Author Topic: cheap usb logic analyzer  (Read 5631 times)

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Offline stern0m1Topic starter

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cheap usb logic analyzer
« on: October 07, 2018, 02:30:45 am »
Hi,
Can any one recommend a cheap usb logic analyzer? Ideally on amazon.com.
Thanks
 

Offline Daruosha

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2018, 11:56:23 am »
Any Cypress FX2 clone will do the job for you. Search for Saleae Logic clone and buy the cheapest one :)
 

Offline maginnovision

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2018, 04:12:06 pm »
How many channels? 1 or 2?
 


Offline 0xdeadbeef

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2018, 04:59:27 pm »
Cheap is a relative term. In the ~100 price range, the DSLogic Plus (with SRAM, not the Basic version without) IMHO is by far the best choice. There seems to be a new version now that has a different USB bridge so you can install it under Win10 without trickery. Older versions (and there are quite a few) need uncertified drivers which can't be installed under Win10 without some workaround. Also be aware that most eBay sellers try to sell the Basic version without SRAM without clearly saying so.

There's also something coming up from Ikalogic soon (but then again, they announced it for a year or so and just reset the countdown to another 40 days or so after reaching 0) but I fear it will be more in the 400-500€ range (at least the maxed out version). I still love my old Ikalogic ScanaPlus though which was around 150€. There were some minor issues with it, but I still use it a lot.
Trying is the first step towards failure - Homer J. Simpson
 

Offline TK

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2018, 05:35:44 pm »
If you need lots of protocol decoders (more than 100), then the zeroplus lap-c 16032 is priced around $130 on amazon
 

Offline 0xdeadbeef

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2018, 06:18:09 pm »
My Zeroplus rests in the drawer since several years. Never really used it after I got my hand on ScanaPlus and DSLogic.
Side note: an important issue for me is that I sometimes want to write my own decoders. Did that for ScanaPlus (Javascript), could do it for DsLogic (Python), but there's no way whatsoever to do this for a closed system like ZeroPlus.
Trying is the first step towards failure - Homer J. Simpson
 

Offline TK

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2018, 11:12:51 pm »
My Zeroplus rests in the drawer since several years. Never really used it after I got my hand on ScanaPlus and DSLogic.
You should update the software and retest, they opened all the protocols (more than 100) for free in the latest versions of the software.  Sometime ago they also released the API for custom protocol development, but I have never tried it.
 

Offline TK

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2018, 11:20:24 pm »
One advantage of DSLogic is that the DSView software runs on Mac, Linux and Windows... so far, Zeroplus only runs on Windows.
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #9 on: October 08, 2018, 01:50:32 am »
I was doing fine with my cheapie analyser, but now I'm starting to get tempted.
 

Offline 0xdeadbeef

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #10 on: October 08, 2018, 10:16:08 am »
Quote
You should update the software and retest, they opened all the protocols (more than 100) for free in the latest versions of the software.  Sometime ago they also released the API for custom protocol development, but I have never tried it.
Yeah, been there, done that, also hacked the EEPROM to patch the C16032 into a C16128, but still, the memory is much too small and the software looks like written for Win3.1.
And, well, I'm usually not into script languages but to write your own decoder, it's much easier to do that in with a script then having to install a specific C/C++ toolchain and messing around with an API.
Trying is the first step towards failure - Homer J. Simpson
 

Offline TK

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2018, 01:42:43 pm »
I purchased a DSLogic to try it.  In the meantime, I downloaded the DSView software to do some testing... how do you group signals into buses?  Not a decoder, just a simple bus.

Also the software needs a lot of work, i.e. in the decoder you can assign multiple signals to the same decoder signal, like assigning port 0 to all SPI signals on the decoder.  I wonder why the programmers did not check that a port cannot be assigned multiple times to different decoder signals...
 

Offline IAmBack

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2018, 01:58:23 pm »
 Zero plus can work together with a scope, giving a sort of mixed domain scope. With recent software it should work with ds1054z. I have both (zeroplus and Rigol), but had no opportunity to check them working together...
 

Offline 0xdeadbeef

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Re: cheap usb logic analyzer
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2018, 03:09:25 pm »
I purchased a DSLogic to try it.  In the meantime, I downloaded the DSView software to do some testing... how do you group signals into buses?  Not a decoder, just a simple bus.
I guess that is not possible in DSView. You can use Sigrok though AFAIK, actually DSView seems to be based on Sigrok.
Admittedly, I use only SPI decoding most of the time, so I don't care about the bus feature.

Zero plus can work together with a scope, giving a sort of mixed domain scope. With recent software it should work with ds1054z. I have both (zeroplus and Rigol), but had no opportunity to check them working together...
Yeah, but this is more like a gimmick IMHO. Like it can download the data from the scope offline and display it but the timing/delay is questionable and actually it looks more like a way to display 8bit bus data than an actual analog view.
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