exxos blog - random goings on

[agranlund]

@exxos my first encounter with that issue sound a lot like yours
Much head scratching indeed before realizing the file needs to be manually reloaded each time.

[exxos]

I think it's a matter of getting used to new technology. You have to consider that your new scope is much more powerful and advanced than your old one. Your new scope can trigger ten, or perhaps even tens, times faster than your old one. It has much more memory and much higher bandwidth and sample rate. It can show much more data and information that you could in the older scope. Yes, it might have been useful to change the default config to match older scopes. But it is possible that the new defaults are closer to how high end scopes behave. I don't know, that might have been intentionally the reason. You can see that in the eevblog thread I linked, somebody mentioned that Tektronix scopes had this exact behavior for decades.
...

Yeah new and more advanced.. But all that extra data should be in main memory not merged on the screen. It defeats having a scope to look at signals when you can't. Not without workarounds anyway..

It be like watching a film, press pause, you expect it to stop on the frame you paused on. It's standard and expected behaviour. How it is now, you pause, and it keeps playing video for a few seconds merging 100 frames into a mess.. Its just wrong...

I need to try changing those settings yet.. It just seems odd to me that other scopes behave the same way. From my usage perspective, it's failing basic functionality. A scopes purpose is to display and capture a waveform. But the capture merges data giving a incomprehensible mess on the screen. It makes the scope near useless for me at that point. Its like all the manufacturers want to display garbage on the screen by default. Maybe it's just me.. But just seems a totally bizarre way to do things. Starting to regret buying the thing now

Rigol got back to me. They want to send replacement parts.. There's just no point. I don't think it's a hardware fault. The firmware just needs to issue a screen refresh to solve the problem. Geese, just give me source code to the scope and I'll fix it myself

[mrbombermillzy]

@exxos I really do feel your pain. Im frustrated by the same issues with newer items these days.

I will give MS Word as an example. Basically MS Word was fine in 1997.

However, companies/manufacturers cant seem to justify bringing out a new model unless it has a 'new' feature.

There are only so many 'good idea' new features that can be added. At some point the product is in its prime state; i.e. the closest to perfection it will be.

Then comes the addition of more 'features' and the product slowly gets bloated, obfuscated in so far as intuitive use goes and if left to fester with more updates over time, a nightmare to use.

[exxos]

@exxos I really do feel your pain. Im frustrated by the same issues with newer items these days.
I will give MS Word as an example. Basically MS Word was fine in 1997.
..

Yeah don't get me started on that stuff either. I thought I used IBM Lotus Symphony back in the day, but seems that came later.

[ijor]

I need to try changing those settings yet.. It just seems odd to me that other scopes behave the same way. From my usage perspective, it's failing basic functionality. A scopes purpose is to display and capture a waveform. But the capture merges data giving a incomprehensible mess on the screen. It makes the scope near useless for me at that point. Its like all the manufacturers want to display garbage on the screen by default.

That might be one way of seeing this, and probably depends on the case. But in many cases it is not actually garbage, it is more information. Instead of one waveform, you get multiple waveforms for multiple triggers, and in many cases this is actually useful. If that should be the default or not, I don't know. But I don't think it matters too much as long as you can easily change it, and you certainly can.

But once again, if you mostly cares about how the capture is presented when stopped, then just use "Single" instead of Stop. And even when you might not be used to press "Single", you will probably get used soon enough.

Geese, just give me source code to the scope and I'll fix it myself

Well, I don't know about the original source, that would be nice indeed But as you might know, these scopes have been extensively hacked. And the good news about these models is that the scope uses Android and the whole firmware is stored on a regular SD. I believe a couple of people reverse engineered most of the firmware and they even offer custom versions. I don't know. They might be able to modify the defaults for you. But I guess they will probably charge you.

@exxos I really do feel your pain. Im frustrated by the same issues with newer items these days.
...
Then comes the addition of more 'features' and the product slowly gets bloated, obfuscated in so far as intuitive use goes and if left to fester with more updates over time, a nightmare to use.

I agree with you that this happens a lot nowadays. But I don't think this is the case here. This scope is much more powerful and have lots of new excellent features. I understand that these scopes are the first low-cost generation that have a touch screen. The remote control via wifi is also outstanding. Yes, it might be more complicated, and might also be different than what you are used. But this is definitely not a bloated product at all.

[exxos]

@ijor

So this is what I see as "default"

IMG_4546.JPG (303.12 KiB) Viewed 79 times

and STOPed

IMG_4547.JPG (335.88 KiB) Viewed 79 times

Looking through the settings...

IMG_4548.JPG (412.93 KiB) Viewed 79 times

Waveform free I turned to OFF.


So now when I STOP I see it as expected !

IMG_4550.JPG (313.81 KiB) Viewed 79 times

I don't see the mem depth in the settings, my menu looks totally different to yours, unless im in the wrong menu. They seem a bit nested in places.

IMG_4551.JPG (252.75 KiB) Viewed 79 times

IMG_4552.JPG (276.37 KiB) Viewed 79 times

So at least STOP mode now "works". If I can just get the realtime display to stop blurring id have a functional scope !

[exxos]

Found mem depth finally...

it was ok 10k, I set it to 50M..

IMG_4554.JPG (331.93 KiB) Viewed 74 times

IMG_4555.JPG (317.06 KiB) Viewed 74 times

So the cam is causing the blur there, but you can see its much better now. It behaves like a proper scope again!

[ijor]

Found mem depth finally... It behaves like a proper scope again!

Glad you solved the issue. Note that this waveform is not very typical. It has a complex pattern, and because of the way your clock mux works, it has a lot of jitter. Then the waveform pattern is not very repetitive, if at all. This is very relevant here because if the waveform is simple, stable, and without jitter, then even if you capture multiple waveforms, they align pretty well. What I'm trying to say is that for the more common case, the default scope behavior is probably not that bad.

So the cam is causing the blur there

Don't forget that one the goodies of this scope is that you can add a wifi dongle and have remote control from the PC. This works beautifully, and you can probably avoid a camera altogether, just capture the windows image on the PC.

[exxos]

Don't forget that one the goodies of this scope is that you can add a wifi dongle and have remote control from the PC. This works beautifully, and you can probably avoid a camera altogether, just capture the windows image on the PC.

Yeah, I want to figure that out. I was going to try with LAN, but I don't have a cable long enough .. Never thought of Wi-Fi.. Did not know that was a option.. With the module plug-in to the front or the back USB port ? I assume front ? I'd need a small one so I didn't knock it about !

EDIT:

Ordered a "mini" USB wifi dongle. So will see if I can get that connected to my network when it comes.

[ijor]

Yeah, I want to figure that out. I was going to try with LAN, but I don't have a cable long enough .. Never thought of Wi-Fi.. Did not know that was a option.. With the module plug-in to the front or the back USB port ? I assume front ? I'd need a small one so I didn't knock it about !

Sorry, I should have probably elaborated a bit more.

It's not an official option. It is a hack that works thanks to the fact that the scope is running Android and has built-in wifi drivers. I understand that not every dongle works, though.

It involves some work to setup the dongle. Basically is to enter your wifi router password. You need to do this only once, at least as long as you don't change the password. It is certainly worth. It is not just remote control. You actually get the scope screen duplicated in the PC, in real time. And the scope touch screen keeps working.

These videos show the whole procedure:



And yes, as you can see, you can even run games on the scope!

EDIT: Ordered a "mini" USB wifi dongle. So will see if I can get that connected to my network when it comes.

Oops. Again, I understand that not every dongle works. Sorry for not elaborating before. But these dongles are very cheap anyway.