Author Topic: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification  (Read 32377 times)

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Offline fonak

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #50 on: February 25, 2020, 03:25:22 pm »
Hello,
A new version of DSView 10.1 has appeared

link:
https://www.dreamsourcelab.com/download/

Changelogs:
–common
*add support for DSCope U3P100 device (100M bandwidth/1G samplerate/USB3.0 oscilloscope)
*add support for DSLogic U3Pro32 device (32 channels/1G samplerate/USB3.0 logic analyzer)
*add support for DSCope U2B100 device (100M bandwidth/1G samplerate/USB2.0 oscilloscope)
*add support for DSLogic U3Pro16 device (16 channels/1G samplerate/USB3.0 logic analyzer)
*add display of device type (USB 2.0 / USB 3.0 / Demo / File)
*add version check for FPGA firmware
*improve the default file name when saving/exporting files
*fix other display and language issue

–for logic analyzer
*extend channel support for trigger up to 32 channels
*fix issue of ps/2 decoder (#239)
*fix issue of cec decoder (#235)
*fix ID issue when export results of decoder (#237)
*fix “not” logic don’t work in advance trigger
*fix other display issues

–for oscilloscope
*improve wave shake issue when trig high freqency signals
*fix sampling point selection issue of downsampling
*add 20M bandwidth limitation for DSCope U2B100 / DSCope U3P100 devices
*improve synchronism between data acquisition and wave dispaly
*fix wave display and measurement issue when change vdiv and offset after stop
*fix capture restart issue when change offset in roll mode
*fix issue of timebase of math channel can’t be changed when waiting trigger
*fix issue of offset can’t be changed when waiting trigger
*fix clear and flicker issue of auto measurements
*fix cursor and mouse measurements issue after change samplerate when waiting trigger
*fix trigger issue when toggle between different trigger source

–for data acquisiton
*fix hardware offset setting issue
*fix mipmap issue of long time data at some case
*add cursor and mouse measurements
 
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Offline ceres-c

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #51 on: March 07, 2020, 08:34:12 pm »
Thanks, this seems to be working well. Made a small attempt at trace length matching.
edit: the 1.0.1 bitstream is working as well.
I've made the same modification, but it's still not working with the latest bitstream.
Maybe it's due to the RAM I'm using, given I have soldered the -75, which is 34MHz slower than the -6A version. Which one of the two do you have?
 

Offline masterx81

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #52 on: March 08, 2020, 12:55:33 am »
The u2b that i've upgraded had a 166mhz memory, replaced with a 6e variant and all ok. So i think that the 133mhz version can have problems
 

Offline ceres-c

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #53 on: March 08, 2020, 08:02:09 pm »
Thanks @masterx81, probably my intuition was right then.
But could you please confirm you're talking about the 6A version? I could not find any 6E, while there is a 7E, which is 133MHz as well, which would probably be too slow as well.
Or maybe it was me who couldn't find it
« Last Edit: March 08, 2020, 10:16:29 pm by ceres-c »
 

Offline masterx81

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #54 on: March 08, 2020, 10:00:26 pm »
6A, not 6E, you are right  :-+
 
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Offline thm_w

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #55 on: March 10, 2020, 12:50:45 am »
I've made the same modification, but it's still not working with the latest bitstream.
Maybe it's due to the RAM I'm using, given I have soldered the -75, which is 34MHz slower than the -6A version. Which one of the two do you have?

In the photo I posted above, -6A
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Offline kivijakola

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #56 on: March 29, 2020, 09:15:20 am »
I received also my DSLogic Basic  that has 64 Mb ram installed. I did some investigations to upgrade to pro and noticed following:

64Mbit ram datasheet can be found from here:
https://www.winbond.com/resource-files/w9864g6kh_a02.pdf

And 256Mbit version here:
https://www.winbond.com/resource-files/da00-w9825g6khc1.pdf

Difference between those is that 256Mb version has extra address pin A12 mapped to pin 36. Measured that pin from PCB and seems that it is not connected to any pin of Spartan? Has anyone measured that from Pro version where that should be connected?
 

Offline kivijakola

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #57 on: March 29, 2020, 09:27:18 am »
Found one blurry image of back side of pcb from net. Seems that there is at least on trace missing from my basic version compared to that.
 

Offline masterx81

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #58 on: March 29, 2020, 09:27:52 am »
Look here for u2b;
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.habr.com/ru/amp/post/483496/
I've used a thin enameled wire to connect the missing addressing pin. The i've done the eeprom mod and it works perfectly
 
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Offline eetechTom

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #59 on: April 01, 2020, 03:49:39 pm »
I have a question regarding the shielded leads w/compensation network. The only 2 suppliers that seem to show these with the DSLogic Plus are Banggood, and Dreamsource.

Thanks.
 

Offline eetechTom

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #60 on: April 01, 2020, 04:00:45 pm »
I see thm_w's post helped answer this a few months ago. :clap:
 

Offline masterx81

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #61 on: April 01, 2020, 04:45:17 pm »
So the difference from this 2 types of leads?
 

Offline eetechTom

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #62 on: April 01, 2020, 05:09:52 pm »
Yes masterx81, that's correct. I see aliexpress does sell the DSLogic Plus with the upgraded leads.
I need to order a large quantity for our engineering students, which might be a big ask.
 

Offline eetechTom

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #63 on: April 01, 2020, 05:27:41 pm »
More digging shows that one aliexpress supplier does have a massive amount of stock (4000+). Price is good at $95 US.
 

Offline masterx81

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #64 on: April 01, 2020, 06:08:32 pm »
Sorry but what's the difference between the two type of leads? Less noise at high frequency?
 

Offline thm_w

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #65 on: April 01, 2020, 09:26:05 pm »
Sorry but what's the difference between the two type of leads? Less noise at high frequency?

Yeah shielding could help a bit with noise. Bandwidth should be higher with the coax. But no one has actually compared the two.

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Offline masterx81

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #66 on: April 01, 2020, 10:31:11 pm »
I have one of the "older" leads, but also this seem a really small coax cable, connected to ground on the unit side
 

Online RoGeorge

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #67 on: April 01, 2020, 11:16:54 pm »
Any cable is also a transmission line.  In a transmission line, when the impedance is not matched, the signal is reflected back and forth, making one see spikes or ringing on the signal edges if it is observed with an oscilloscope, or fake/multiple edges instead of only the correct edge when looking with a signal analyzer that can see only zeroes and ones.

Note that this reflections happens no matter how low is the frequency of the signal.  What matters most in case of digital circuits is the raising and falling time of the edges.  The fastest the edge, the more problems, no matter if we look at a 100 Hz or a 100 MHz signal.

TL;DR
The shielded cable is supposed to:
- have a controlled impedance, so one can match the impedance, and thus observe the correct signals and correct edges, not influenced by signal reflections.
- have a controlled velocity factor (and thus an equal propagation delay for all wires), so the edges from many parallel lines are observed in the correct order.


With normal (unshielded) wires, the impedance varies wildly, depending how the wire is bent or twisted, or how close is relative to other wires, or relative to GND.

This video from w2aew explains very well the idea of transmission lines and reflections, and also shows the waveform produced by the combination between the original signal and its reflections.  Keep in mind that the same phenomena happens at any frequency, no matter if it's sinusoidal signal for a radio transmitter, or square signal for a digital circuit.  The signal analyzer will be very confused by the strange waveforms appearing because of reflections.  Also, keep in mind that those reflections seen in the video are nice and stable only because the pulses duration is constant.  With varying digital signals, the combination between original and reflected signal can turn even the cleanest waveform into an unrecognizable mess.  So, here is why, and how it looks like for the most simple cases:



Now, how worry should we be?  For looking at signals on an Arduino or a breadboard, using short wires like the ones coming with the probes, most probably there will be no visible difference between a shielded cable and a normal wire.

For looking at high speed signals with very aggressive edges, on a PCB with controlled impedance traces, the shielded cable and correct impedance matching is a must.

As an example, if you put a clean square wave (no matter the frequency, but with very fast edges), and don't care about the impedance matching, you can easily see 2-3 fake edges instead of one, especially at maximum acquisition speed.

By fake edge, I mean a few very close transition instead of a single clean falling or clean raising edge.  Looks similar with a debounce noise, but it is caused by signal reflections, not by imperfect mechanical contacts.

As a fun exercise, you can see how the number and the distance between the oscillations of a fake edge varies with the length of the connection wire, or with the impedance mismatch.  ;D

Offline rfdes

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #68 on: May 15, 2020, 01:14:14 am »
Look here for u2b;
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.habr.com/ru/amp/post/483496/
I've used a thin enameled wire to connect the missing addressing pin. The i've done the eeprom mod and it works perfectly


My effort to upgrade my U2 Basic to Plus went poorly.  Unless this is not understood, the FPGA pin that drives the A12 Ram pin is connected to GND on the U2Basic PCB.  The above link shows that this pin needs to be isolated by carefully 'lifting' the pin from the GND pad.  I struggled but managed to get this pin lifted and made the connection to the RAM A12 input.  However, the mod failed.  I believe that I may have damaged this FPGA pin by updating the EEprom to PLUS and applying power to the board 'before' I isolated the FPGA pin from GND.  My belief is that with the board configured as a PLUS version, this forced the FPGA pin to an OUTPUT while it was connected to GND, causing a short circuit and damaging this FPGA pin.  I have no proof of this but I recommend isolating the FPGA pin before configuring EEprom to the PLUS version.  At this point when I perform an internal test, the test shows all 0 on each line.

Does anyone have any further information regarding this?  Curious if others had similar failures.
Take care -
rfdes
 

Offline thm_w

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #69 on: May 15, 2020, 08:50:36 pm »
The pin should be not connected on both sides, then you add a jumper wire to connect fpga to ram.
It shouldn't be grounded. But I can't remember actually measuring to confirm that.

You can see my photo above: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/upgrading-dslogic-basic-to-plus-without-eeprom-modification/msg2921384/#msg2921384

Internal test worked OK.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2020, 08:54:21 pm by thm_w »
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Offline rfdes

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #70 on: May 15, 2020, 10:45:54 pm »
The pin should be not connected on both sides, then you add a jumper wire to connect fpga to ram.
It shouldn't be grounded. But I can't remember actually measuring to confirm that.

You can see my photo above: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/upgrading-dslogic-basic-to-plus-without-eeprom-modification/msg2921384/#msg2921384

Internal test worked OK.

I've seen the bare PCB without the FPGA installed and the I/O pin used to drive A12 is definitely grounded.  My issue was resolved due to an intermittent solder bridge on the FPGA between two signals used to read/write to the RAM chip.  These two pins are located about 10 pins away from the i/o signal used to drive A12.  It was just a coincidence that this started giving me trouble at the time I was implementing the upgrade modification.  Just my luck.  Anyway after clearing the bridge all is well.
take care -
 
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Offline thm_w

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #71 on: May 24, 2020, 09:47:23 pm »
I've seen the bare PCB without the FPGA installed and the I/O pin used to drive A12 is definitely grounded.  My issue was resolved due to an intermittent solder bridge on the FPGA between two signals used to read/write to the RAM chip.  These two pins are located about 10 pins away from the i/o signal used to drive A12.  It was just a coincidence that this started giving me trouble at the time I was implementing the upgrade modification.  Just my luck.  Anyway after clearing the bridge all is well.
take care -

Thank you for noticing :-+, took it apart again and it was grounded as you say. Have to lift the pin using a pointy exacto knife.

From what you are saying self-test should indicate failures in memory, but maybe I wasn't looking closely or its not fully testing the memory capacity, as I don't remember seeing anything unusual there.
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Offline robca

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #72 on: August 21, 2020, 11:29:06 pm »
Has anyone found a good source to buy just the shielded cables like the Plus uses? I'm upgrading my U2Basic (thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread) and the only source seems to be https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32999482818.html, for around $30 shipped to the USA

Not sure if it's worth the extra cost, though, so I'll start with the memory upgrade only (and using fx2lafw_eeprom_loader to change the device ID) and see if it works well enough for me at the relatively low speeds I'm likely to use
 

Offline webhdx

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #73 on: June 17, 2021, 09:30:09 am »
Here are some remarks regarding upgrade from U2B to Plus. A lot of this information was spread across multiple posts and I wasted some time troubleshooting the issues. So here we go:

1. You need MT48LC16M16A2P-6A, apparently -6A is very important.
2. Replace RAM chip with the new one.
3. You have to lift the leg on FPGA! The leg is grounded by default, it won't work without lifting it. Be very careful, it's extremely easy to break the leg off.
4. Solder a wire between unconnected legs of FPGA and RAM. There are pictures in the topic so you can easily count which legs you have to solder to. Just remember you also have to left the pin on the FPGA!
4. Solder a wire across leg 4 and 7 of the EEPROM chip. You can also short it with tweezers for the programming but it won't do any harm if you leave the wire in place.
5. Use fx2lafw_eeprom_loader.exe software to program new firmware. You will find the link here in the topic.
6. Now the thing I had most problems with - there are a lot of firmware files being posted. I don't know why others had good luck with them but in my case a lot of them wouldn't work. The program would reports invalid characters in the hex file. So what worked 100% for me was:
fx2lafw_eeprom_loader.exe -t M24128 -p DsLogicPro

The firmware DsLogicPro should be provided with the software (ref. https://github.com/podonoghue/LogicAnalyser/blob/master/Software/fx2lafw_eeprom_loader/bin/DsLogicPro). You don't have to look for any special firmware files here in the topic.

Steps above converted my U2B to Plus version which happens to work in all DSView versions on macOS. People had issues with newest releases or they had to replace bitstreams but none of that was required for me. I use DSView 1.12 which is the newest available version at the time of writing this post. Also RLE seems to work quite reliably for me, even at 400MHz. Not sure if the person having issues did the wiring properly by matching length of the wire (should be 38.5mm). I used 0.1mm enameled wire which is probably the best for the job. With RLE you won't capture over ~400ms in buffered mode, not sure why you have options for 1, 2 or even 10 seconds.

DSView is a piece of shit and I prefer PulseView (mainly because I can use my own decoders) which works with DSLogic Plus but not with U2B.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2021, 11:31:32 am by webhdx »
 
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Offline robca

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Re: Upgrading DSLogic Basic to Plus without EEPROM modification
« Reply #74 on: June 17, 2021, 05:47:52 pm »
I recently updated as well, and I was planning to summarize the new steps, but you beat me to it :) well done!

Couple of notes:

  • Lifting the FPGA pin is, by far, the most challenging part of the upgrade. The rest, especially if using bismuth or ChipQuik to remove the RAM is trivial. The FPGA pin requires a good soldering iron, good eyes or a microscope, and 3 hands  ::). And even so you risk bridging the neighboring pins or breaking the pin off. Do this only if you have previous experience with similar tasks, or practice on a dead board first. Corollary: if your time is worth anything, you are better off buying the Plus version directly
  • The instructions are mostly written for the upgrade from Basic to Plus, not from U2B which is the one sold now. You cannot edit the file extracted from the U2B and modify only 2 bytes. The binary file is different. You need to find a Plus firmware binary. I downloaded the one described here https://habr.com/ru/post/483496/ (use Google translate), and uploaded on github https://github.com/User420t/DSL (the password is in the post with all the steps... now sure why it was password protected)
  • If you use Windows, you need https://github.com/podonoghue/LogicAnalyser/tree/master/Software/fx2lafw_eeprom_loader/bin

@webhdx as far as I can tell, the DsLogicPro.bin file (at least in my distribution) is 334k. The EEPROM is only 16k. The file I used, 24c128_plus.bin is 16k. If you use the hex version (same content, different encoding), it's 46K. 334k is way too big. How did you manage to make it work? The *.bin files in the DsView distribution are, as far as I can tell, hdl files for the FPGA, and what it's stored in the EEPROM is just the firmware for the Cypress USB interface and to tell the system what type of board you have. The hdl is then uploaded by either DsView or PulseView, the correct version for the type of device used (Basic, U2B or Plus). It looks as if DsLogic used the Pro moniker at one point, but now it's probably the Plus version

DsLogic uses different hdl (DsLogicPlus.bin, DsLogicBasic.bin, DsLogicU2Basic.bin, etc) depending on the ID of the board. The board we bought has a Cypress firmware in EEPROM that identifies it as a U2Basic, so needs one version of the hdl (the one that knows some pins are tied to ground and using a smaller RAM). After the modification, we need to update the EEPROM to tell the system we now have a different board, with more RAM and identical to a Plus. Then DsView/PulseView will upload the correct hdl and use all the memory, plus unlock the faster data capture rates. Quite understandably, DsLogic doesn't expect the users to change the EEPROM, so they do not provide the right firmware in the distribution. And we need someone with an actual Plus to dump their EEPROM and share the bin file

Also, DsView *is* PulseView with a different UI and a few functionality changes. As a matter of fact, there were a lot of tensions between the sigrok community and DsLogic because DsLogic did not properly attribute the code nor posted the changes. You can use any PulseView decoder in DsView just by copying them in the right directory. The current released version of DsView lacks a lot of decoders, but all the decoders have been checked into their github repository (from PulseView) and can be used
« Last Edit: June 17, 2021, 09:32:40 pm by robca »
 


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