DSO Quad engineering sample bug and firmware upgration

Yan78 · March 18, 2011, 9:21am

Super ! How long will it take to start shiping ? 1 week ?

Bainesbunch · April 14, 2011, 2:24pm

markrmarkr:

This is my first post here. I am eagerly awaiting my quad beta - ETA March.

On the subject of using an external display, I have to say this has some merit. But it’s probably smarter still to walk before running.

What we need is an “Interface Design spec” for two files.
Output file - where parameters which have been sampled go; and
Input file - parameters to control the Quad go.

Initially the files can both be accessed externally using the USB. The external host just needs to be able to access the USB file system, so it could be any garden variety Linux, Mac, or MS based PC. Latter on you could add on bluetooth access to the file system if you want, though this may be a bit more tricky.

both files could be a really simple format CSV, eg:
output:
time, a-value, b-value, c-value, d-value
input:
time-scale, a-scale ,b-scale, c-scale, d-scale, sample-rate, etc

These files are very simple because at least in principle the host is doing all the hard work to display the data, and the quad just needs to write the nearly raw output from the A/Ds. Obviously the file formats will need to be adjusted when doing signal generation.

The output is continually written to by the quad during normal operation and read continually by the host. Input is normally written by the host when the user selects a new scale or whatever. The quad could poll the input file or more efficiently - just read it when the saved date/time changes.

As file accesses is handled on the host by the host OS, the quad application (running on the host) is really just a gui for displaying the data and controlling how it is displayed. Potentially it could be written as a Java application which can run on anything.

The only issue is that this approach has already been done. Just google “digital oscilloscope computer”, but not at a price that competes with the quad. It least if the quad approach is kept open source.

I have been workin on a PC clent to work woth the Quad, but as Benf pointed out it is not going to be easy to squeeze all that information into the paultry 2 meg of disk space the quad has. I was thinking about perhaps a binary file. Not so easy on the eye but more compact.

You can track and DL my clent here

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1772&start=40

as you can see i am planning on at some time using it with 4 inputs and have already coded the waveform viewer and I2C and UART decoders.

All i need now is my Quad to arrive and someone to code up the export

Cheers Pete.

lygra · April 14, 2011, 4:40pm

You may want to preview the following video to more quickly use the Quad upon it’s arrival.

youtube.com/watch?v=Qk_3QGTUsF8

lygra · April 15, 2011, 5:30am

Today I appear to have broken my Quad (engineering version HW v2.2) while installing the newer firmware. I think that the FPGA update got me because that update reports completed now that the Quad never completes boot-up (had to video the start-up screen and then frame step the video to find that very quick flash message “FPGA Update Successful”). With the previous versions you could always hold the right arrow key and power up to USB drive only, to revert back to previous software. After this problem, that USB drive only feature no longer works. So now that I am unable to access the USB drive, I am also unable to restore back to the previous version because I can’t change the files on the USB drive.

HugeMan · April 15, 2011, 7:43am

lygra:

Today I appear to have broken my Quad (engineering version HW v2.2) while installing the newer firmware. I think that the FPGA update got me because that update reports completed now that the Quad never completes boot-up (had to video the start-up screen and then frame step the video to find that very quick flash message “FPGA Update Successful”). With the previous versions you could always hold the right arrow key and power up to USB drive only, to revert back to previous software. After this problem, that USB drive only feature no longer works. So now that I am unable to access the USB drive, I am also unable to restore back to the previous version because I can’t change the files on the USB drive.

So I guess I am now out of the Quad video business. With the new user manual I had just learned how to manipulate the measure parameters across channels. I was trying to see if the new version menus had changed, before making another video, and that is when it went south. Is this now a brick or is there another way to access the Quad USB drive to restore previous update files? The file loader still works, I just can’t change the update files on the inaccessible Quad USB drive.

you means you can not access to the USB disk only feature after updated the FPGA ? would you pls sent me a email to descrip the detail with some pictures ? thanks …

rich · April 26, 2011, 4:09am

Yeah I got mine finally it is working and looks like a great start. The usb disk for updating is a lose for me because it does not work with Linux or Mac os which are all I have easy to use. From what I can see it should not be hard to fix it, but this needs to be fixed. Is there an open source source pool for building this with gcc available? Two days of using this with the current UI and I am getting ready to change some things. There is much that needs to be done.

retlif · April 27, 2011, 5:15am

Hi

We too have a lot of trouble updating the F/W.
When we tried to copy the file, 1 by 1, to the USB disk, it sometimes would not reset. We had to delete that erroneous file and recopying it multiple time.

kannagara · May 15, 2011, 1:51pm

After upgrade (SYS1.34 AND APP2.32) I cannot calibrate due to “parameters version error”.

thefloe · July 3, 2011, 10:48am

I recognized that the scaling of the between 1V and 0.5V resolution is somehow strange. See the pictures attached. The square wave was generated using the internal function generator. I have the latest firmware uploaded.

Sergey82K · January 14, 2012, 5:21pm

I am using DS203 and SYS ver 1.51, APP ver 2.52.
Signal 8 MHz:

FRQ: show it as 8 kHz (needed “MHz”)
CIR: 0.0124 us (really 1/8MHz = 0.124 us)

500 kHz showed as 500 Hz (from internal signal generator):

FRQ: show it as 500 Hz (needed “kHz”)
CIR: 2 us (it is correct)

FRQ:
Signals from 0 to 999 Hz it showed correctly, as Hz
Signals from 1 to 999 kHz it showed as Hz
Signals under 1 MHz it showed as kHz

remid371 · March 1, 2012, 5:57pm

Hello,

I don’t know if the error mentionned by Sergey82K has been fixed, but i have the same error on my DSO203. The frequency seems to be measured correctly but the measure (Hz or KHz or MHz) is not displayed correctly.

Hardware ver 2.60
Serial no 223D70DA
SYS ver 1.51
APP ver 2.52

Here are some screenshots :
10Hz -> 10.03Hz -> It seems to be correct.

100Hz -> 100.4Hz -> It seems to be correct.

1000Hz -> 1.007KC -> If KC means KHz, It seems to be correct.

10000Hz -> 10.03Hz -> It is wrong, it should be 10.03Khz or maybe 10.03KC.

100000Hz -> 104.7Hz -> It is wrong, it should be 104.7Khz or maybe 104.7KC.

500000Hz -> 546.7Hz -> It is wrong, it should be 546.7Khz or maybe 546.7KC.

1000000Hz -> 1.169KC -> It is wrong, it should be 1.169Mhz or maybe 1.169MC.

If you have a fix for this, please let me know.

Thanks,

pmos69 · March 2, 2012, 12:11am

You can try this one: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2957

Dan13 · March 11, 2012, 11:52am

Hi,

Does the signal look that bad already at 1MHz? The author of this video say it fairly good to 5MHz:

youtube.com/watch?v=HKRLoELTP0A

Regards,
Dan

Sergey82K · March 12, 2012, 2:50pm

Some peoples said’s that internal signal generator has bad signal form on more 1 MHz. If You use internal signal generator for tests wave form over 1 MHz may be You see bad signal from internal generator.
I do not have good external signal generator or oscilloscope for tests

I tried to sample analog composite video signal from digital photo camera: youtu.be/I1EYZJEZD2A

Dan13 · March 12, 2012, 3:08pm

Thanks for the reply and video. So you think RemiD was using the internal signal generator in the above pictures?

Dan

Sergey82K · March 13, 2012, 8:55am

No, on screenshot above the internal signal generator tuned to 1 kHz.
May be on screenshot not square waveform, may be some digital signal.

My oscilloscope with internal generator tuned to 8MHz (square form):
2MHz:

OneWire:

Some other my screenshots here

Dan13 · March 13, 2012, 9:09am

Thanks for the screen shots.

Dan

remid371 · March 25, 2012, 3:03pm

pmos69>>Thanks for the link,
I want to update the firmware of my DSO203, is there a tutorial to know how to proceed ?
Thanks

Dan13>>No the signal i have measured was from an external frequency generator.
However, this frequency generator may be of poor quality. I don’t know.

Dan13 · March 25, 2012, 4:49pm

Thanks for the reply, Remi.

tormod · June 30, 2012, 8:57am

ESP and Hugeman,

Please can you tell me what the HW difference is between the engineering samples and the later ones? I would like to get the community open-source SYS and APP (and jpa’s Pawn!) to run on my engineering sample to the degree it is possible.

Regards,
Tormod