-S to go well beyond 25MHz this way, which is what I wanted.
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The -3db point for the siggen on my DS1074Z-S is about 44MHz. Verified on two 100MHz scopes, but I guess it could be the BNC cable coming out of the Rigol.
The trick is to load a .arb file with 2 or more full cycles of whatever waveform you wish to play, then multiply the configured frequency by the number of cycles in the .arb file you've loaded. I loaded a .arb file with 10 sine wave cycles. When I turn the frequency up to 4.4MHz, it's actually playing 10x that, 44MHz.
I'm a bit disappointed that the hardware can't go higher than that, but for the price it's not bad at all, I guess. Can't complain much.
At 7MHz the amplitude REALLY drops off, and at 9.33MHz the waveform starts to alias with the 10-cycle .arb file I loaded.
FYI.
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Does this help?
http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/E4400-90627.pdf (http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/E4400-90627.pdf)
Look for example at page 31.
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Does this help?
http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/E4400-90627.pdf (http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/E4400-90627.pdf)
Look for example at page 31.
that tells how to create files for Agilent signal sources, doesn't really help me with my Rigol. I understand the .arb format well enough, at least when the whole file is one waveform, but I don't know yet why my data fails to create a valid .arb file. Time to dig out Excel and formula up some tests.
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This software makes no sense, it supports my DS1074Z-S so it says, however the software does not see my scope, no problems I can save it, of course it wants to use extension .raf which makes no sense but if I rename it to .arb my scope will see it however it has no data.
You need to install "Ultra Sigma" from Rigol and a driver from NI to make this work. Having been down this road (success with a DS1074Z-S, not so much with an MSO2072A-S - see my thread about this), I'm currently cobbling together a c# program that takes a .csv and sends it directly to the scope.
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Just wanted to post that Rigol did provide a specification of the Arb. Wave Gen format across the DG1000/4000/5000 series. It was written in Jan 2015 but probably came out much later than that. I just found it when looking for info on the .RAF file format and though this thread is many years old, it's still searchable and has relevant information, so I thought it's worthwhile to reply and upload the document here. See attachment.
Sparky