The Rigol DS1052E

[Simon]

but I can see how easy the mod was (even I managed it)

You're joking, right?  It was obvious AND easy, in the end, but that didn't stop you from being baffled and delay your "upgrade" for a long time, while you played the "thousand question game".

Yes and what I'm saying is, I'm no expert in software stuff, for me software/computers + electronics never did mix well, i'm taking my baby steps in pic programming and thst is only because of the wonders of BASIC because i was stomped on assembler for a couple of years. So even with my teething problems i managed it and what I say is in hind sight I can say it was easy, after all I have never used a serial port before or a com terminal, Half my problem was just no beleiving it could be so simple, and not being in touch with terminology mixed with a fear of corupting my scope for good (you know that machine I spent a "fortune" on I could never fork out again - my dad told me i was nuts spending that amount of money). By easy I also mean it was so easy to hack I'm truly amazed that Rigol made a slip like that.

[oleg]

Day ago I get new DS1052E from China.
Command modification did NOT work as before!

Man, that makes me nervous... Did you get yours from DealExtreme? I have one sitting in US customs right now that I ordered through them last Monday. Hopefully my unit will be in the clear! Anyone else have pending deliveries or problems upgrading?

I got mine today from DealExtreme (ordered it on March 16th - it took ages in customs). 10 minutes ago I "converted" my scope just fine using echo on a linux machine (karmic). At first the model and then the serial number (I just replaced D with B). So no problems here.

oleg

[mlaargh]

Good to hear.  I'll let you guys know how it goes when mine comes through.

[infinitybit]

I ordered mine today from Saelig.  It already shows as shipped so it must have come from local inventory.  Hopefully they don't get shipments from China very frequently.

[ChrisNYC]

I ordered mine today from Saelig.  It already shows as shipped so it must have come from local inventory.  Hopefully they don't get shipments from China very frequently.

Not sure about Saelig, but if your scope is being drop shipped from Ohio, it is probably being shipped directly from Rigol NA. Hopefully that wont matter yet if it is.

[EEVblog]

Day ago I get new DS1052E from China.
Command modification did NOT work as before!
I have try with many variations how to do.

With these units what I have before all goes ok.

I have not yet find solution with these new. If I try as before, display go sometimes "black" and only button what make anything is power ON/OFF. After this scope continues as DS1052E (serial number it (sometimes) keep as I type it, but it return to 1052). Some times there is only white random scratch over model number row from left to right over display.) One time it was totally difficult to return so that system display was ok.

I saw the exact same thing happen on my unit at first.
It changed the serial number ok, but the model number reverted back to the old 1052E.
I think it had something to do with me accidentally pressing an extra serial key between entering the info in. But when I did it exactly as shown in my video it worked fine several times. So it does seem a bit "touchy" with the command sequence used.

Dave.

[rossmoffett]

Hey Dave, thanks for giving credit and breaking it down for everyone in your video.

I actually brought up this hack in a job interview recently to prove I understood measurement instruments and it raised a few eyebrows.  

Rigol might indeed change their firmware.. In any case, the hardware hack is pretty simple too, so I'd like to re-iterate that in the case that they do fix the software mod then the hardware hack will still be valid, I doubt they'll totally re-design that aspect of the scope or ditch their whole business model of selling two models.. it just wouldn't make sense.  I think that mostly anybody is capable of replacing the disabled bandwidth limit inside the oscilloscope with their own external circuit.

I bet they're selling the crap out of them now, so who knows if they care about this at all really!  Everybody knows that serious (commercial) customers won't be using hacked scopes professionally, so that just leaves a huge spike in sales to the hobbyist market.

[rf-loop]

Did you get yours from DealExtreme?

No.

[Mark_O]

...the hardware hack is pretty simple too, so I'd like to re-iterate that in the case that they do fix the software mod then the hardware hack will still be valid...

Ross, you've mentioned that before, and I agree completely that there really is no practical way to stop people from modding the hardware.  So in that sense, this will always be available.

However, disassembling, modding, and reassembling a unit, while not inordinately difficult, is much more work than sending 2 SCPI commands.  And therefore, fewer people will be inclined to do so as a result.  And secondly, the hardware hack gets you the extra bandwidth performance, but doesn't convert the unit into a full 1102E, like the software hack does (timebase down to 2 nS, etc.).  So the software hack is preferable in that sense too.

- Mark

[EEVblog]

A little birdie has told me that Rigol have already fixed the firmware to stop the hack, from at least the latest version 2.04, and possibly before that. It does not let you change the model number, but you can still change the serial number.
But apparently if you hack it with the old version and do the update to the new firmware, the mod sticks!
And apparently you can downgrade firmware as well, so it's should still easy to apply the mod to new scopes.
I now have the latest version 2.04 file so will have to give this a go.

Dave.

[Mark_O]

Dave, that all sounds pretty benign.

And apparently you can downgrade firmware as well, so it's should still easy to apply the mod to new scopes.

While that's always been true in the past, until someone actually tries it with 2.04, we won't really know.  Nor do we know what they might decide to do in the future, countermeasure-wise.  Removing the ability to downgrade would be just one unfortunate potential consequence.

- Mark

[DavidDLC]

A little birdie has told me that Rigol have already fixed the firmware to stop the hack, from at least the latest version 2.04, and possibly before that. It does not let you change the model number, but you can still change the serial number.
But apparently if you hack it with the old version and do the update to the new firmware, the mod sticks!
And apparently you can downgrade firmware as well, so it's should still easy to apply the mod to new scopes.
I now have the latest version 2.04 file so will have to give this a go.

Dave.

Please let us know, yesterday I made the mod and I have firmware 2.02, of course we always want to upgrade to a new version if there are considerable improvements.

David.

[Dago]

Hey, after Dave posted his video about the mod I made a quick python script that will mod the scope Maybe it will save some hassle of installing/configuring serial terminal software or something for someone.

Disclaimer: I'm not responsible if something bad happens to your scope because of my script (worked for me)

http://www.dgkelectronics.com/storage/code/rigol_mod/rigol_mod.py

Connect your scope to your computer, command "./rigol_mod.py /path/to/serialport" (make sure the script has execution rights and make sure you run it as root or otherwise have access to serial port devices) and it fetches the model number and serial number, displays them and asks for a confirmation to mod the scope.

For reference the script works fine on my ubuntu 9.10 with python-serial version 2.3-1 and python 2.6.4. I *think* the script should work on windows but I have not tried it. I think the syntax for serial ports in windows is via just plain numbers (ie. 0 = COM1 etc.) The script does some basic checks like makes sure the scope model is DS1052E (before the mod) and that the serial number is 14 characters long.

And for other people who want to make their own modscripts or are otherwise interested: the scope will crash if you change the model/serial number too fast, I had to add some delays to stop it from crashing (works great now).

If someone has some ideas on how to make the script better (or has some problems with it) or something please tell.

[Simon]

But apparently if you hack it with the old version and do the update to the new firmware, the mod sticks!
And apparently you can downgrade firmware as well, so it's should still easy to apply the mod to new scopes.
I now have the latest version 2.04 file so will have to give this a go.

Dave.

Thats very interesting, the day i heard of the hack and obviously realised that furture versions of the firmware would remove the ability I though "bang goes the possibility of ugrading the firmware in future". If this is true it is very interesting and proves to be another small obstical for rigol

[anli]

I'm not sure it is always safe to downgrade. Please, kill my doubts 

[Simon]

why not ? the firmware was written for that scope anyhow.

[anli]

why not ? the firmware was written for that scope anyhow.

I have read bad stories wrt upgrading another (DS1000C) series. So, I suggest there are some "subseries" inside series 

[septer012]

I also have one on order from dealextreme bummer. I dont think they stock them either so they are probably coming from the supplier (rigol)

[mlaargh]

We'll see, I guess. Worst case, we'll have to start harassing other forum members for firmware dumps and downgrade. I'm on day three of "Waiting for inspection" in Customs. I'm pretty convinced we got in early enough. I can't imagine it's less than a few weeks from assembly line to box in most cases.  Though it seems this hack has been around for a bit in China, I think it was for the most part first publicized on this forum a few days ago.  It looks to me like this new publicity was what prompted the firmware changes that are now allegedly rolling out.

haha... Dave repeatedly "catching them with their pants down" has forced some changes in their design, apparently.

[Simon]

why not ? the firmware was written for that scope anyhow.

I have read bad stories wrt upgrading another (DS1000C) series. So, I suggest there are some "subseries" inside series 

but if you downgrade a firmware to one you already had on your scope no worries, problems may be for those that want to downgrade, hack and reupgrade

[anli]

why not ? the firmware was written for that scope anyhow.

I have read bad stories wrt upgrading another (DS1000C) series. So, I suggest there are some "subseries" inside series 

but if you downgrade a firmware to one you already had on your scope no worries, problems may be for those that want to downgrade, hack and reupgrade

Yes. But I have got the scope with lastest fw 

[Mark_O]

Simon,

anli has a C-series rigol, not the E-series that is being discussed here.  If you haven't been following the (58 pages of) Rigol discussions at the RCGroups forums, you may not be aware that a "rose is not a rose".  I.e., not all DS1xxxC models are the same.  What this means is that if you have a DS1000C with, e.g. firmware 2.3.4, you can NOT upgrade to the latest 3.7.1.  You can only upgrade to 2.3.17, due to hardware changes in production models.  

The newer E/D-series haven't reached that point (yet).  Though discussions here (and elsewhere) may motivate that sooner, rather than later.

Anli,

the first thing I would recommend you do, if you're interested in pursuing things, is follow Ross's example, and disassemble your unit to see what circuits are present on the front-end.  If the varactor-switcher that Andreas identified isn't there, that will have a big impact on what options are available to you.  You may have to substitute parts to change your scope's performance.  My personal guess is that they do NOT use that circuit, because the C-series had models at 25 MHz, 40, 60, and 100 MHz performance levels.  I'd suspect they were using different filtering components on the front-end.  

OTOH, if a similar circuit is there (with 2-bit switching to control it), that means they were using a different mechanism to configure it.  Then you'd need to pull the appropriate lines high or low to select the mode you wanted.

- Mark

[anli]

Mark,

The thing is, this DSO is the only scope in hand, and, OTOH, I'm not experienced in digital/smd area (my experience lies in analog audio/through hole components, sorry). At such circumstances own attempts seem to be too risky, and I'll wait for more experienced fellows.

[Mark_O]

All (including Dave),

I just wrote about the previous C-series... "You may have to substitute parts to change your scope's performance.  My personal guess is that they do NOT use that circuit, because the C-series had models at 25 MHz, 40, 60, and 100 MHz performance levels.  I'd suspect they were using different filtering components on the front-end."

Which reminded me of a fable my grandmother once read to me, when I was just a lad...

"Once upon a time, in a land far away, a company that made many measurement devices that were affordable by the peasants had many different versions in their product line.  Even though the basic design and main board was the same for all of them, this required them to customize each model with different physical components.  And to maintain inventories of each of the A, B, C, and D models.

One day a clever engineer at that company had the bright idea that by simplifying things, they could save a lot of production costs, and pass that savings on to their customers.  By simplifying their product line down to 2 models, and incorporating a switching device to change configurations, they could make and stock a single hardware model, and tailor them to the desired level when production sales numbers were available.  This customization could be done right on the production line, at the final step when they put a label on the product.  In this way, they could actually produce a better quality instrument, with improved performance capabilities, and at the same time even sell it for less!  His idea was applauded, and the company implemented his plan.

Unfortunately, one serious mistake was made.  Instead of having the magical command to configure the mode check first, to see if a value had already been set, the command just went ahead and changed it without looking.  This meant it could be changed, again and again.  One day the peasants discovered this magical incantation on their own.  And instead of just using it, and being grateful for their good fortune, they began to mock and humiliate the company.  Some accused them of being deceptive, and selling the "same thing" for two different prices.  Others proclaimed how they had been "caught with their pants down", which was very embarrassing.  The company lost face.

As a result, the company decided to think long and hard about their future products.  They made changes to make certain that they would not be embarrassed again.  More importantly, they spent their time thinking about such things, rather than spending it to improve their products.  No longer could the peasants enjoy the enhanced capabilities.  And their prices went up, casting a shadow across the lands.  There was much weeping and wailing, and knashing of teeth.  The best of days were behind them. 

THE END."

At least, that's the way I remember it. 

- Mark

[Mark_O]

The thing is, this DSO is the only scope in hand, and, OTOH, I'm not experienced in digital/smd area (my experience lies in analog audio/through hole components, sorry). At such circumstances own attempts seem to be too risky, and I'll wait for more experienced fellows.

You are completely correct.  I wouldn't do so either, in your position.  I should have been more clear in saying this was an avenue that was open... though someone else may have to blaze the trail first.  The important point is that I'm dubious there is any way to achieve your goal without opening the unit and modifying it physically.  No nifty magical SCPI command.

For myself, I have no incentive to open my Rigol, which is already a 100 MHz unit (DS1102CD).  I'd probably wind up breaking a knob, or marring the faceplate.

- Mark