MDO3000 hacking

[tinhead]

My bad.

no problem

Ah, you paid for the serial decoding feature?
Nevermind then. I thought this script enabled features which were not initially enabled (i.e. you didn't pay for).

yes id did, i paid for what the engineer designed an DSO with all the features enabled. What later has been done by
some marketing people, honestly i don't care about. It is not that i'm changing something, nor installing something,
all i'm doing is to remove "marketing-sticker" from engineering tool 

[trevwhite]

So can I ask and I do not have one so more just curious to understand what is going on in this thread but have these scopes now been hacked to upgrade bandwidth?

[es]

I really don’t want to start a philosophical debate but I can’t resist to answer.

But - since when did the eevblog forum became a keygen exchange platform?

For manufacturers the bottom line is theoretical loss of revenues. It’s clear that the EEVBlog forum has generated a lot of business for Rigol, FLIR and others by popularizing theses hacks.

I think it's one thing to hack around crippled hardware and restore functionality that's existing in hardware

You seem to make a distinction between hardware and software features, I wouldn’t. Hardware is backed by software and vice-versa. It’s all come down to disabled features in crippleware that are enabled back by the rightful owner of the product.

I distinctively feel that distributing tools that are enabling software features that usually sell for $$$ is not ... right.

Considering your work on the FLIR E4, I find your position is arguable in this case. One could argue that it’s not "right" to get an E8 when you pay for a E4.

For me that crosses an (admittedly fuzzy) line.

For me, the line not to cross would be to sell these hacks/upgrades for profit. In the end, each have to decide for himself what is fair.

I favour hackable products, in my case I bought a $4000 scope from Tek and a $1000 E4 from FLIR that I wouldn’t have bought otherwise. That will be followed by further business for Tek such as probes, accessories, etc.

[tmbinc]

If selling a more capable device for less money will make more financial gain (vs. revenue), then it's up to the vendor to do so. We don't have any sales numbers, we did not do the market research other than a poll in a forum full of hacker engineers, and really, it's not our choise to make. Raising the opinion that the vendor would be better off in making their products cheaper is a valid opinion, but does not justify taking "intellectual property" (do I really have to use this word?) and making it free for everybody to use.

I feel there is a distinction between a feature initially was available, and that the vendor then crippled (forced downsampling, bandwidth limitations, noise overlay, memory depth limitations), and between features that had been developed for the sole purpose of selling them (like protocol decoders). The protocol decoders didn't came for free - Tek invested money to develop those only _because_ their "marketing" (wouldn't it rather be sales?) department told them that there's a market for those.

If you look carefully at my E4 hack, they will enable the updated resolution and disable the noise generator, but will not enable the other "improvements" for E8.

I apologize again for my unpopular opinion, and I agree that we should not start a philosophical debate here.

All I want to avoid is giving Tektronix more reasons to actually strip out functionality, and making it harder to obtain firmware upgrades. (For example, they could chose to only let you download after you registered - would THAT be really helpful? It's already hard to get OS reinstallation images, why do you want to make it hard to get actual firmware?)

After all, I _do_ enjoy the additional features very well. But there's a difference between doing this privately and publishing this. It will just provoke a reaction, which - imho - would be well-deserved and should not surprise anyone.

[Motelec]

Well , anyone  have more info about how hack the mdo3000 ? 

[mk_]

Well , anyone  have more info about how hack the mdo3000 ?

you can find all related informations and urls here on eevblog. And yes, that phyton-stuff worked fine.

[Spikee]

So... if one buys the TEKTRONIX  MDO3014  OSCILLOSCOPE, 4CH, 100MHZ, SPEC ANALYSER and uses the keys than he/she as a full option scope with the 3Ghz spectrum analyzer and all digital protocol analyzers including 300/400/500Mhz bandwidth ?

I'have been looking for a spectrum analyzer and a better scope (upgrade from Rigol DS-2072) for a while ....

Rigol products are ... ok but not as good as Keysight? / tek
Also the models I need/want are way out of my price range ...

[Motelec]

Yes i know , but i have some questions , How you can enter the key ? in what part of the menu ? The another question is if you have a MDO3014 can be upgraded to AFG by key also ? or only applies to bus options line usb , can etc... ?

[Spikee]

In the MDO3000 documentation somewhere down is shows which option can be unlocked and which can't.

[mk_]

So... if one buys the TEKTRONIX  MDO3014  OSCILLOSCOPE, 4CH, 100MHZ, SPEC ANALYSER and uses the keys than he/she as a full option scope with the 3Ghz spectrum analyzer and all digital protocol analyzers including 300/400/500Mhz bandwidth ?

I repeat: yes.

Read the MDO3000-related threads here on eevblog. Take care for the attachments in these threads

[ptpsd]

Do you know if this works on the new firmware 1.14 too?

[mk_]

Do you know if this works on the new firmware 1.14 too?

I don`t know, running here V1.10 since 12/2014 without problems. If you try it - pls. report it here in this thread.

[Motelec]

Yes I am running 1.14 firmware and works 

Some interesting points , the MDO3VID , the MDO3TRIG and the MDO3AUTOMAX? this options aren't sold by tek, but are in the firmware ? are this a secret features ?

[kaz911]

Do you know if this works on the new firmware 1.14 too?

I don`t know, running here V1.10 since 12/2014 without problems. If you try it - pls. report it here in this thread.

As I can't / won't comment on what works with special keys I can tell you that Tek firmware is downgrade-able if things does not work. How to force a downgrade is in their firmware release notes (put a file on the USB drive called "forceupgrade.txt") as far as I remember but check the documentation.

My MDO3012 runs 1.14 and I'm very happy with it.

[j_hallows]

Wonder if this work with the DPO3000 and MSO3000 series also, (previous generation)?

Only bandwidth would be upgradeable I guess though because there was no way to transfer license in these units.

[Lunasix]

For MSO/DPO 2000, 3000 and 4000, I have tested with eeprom containing the name of function, and it works ! And with last software version of 3000 and 4000 series (which contains new functions), you don't need to leave the key in the scope.

[blacknoise]

So... if one buys the TEKTRONIX  MDO3014  OSCILLOSCOPE, 4CH, 100MHZ, SPEC ANALYSER and uses the keys than he/she as a full option scope with the 3Ghz spectrum analyzer and all digital protocol analyzers including 300/400/500Mhz bandwidth ?

I repeat: yes.

Read the MDO3000-related threads here on eevblog. Take care for the attachments in these threads

Again (a BIG SORRY, if i'm wrong!): are the MDO3 (not: MSO) options really supported by the keygen?

When i add the options "MDO3AFG", "MDO3MSO", "MDO3SA" and/or "MDO3SEC to the "gen.exe" commandline, the keygen responds: "Unknown option".

And i think this feasible, as no MDO[3xxx] option is mentioned in the python files or the readme of the keygen package.

Many thanks for any enlightenment!

Kind regards

[abyrvalg]

blacknoise, just drop "MDO3" prefix, use AFG, MSO, SA, SEC. These are just symbolic names used in gen.py to assemble a binary mask which goes to the scope inside a key. No names in the keys.

[blacknoise]

blacknoise, just drop "MDO3" prefix, use AFG, MSO, SA, SEC. These are just symbolic names used in gen.py to assemble a binary mask which goes to the scope inside a key. No names in the keys.

Hi abyrvalg,

MANY thanks for teaching a blind fool a new trick! 
I only tried the "combined" option key names (like MDO3AFD) as i found them in the scopes datasheet...

Now i used a small batch file to try different combinations. For example:

Code: [Select]

@echo off
cls
gen.exe MDO3012 C123456 1GHz AFG MSO PWR SA SEC TRIG USB VID > mykey.txt
echo.
echo Key value:
echo.
type mykey.txt
echo.
echo.|set /p =validate.exe > valkey.bat
type mykey.txt >> valkey.bat
echo.
call valkey.bat
del valkey.bat

...and checked the generated keys with "validate.exe" (i still do not own a MDO3xxx). Regarding the batch files output:

Code: [Select]

Key value:
QN5KJ-B78ZD-W8F76-X4HS7-TF3XC-A

This key is for UID: 1F 11 70 64 23 3B
Key is valid, active options:
1GHz    1GHz bandwidth
SEC     Security lockout
USB     USB serial bus
AFG     Arbitrary Function Generator
MSO     Mixed Signal Oscilloscope
SA      Spectrum analyzer maximum input frequency
PWR     Power analysis
VID     HD and Custom Video
TRIG    RF triggering

...everything ist ok.

[TopLoser]

Wow, that worked remarkably well on my £1700 RS pricing cockup MDO3104 that just arrived...

Just make sure you use uppercase for the model number and serial number (MDO3104 C123456 for example) otherwise you get a key that seems ok but doesn't get recognised.

[SeanB]

At least there you definitely got a bargain Ian. Now you can afford the probes for channel 2 as well.

[TopLoser]

At least there you definitely got a bargain Ian. Now you can afford the probes for channel 2 as well.

I hope it was a bargain, I bought 3 of them before they 'discontinued' the special offer!!

Good thing about buying the 1GHz version is that it comes with 4 x 1GHz probes as standard. Those things have a list price of £723 EACH ffs!!

http://uk.farnell.com/tektronix/tpp1000/passive-probe-1ghz/dp/1856713?ost=TPP1000&categoryId=700000037505

[SeanB]

Bet RS is not happy with you, you probably cost them the profit for a week. Wonder if there is suddenly a vacancy on the web side........

[TopLoser]

Thought about asking Farnell to price match, can't imagine that would have ended well though! I did get to know Farnells 'buy in' price for them though, there's not a lot of profit even when they sell them at £9,600...

[666]

Hi, my first post here. 

I am confused with options of :
xxxMHz bandwidth
Upgrade bandwidth from xxxMHz to xxxMHz

What are the difference?

And from the manual ("1 GHz upgrades require Tek Service installation and option IFC...", on page 15) and also the following video at 2:10 to 2:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=130&v=VFX47ZGOn_o

The 1GHz option needs to send to service centre for hardware change.
And MDO3000 max bandwidth is 1GHz, so what is the meaning of 2GHz option
for the key?

And can the key be changed or removed?