Velleman WFS210 wireless oscilloscope for only £20 !

[Mr. Scram]

No, that is what I fear. That will, in itself, speak volumes though. An abandoned product line with problems still being sold for significant money...... not great PR for Velleman me thinks.

Fraser

I don't think they care much. Or maybe they even like it this way, because they always hoped the community would help them out and that's what happening now. Releasing barely functioning software and fully developing some nice software are two almost wholly different matters.

[Avacee]

Regarding the *Hello* message ... a suitably placed Thread.Sleep() means I go straight into Live Mode as it gives the unit time to reply.

Is there any way the app can updated with all the little gems that you're uncovering and correcting, and then made available for downloading to update our versions as well?

On Github the AssemblyInfo.cs version reads 1.0.0 and the version from the Play Store is 1.2.0.
Edit2: The "issues" completed does suggest that is the code for v1.2 and the assemblyinfo.cs is out-of-date
Edit3: And I've just found "1.2" hard coded into the settings editor thus negating the version info 

I can fork and commit a change to Github but then it'd depend on the admin merging it.

For an update via the Play Store Velleman would have to incorporate any bug fixes and update the Play Store. (ie v1.2.1).

I could compile this into a APK and post it but as above I've no idea how up-to-date this GitHub code is and you'd need to allow random APK's from dodgy sources :p

Edit: Next up - why reconnections suck.

[trevwhite]

This is great work, Avacee. Looking forward to seeing how much you can improve things.

[R_G_B_]

Nice work Avacee

Be nice to have this software on a smart phone if possible screen may be a bit small but handy at least  as I always carry my phone than I do a tablet

[Specmaster]

Received mine today, only so far been able to try as a USB scope and first impression was that it sucked but after reading the manual (such as it is) I was able to get it running reasonably OK.  The display is / was very jittery and trying to stabilise it with the trigger level as per instructions on page 11 fig 4.5 is wrong, the 2 yellow dots are the centre lines for the 2 channels and sliding these up and down equates to the position controls per channel on a normal scope. The actual trigger level setting is a solid line that you grab with the mouse and move it or down to select where on the trace you want the trigger to be set at.

The cursor controls and the readouts of the frequency and volts seem to work ok up to 5Mhz in the case of frequency after that it thinks its ready Khz or Hz and the value is also incorrect. The volts does seem to be reasonable accurate however.

The display at approx 5Mhz also gets jumpy again and continues all the way up 25Mhz which is as high as my function generator will go to, so with that in mind, I think this scope is best suited to audio work, anything is just a means of seeing if a signal is present, taking measurements is a no no.

Tomorrow, I give the android wifi approach a trial and see how that compares with the windows experience, which by the for the record, I'm running Windows 10.                   

[Mr. Scram]

Regarding the *Hello* message ... a suitably placed Thread.Sleep() means I go straight into Live Mode as it gives the unit time to reply.

Is there any way the app can updated with all the little gems that you're uncovering and correcting, and then made available for downloading to update our versions as well?

On Github the AssemblyInfo.cs version reads 1.0.0 and the version from the Play Store is 1.2.0.
Edit2: The "issues" completed does suggest that is the code for v1.2 and the assemblyinfo.cs is out-of-date
Edit3: And I've just found "1.2" hard coded into the settings editor thus negating the version info 

I can fork and commit a change to Github but then it'd depend on the admin merging it.

For an update via the Play Store Velleman would have to incorporate any bug fixes and update the Play Store. (ie v1.2.1).

I could compile this into a APK and post it but as above I've no idea how up-to-date this GitHub code is and you'd need to allow random APK's from dodgy sources :p

Edit: Next up - why reconnections suck.

It looks like the Windows application is written in C# for .NET / Visual Studio, right? In that case I may have a gander.

[Avacee]

It looks like the Windows application is written in C# for .NET / Visual Studio, right? In that case I may have a gander.

What's posted on GitHub for WindowsFormApplication1 is a Fake/Mockup - pretty much an empty project

Would take a few hours to duplicate the existing UI for a proper windows app.
Alas it's not a Xamarin Forms app

Be nice to have this software on a smart phone if possible screen may be a bit small but handy at least  as I always carry my phone than I do a tablet

Working on it 

Edit: Well it deploys and runs on an LG G2 mini but its screen resolution is a rather paltry 960x540 so half the buttons aren't visible :p

[bitseeker]

Awesome sleuthing and patching, Avacee!

[Mr. Scram]

It looks like the Windows application is written in C# for .NET / Visual Studio, right? In that case I may have a gander.

What's posted on GitHub for WindowsFormApplication1 is a Fake/Mockup - pretty much an empty project

Would take a few hours to duplicate the existing UI for a proper windows app.
Alas it's not a Xamarin Forms app

So they didn't even bother to post the actual almost nonfunctioning application? Not that I would be very interested in actually using that fairly horrid UI, but it could make a starting point for something better.

[medical-nerd]

Hiya

For £20 I was prepared to take a chance, if nothing else I thought I could use it as a data-logger.
Then after buying it the bad reviews started coming in here. Still had fingers crossed until it arrived today and left it to charge.
I'm so happy that I didn't buy this item when it was available at full price. What a load of shite.
I've always thought that Velleman products were overpriced but were interested in some of them, now I will never buy anything from them after this experience.
The scope is still available at other electronics distributors at prices ranging from £70 to £145!!!

Since the scope has been available since 2014 and was a subject of a Hackaday article at that time I'm surprised that there has not been any other development of another interface or logger application for this beastie. I can only surmise that people started and soon lost interest in disgust.
I've searched and can find no evidence of development of such an application.

I have used it on Windows 10. No problems with installation or connecting to it initially using USB. I've left it running displaying noise for 3 hours - no lockups until I tried to change anything - immediate crash.

The export function crashes it immediately.. 

Cheers.

[Howardlong]

Ignoring the software, from a hardware perspective, the non-ground bnc ground connector when used over USB renders this device practically useless for any microcontroller applications attached to the same computer, a common use case I’d suggest, in particular Arduino, but anywhere where you might need a debugger or otherwise need to connect to the computer. Sure, you could isolate, but if you’re going to those lengths you’d be better off getting a different scope.

[kripton2035]

I didnt look any further, but wouldnt it be easy to adapt this scope to the open source sigrok software ?
or is it mainly a hardware or firmware problem(s) ?
ps: at this price, even if it's crap, I bought one !

[R_G_B_]

I checked the ADC and there a pin compatible 45 Meg sample per channel ADC. So  could it be a possibility to increase the sample rate

Need access to firmware to do this and velleman won't release it.
Im not sure if there's any other way around this ?

[Fraser]

NEWS......

Velleman have responded to my comments.

Their developer has changed some of the code after reading this thread 

The 15 minutes sleep issue is in fact an intentional sleep mode. No comment on whether it should have an auto revert from such though.

There may be light at the end of this tunnel..... please keep posting your findings and improvements to the software and maybe the developer will incorporate them into a new release of the official software.

Fraser

[Fraser]

The Velleman forum contains the details of what the developer has changed.

https://forum.vellemanprojects.eu/t/wfs210-tested-and-this-product-has-issues-request-for-support-comment/27511/2

Fraser

[tggzzz]

The Velleman forum contains the details of what the developer has changed.

https://forum.vellemanprojects.eu/t/wfs210-tested-and-this-product-has-issues-request-for-support-comment/27511/2

On that page you note "I regret that it is getting a bit of a “bashing” on the forum, but I believe some relatively simple changes may make this a very useful little DSO of which you will become proud."

I concur.

The subsequent question is how to apply such buxfixes.

[Fraser]

I could not see a change to correct the iffy connection problem so I have brought this to the developers attention. I hope Avacee does not mind, but I provided his excellent analysis comments in the Velleman post. He deserves fair recognition for his work on that forum as well. He is, after all, actively fixing problems on this unit.

I would expect Velleman to release an updated App as they have before. Thankfully the changes recommended by Avocee reside in the Android app and not the units firmware as that requires more work to install an update.

Fraser

[Avacee]

I don't mind at all - bashed my head against connection reliability a bit more and have just done 50 back to back successful connections straight into LiveMode.
If you exited the software in livemode it'll try and start livemode (invariably fails) and if you exit in demo mode it goes into demo mode.
I want reliable LiveMode straight away 

I've added to your velleman thread with what I changed in the TcpConnection.Connect() routine with a link to a CodeProject thread which I used.

I also added for my own use a LongClick event on the "ChannelX" buttons to centre the waveform. Was annoying me trying to drag those 2 markers on top of each other
Edit: With luck the developer will copy+paste in the provided code on the velleman website :p

[Fraser]

Avacee,

I just want to thank you for spending your valuable time working on this for the benefit of us all.

You have gained Hero status in my books 

Thank you for directly engaging on the Velleman site. We may see significant improvement in the WFS210 if Velleman realise that it can be greatly improved through some App changes. Without your comments, I could not have helped Velleman rectify the issues.

Fraser

[lukier]

I just got mine. Didn't try the Andoroid app and don't have Apple stuff, just tried Win7 app in a VirtualBox, seemed OK.

The protocol seems simple, so adding at least Sigrok support (to see the waveforms in Pulseview) should be relatively straightforward.

However, as I understand this device can work only in AP mode? I cannot tell it over USB-Serial to connect with WiFi to my router?

If so, then I'm more than happy to use this over USB, but of course without this stupid separate ground "feature". Does anyone has any idea why the BNC ground is 1.6V off the main ground? Is this by design or is this some stupid safety feature?

[jimmc]

Hi Avacee & and Fraser,

I second Fraser's comments, they express my gratitude for your hard work more eloquently than I could have done.

I should also thank Fraser himself for his efforts starting the ball rolling.

I confess I've gone from being dubious about keeping the unit to thinking it's a great bargain.

Thanks again gentlemen,

Jim

[Specmaster]

I have used it on Windows 10. No problems with installation or connecting to it initially using USB. I've left it running displaying noise for 3 hours - no lockups until I tried to change anything - immediate crash.

The export function crashes it immediately.. 

Cheers.

I concur with you regarding Windows 10 via USB is when its at it most useful, however I personally would only recommend this for someone working predominately with audio equipment where the display is much more stable and the cursors appear at their most accurate.

If using it say above 20Khz then I'd say thats fine if you are more interested in generally observing a waveform pattern rather then taking accurate measurements from the screen.

On wifi, with a tablet I cannot recommend it to anyone, it is so laggy to the point of being usable and while my phone can see the wifi and log onto it, the app is not however to be found in playstore, it is however for the tablet? For the record I was testing it on Samsung Tab 10 model number SM-T520 running Android 4.4.2 and the phone is Samsung Galaxy J5(2016) model number SM-J510FN running Android version 6.0.1 

So overall it is reasonable for audio working via USB on a computer running Windows upto Windows 10. Maybe if they do release an update for the app on wi-fi then it might well become usable.

I cannot find this "Export function" that crashes it immediately, anywhere on either Android or Windows???

[Avacee]

https://forum.vellemanprojects.eu/t/wfs210-problem-android-mobile-phone/10080/2
Quote from Velleman:
The app is indeed only available for tablet this is simply because there is no layout made for smartphones, it would need a complete redesign of the layout. There are a lot of buttons that need to be displayed at the same time which takes a lot of screen space.

In another thread on their forum  (my google-fu is weak atm) they mention it's limited to 600dp - effectively 7inches or above (fnar fnar :p).
I did run it on an LG G2 mini (540x960) but it only showed half the buttons as the sizes and placements are hard-coded

Export is only on the Windows App ... Menu -> File -> Export (Ctrl-X)
It places the csv output into %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Velleman\WFS210 
It also puts a JSON file there with details of the capture - ie Timebase, V/div, Coupling, etc.
It places 4096 values into the csv - it doesn't stream them in continuously - same 4096 samples with WiFi or USB.

I haven't had the windows export fail on me - If you start the app with "Run As Administrator" does the export still crash?

I agree the tablet version isn't worth much for logging since it uses an Access Point so you are pretty much limited to logging to internal storage.

I wish Velleman would release the Windows Code    ... and firmware!
I hope Velleman submit an update to the Play Store sooner rather than later.

Edit: Now I've got some vaguely working tablet software I'm actually quite liking the unit for the £20 though if I'd paid £100 for this I'd have sent it back and sworn to never buy Velleman again :p

[Specmaster]

All I get on my computer under the file tab is connect and exit??

[Avacee]

Weird .. what version?
I'm on v1.3.0.0 downloaded from here: https://www.velleman.eu/support/downloads/?code=WFS210