Another free bump for this piece of kit....

...I don't use this that often apart from when I'm having major problems, or I need to "see more" than I can on my oscilloscope, just such an occasion happened this week.

I've been doing some RFID work (initially 125Khz, now onto 13.5Mhz with Mifare + the standard ISO standards) and this came in so useful for verifying that we were seeing valid signals. We were quite chuffed that our little tiny isolation routed pcb worked straight off with our completely randomly wound coil, ok the card had to literally sit directly on the coil to read....but a few hours later and a few calculations we had the full 12 cm read range.

There are a few things that still bug me though (and I must get around to emailing their support department):

1) The website with the download has no version or date information, so you basically have to guess whether and when it was last updated.

2) The protocol decoders and still limited and fixed, I so wish these were implemented as plugins, a "manchester" decoder would have made my life very easy, I was having to do it by hand, or rather I was shouting 0 or 1 across the room to my boss who was writing them all down for me.

3) A few more output formats (plugins) would be handy.

Other than that, it's a great instrument. The A to A cable is a bit of a pain, especially as I had to go hunting for it because it'd been stored when we moved office.

Heh.. I suspect that it's a one-man company, so the support department should prove quite knowledgeable!


It has a build number. If that's higher than your installed build (Help->About), then upgrade away.

Cheers

Well, two years have passed, and there now seems to be more choice out there for these devices. I found this www.debug-store.com page which has links to many newer USB-based analyzers. The best of that bunch seems to be the Janatek Annie-USB 8-Channel 500MHz pod, with clips for only £275.00 / €371.25.

As far as I can tell, nothing out there matches the combination of speed/price of the LogicPort yet, but there are several appealing alternatives which include much larger buffers and DSS capabilities.

Some updates from my original posting: The ANT16 no longer exists, but has been replaced by a very overpriced ANT18i model. The BitScope units have been updated and still look quite appealing for their scope capabilities, USB/ethernet interfaces, and native Linux software. But the sample rates are still somewhat low on those.

Meanwhile, I'm now off to hook my LogicPort back up to a dead Mk2a here and see if the clocks are functioning correctly or not.

Cheers

And this PO-Scope 6-in-1 kit looks interesting/cheap, but I'm unable to find any specifications on it (eg. samples/sec rates).

I'm looking at this stuff again now, because I think I might want a digital scope here.

mlord, 100Hz-200kHz :-( http://po.labs.googlepages.com/technicalcharacteristics

Thanks for waking this thread up again by the way. It's very interesting to learn about your experiences now compared to back when you got the Intronix. I was looking at the Intronix a while back but the BitScope's analog/digital capabilities was tempting. I finally got a BitScope 310U on eBay and I've been happy with it ever since for general hobby work.

I'm getting more and more into I2C and bitbanging with faster PIC processors so I'm now looking at an affordable logic analyzer to catch those fast digital signals. That Janatek Annie-USB 8-Channel 500MHz you mentioned looks like good value for the money, especially with that deep buffer of 1Ms/channel.

I was also looking at LAP-16128U 16 Channel Logic Analyzer from Saelig (also branded Zeroplus apparently), but it seems the increased number of channels brings the buffer size down, so maybe the Janatek is a better choice.

Too slow -- 200Mhz sampling means 100Mhz max capture: not fast enough for most logic.

500Mhz sampling is really the entry point here, and the LogicPort excels at it. The Annie-USB should also be good, but dunno about the software quality there, and the price is definitely higher than the LogicPort.

The LogicPort does have *very good* software, one of the best points of which is that one can download/run it in demo mode before deciding to purchase (or not).

Thanks for the good note on the Bitscope stuff, too. Maybe I'll troll eBay looking for a bargain there -- lower price would certainly make up for a lot.

cheers

Mmm. either I cut and pasted that incorrectly, or something else has gone weird.

But the correct link now seems to be www.thedebugstore.com.

And note that the Janotek USB logic analyzer has a 4K samples/channel buffer depth at 500Mhz. The 1Meg samples buffer applies only to slower sampling rates. Strange.

Cheers

I'm really just a newbie/hobbyist, but about the only thing I have to complain about with the BitScope is that the sampling frequenzy is a bit slow and the buffer size definately could be bigger. Isn't the Intronix buffer size limiting? At 500 MHz I'd expect it to fill upp pretty fast.

The janatek software can also be downloaded and run as an offline demo, and I must say the software doesn't feel very polished. Seems they've put alot of time into the hardware and maybe not so much in the software. I really don't understand why even in this age some software makers make their own scroll bars and levers instead of using the standard API's for this. I just tested it quickly last night so I'll give it some more time before a final verdict.

I read some specs about the Janatek where they quoted that the 4K buffer at 500MHz only was with certain models. Doesn't that sound odd? I'll have to try and find those specs again.

Both URLs work fine for me.

Yeah, it can fill up quickly. But it also uses compression, where it need only store transitions, rather than actual samples.. which makes the effective buffer size much larger for most purposes.

I'd still like more space, of course, but not at the expense of losing the 500Mhz sample rate, or having a poor UI.

Cheers

If you log an irregular signal at 500MHz, around what sampling time can be expected with the Intronix? I realise it depends on the nature of the signal because of the compression, but can you give a rough unscientific estimation?

Short.

Anywhere from 10usec (minimum) to several seconds, I think. The buffer can record 2048 samples, 34 bits wide. Each time one of the sampled signals has a state transition, it will cause one of the 2048 slots to be taken up in the buffer.

Cheers

I've finally got some spare time (no, I've not been fired) and I've got back into tinkering with micro controllers (namely the Arduino Diecimila) so I've decided I might as well get some bits to make things easier. This 6 in 1 jobbie has caught my eye. I can get it for £87.57 delivered. What do you guys think?

200kHz max sample rate on the analogue scope? The logic port can do up to (only) 8MHz.

200kHz isn't even enough for fast I2C if you want to look at signals in the "analogue" space.

They even have a link from the tech specs page justifying the 200kHz maximum. Maybe that's all you get for the money you're talking though. I haven't researched these things that thoroughly but the logicport has sort of caught my eye as a result of this thread

andym, I think you'd get frustrated pretty quickly with those low specs. It really sucks to sit and debug, and not be sure if you can trust the measurements.

Yes, the logicport would be nice but it's at least twice the price and at the moment I'm still playing. I have an old oscilloscope from work that does 20-odd MHz.

I've also noticed that Mark has already seen this product. I'm not sure, the only other product that is in that price range is the ant8. I suppose I could make do with only 8 inputs if it truly is a good product.

Not really comparing apples with apples there. The PoScope is a combined scope/logic analyser whereas the the Ant8 is a logic analyser only.

The Ant8 has less channels yes, but also has a 500MHz sample rate compared with 8MHz on the PoScope.

Do you want/need a scope, an analyser or both? Or are you looking for a logic analyser and the PC scope would be "nice to have"

Even 8MHz on the PoScope isn't exactly fast (i.e. only a 4MHz signal can be captured and then it's nice to have much more overhead to capture issues like when setup and hold times aren't being obeyed).

8 channels is limiting though on the Ant8 if you want to put address and data buses into it. Fine for things like SPI, I2C etc though.

It's an analyser that I'm after. As I mentioned I have already got an old scope which copes with most things. Think my money will be going on the ant8. Although the software seems a little basic.

Yeah doesn't look like it can decode SPI, I2C, serial etc. Personally, that's something I'd use quite a bit, but might be only available on higher priced models.

It's also 50% more expensive than the PoScope you were looking at.

IMO the PoScope "scope" is really a toy but I'm looking at it more from a professional side. I'd think I'd find it rather limiting even for personal use.

Yeah, if you cannot afford the LogicPort, then the ant8 is really the only show in town.

8 channels is sufficient enough for most neeeds, in my opinion. 10 would be even better (8-data + clock + trigger), and beyond that is just gravy.

Another vote here for the logicport. I don't use mine very often, but it's proved very useful when I have had to use it.

My only real wish is that it had more extensive decoders (I don't think the ant8 has any) or some sort of mechanism for plugging in your own decoders.

For me, a manchester decoder would be highly desirable!

Dammit, looks like the logicport is the only way to go. It is only £187 direct from the manufacturer (thank you weak US dollar!) Just do a bit of saving up first, I'm sure there's some crap I can sell on ebay.....

Keep in mind that you'll also want some clips to go with that -- I think I had some notes about those higher up in this thread.

The ant8 includes (inferior) clips, I think.

Cheer

I'm just going to buy some from Intronix when I place the order, the ones in CPC and RS are really expensive.

Mmm.. time to correct that. The Intronix does not use sample compression at 500Mhz -- so you're limited to about 4us total capture interval at that speed.

At all other sample rates, it *does* use compression, making the effective buffer size *much* larger in practice.

Cheers

Note for anyone looking for the Welec W2022A Digital Storage Oscilloscope postings: those have been moved to their own thread.

Cheers

How about: U2701A
Jon

Mmmmmm. Windows-only.

During my regular visit to the website of my favorite electronic engineering pornographers, I noticed this new product.

What do you guys think?