Products > Test Equipment

USB logic analyzer - what's the current "favorite" for ~150$? Hantek 4032L?

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Doctorandus_P:
If you have any curiousity in te direction of Sigrok I would recommend to start with a "8ch 24M" box from Ali / Ebay. The price of this box is so low (About EUR 5) that there is no reason not to buy it, even though it does not live up to your full specs.
I've captured and decoded some low-speed USB signals (1.5mbit/s) with this box and it  is enough to give you an Idea of what Sigrok can do.

A general CY7C68013A development board goes upto 16 channels in Sigrok, but does not have any input protection. You could add a buffer yourself with the any logic level you like.
You may even state that the input protection is included in the pricetag. Just buy 10 of these EUR3.05 boards, and exchange them if you did something stupid and blew the inputs.

For more capable hardware you may want to have a look at what is supported by Sigrok:
https://sigrok.org/wiki/Supported_hardware

toli:
Thank you for the comment.
That is exactly what I did, the 4032L is in the supported devices list and seems like the most capable device there :)
Only problem is that "supported" is a wide term, so I'd like to get more real world comments from users of this combo.

17_29bis:
One more vote for DSLogic Plus, it was around 130USD, supports up to 400Mhz for 4 channels (see the screenshots for choosing different speed), up to 4G (RLE compression) memory size (256Mb RAM onboard), adjustable threshold level, possibility to use external clock (did not try), long list of decoders (I am familiar with 5 or 6 different decoders), ability to stack them (useful for work with low speed USB devices, fox example), ability to write your own encoders (python), cursor measurements, buffering and streaming data acquisition modes  (USB2 speed limit). It has external trigger input and output (I had a problem with one of them, dont remember which but I still was able to chain Analog Discovery (it has very advanced triggering system) and DSLogic Plus through external trigger connection).

Bad things: the GUI (sigrok fork/ or "being inspired by sigrok") DSView v0.9.7.1 (2 or so years old) was the last public release (but I still prefer ti very much to the original sigrok GUI). The support forum is almost dead, I had a difficult time to setup an advanced trigger but found a work around through the usage of external trigger.

Full specification of the device (less than I paid  :'( ):
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-DSLogic-Plus-DSLogic-Pro-16CH-100MHz-USB-Logic-Analyzer-/253587496006

Device review:
https://hackaday.com/2017/08/24/dslogic-plus-teardown-and-review/









toli:
Thank you all for the help so far.
Following the input from members in this thread, as well as more reading over the web since I've started this topic, seems like the current state is the following:
DSlogic Pro - doesn't meet my desired requirements, but does meet my minimum requirements.
HW wise it has adjustable threshold and sufficient memory which are meeting my desired numbers. The number of channels and sample rate and BW are marginal for some of my needs. The external clock seems to be at constant 3.3V level which isn't what I need and I'll have to "fix" it externally with a level shifter.
SW wise it seems like many people aren't too happy with it. This is at least what I read on different forums online, including here, and looking at reviews on websites selling this device.
So overall it will do most of what I need, but for some of the more demanding applications I will have to look elsewhere. The price of <100USD is obviously a nice point in its favor, as well as the slick design of the unit.

However, before I'm settling for something that doesn't really meet my desired needs, I'd like to give that 4032L one more chance. The HW benefits of extra memory (which I don't need, the DSlogic has enough memory for me), and more importantly higher sample rate and BW, more channels, and if I understand correctly adjustable threshold on external clocks - are all very tempting. The fact its almost double the price is something I can live with, its worth the extra cost if it'll save me the drive to the lab at the university by letting me work on my test boards from home.
There is still an open issue about the HW, namely the maximum clock frequency for CLKA/CLKB inputs. I'm still not able to find a straight answer to that question, is it the 150MHz claimed BW, or lower? I have no idea at the moment. I've sent Hantek an email today, lets see if they ever get back to me :)
The biggest issue I see so far is the SW. I've read maginnovision's comments here, and they are definitely not positive. Despite this, I'm still trying to get input from other users of the 4032L/sigrok combo, to try and get a better feeling of how usable/unusable it really is.

Thank you all again.

abraxa:
I apologize in advance for hijacking this thread for my comments but I just can't stay quiet.


--- Quote ---One more vote for DSLogic Plus, it was around 130USD
--- End quote ---

Of which exactly $0 went towards sigrok, by the way. Not even a single line of usable code because they not only didn't want to work with us, they actively sabotaged any effort of upstreaming anything.


--- Quote ---long list of decoders (I am familiar with 5 or 6 different decoders), ability to stack them (useful for work with low speed USB devices, fox example), ability to write your own encoders (python), cursor measurements, buffering and streaming data acquisition modes  (USB2 speed limit)
--- End quote ---

...which are all features that the sigrok team (and community, in the case of protocol decoders) is responsible for - including the Cypress FX2 firmware that the DSLogic uses.


--- Quote ---Bad things: the GUI (sigrok fork/ or "being inspired by sigrok") DSView v0.9.7.1 (2 or so years old) was the last public release (but I still prefer ti very much to the original sigrok GUI).
--- End quote ---

Seriously? You applaud them for taking our work, making the UI look "fancy", making money off of it of which we see exactly zero, adding some minor features here and there and then crap on us for having neither the man power nor the time to do the same? Hint: none of us gets paid and we support a wide range of devices - not just one. Making things work for one device is easy, making stuff work for *all* devices is not.


--- Quote from: toli on July 05, 2018, 02:47:32 pm ---That is exactly what I did, the 4032L is in the supported devices list and seems like the most capable device there :)
Only problem is that "supported" is a wide term, so I'd like to get more real world comments from users of this combo.

--- End quote ---

That's in flux, as is to be expected. From the driver perspective, the functionality that you require is implemented. If you look at the driver source, you can see that the threshold levels are adjustable and the external clock can be used. I don't know the device well enough to say whether the threshold levels also apply to the external clocks but I'd assume so. If you want to be sure, you can mail the person who implemented support for external clocks in the driver: https://sigrok.org/gitweb/?p=libsigrok.git;a=commit;h=f49065c6682b720800e05e8e2821a193b251d65a

Regarding the external clock rate: the hardware and driver have no way of finding out what the clock rate is or if it's even stable. That's why you as a user must provide the clock rate using the drop-down menu if you want to have accurate timing information. The fact that there are only pre-defined values can be an issue here I reckon, but that'll be fixed in the future so that you will be able to enter arbitrary values.

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