Author Topic: 99 USD DSLogic Logic Analyzer from DreamSourceLab (16CH, 256Mbits, 400MHz)  (Read 12760 times)

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Offline pascal_swedenTopic starter

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Anybody out here on this forum who has hands-on experience with the DSLogic Logic Analyzer from DreamSourceLab?

http://www.dreamsourcelab.com/dslogic.html

How does it perform? How good is the software? Is it compatible with the Sigrok framework?

Is it as good as the Zeroplus logic analyzers?
http://www.zeroplus.com.tw/logic-analyzer_en/products.php?pdn=3&pdnex=list

Hardware:
Sample frequency is similar between DSLogic and Zeroplus.
But the DSLogic has a lot more memory (256 Mbits) compared to the Zeroplus (64 Mbits).
http://www.dreamsourcelab.com/hardware.html

Software:
The software seems pretty impressive as well.
http://www.dreamsourcelab.com/software.html

What I really like about this product is the support for extensions, such as the wireless probes:
http://www.dreamsourcelab.com/extensions.html

Apparently this logic analyzer is the result of a Kickstarter backing campaign.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dreamsourcelab/dslogic-multifunction-instruments-for-everyone/posts/996560

Does anybody have any info on the DSLogic Pro and the DSScope?
The DSLogic Pro seems to be an improved version.
I wonder when it will be released, as it might be worth waiting.

Where is this company DreamSourceLab based? US or China?
I could not find their location on the company website.

Their products are all sold out on the official webshop for the time being.
http://www.dreamsourcelab.com/order.html

However you can still find some units on Ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-Analyzer-16Ch-100MHz-4Ch-400MHz-Base-on-Xilinx-Spartan-6-FPGA-SDRAM-/221755571033
« Last Edit: July 23, 2015, 10:34:17 pm by pascal_sweden »
 

Offline BloodyCactus

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I had the kickstarter version or just the plain dslogic, the test leads were... bad. they made new better test leads but meh. i was not going to pay what they wanted.

software, pile of shit. it IS sigrok pulseview, just hacked up so much that you cant pull their changes back into sigrok tree. I dont know if they keep up with pulseview changes or its just an old copy of pulseview.

it feels much like a turbo version of Open Logic Sniffer really.

-- Aussie living in the USA --
 

Offline wd5gnr

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I have one, and it is not bad in my opinion, although the 400MHz sample rate with those probes is probably optimistic. I, too, would like to see it in mainline sigrok.It does have better triggering options than pulseview and there are some issues building it, but it is doable. For the money, I like it. But you do have to set your expectations.
 

Offline pascal_swedenTopic starter

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How about the triggering functions in hardware? Are they more advanced than in the Zeroplus logic analyzer? I read in another post that the Zeroplus entry model has limited triggering options.
 

Offline wd5gnr

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This is the advanced trigger screen. The position is in % (the stock build doesn't say % and that's confusing) So 50% means half the buffer is pre trigger.

You can have 1 to 16 stages.
You can match, invert, count, and do an and/or per stage. The match can look at levels or edges.




I have not used the serial trigger (click the image and pick second image), but it looks like you give it a data channel and a clock along with start/stop.

 

Offline BloodyCactus

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I thought the triggering was all on the software side, its nothing but OLS with more memory. streams everything in and triggers as it streams in.
-- Aussie living in the USA --
 

Offline wd5gnr

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Supposedly no, although I haven't used it enough to tell you that I can tell for sure.
 

Offline BloodyCactus

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Supposedly no, although I haven't used it enough to tell you that I can tell for sure.

yeah i used it once, saw the leads were crap and the copy of pulseview was super buggy (initial version way back...) I threw it in a drawer and have not used it since.
-- Aussie living in the USA --
 

Offline pascal_swedenTopic starter

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Zeroplus seems the better deal! They have been in this business for years, and software is very professional. The cheaper unit can be hacked to a more expensive unit. But maybe the entry model suits my needs for the time being anyhow.
 

Offline Kintekobo

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I have a ZeroPlus 16064 and an IkaLogic ScanaPlus and of the two the ScanaPlus is far superior to my mind. Also the IkaLogic software is really good, with a very friendly and responsive development team behind it. You can download the ScanaStudio software and it will run in demo mode for you to try it. It comes with a heck of a lot of decoders, and you can actually write your own decoders as they have an open source decoder language. I wrote a decoder for a specialist piece of equipment and it was pretty easy.

The Zeroplus I hardly ever use to be honest as I haven't found anything that it can do that the IkaLogic unit can't, and at under €200 the IkaLogic device is excellent value for money. What's more it runs natively on the Mac  :-+ Woo-Hoo!
You can call me anything you like. Just don't call me late for lunch.
 

Offline diego

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Well, now working with pulseview!
 

Offline AndyP

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Re: 99 USD DSLogic Logic Analyzer from DreamSourceLab (16CH, 256Mbits, 400MHz)
« Reply #11 on: September 22, 2016, 05:18:53 pm »
I've been using the DS Logic for a while and found it great, though I've just lent mine to a friend since he's interested in buying some.
Software has changed since the serial trigger plots above were done (I'm not sure if serial trigger interface has changed though), I've used the advanced serial triggers to capture some rare awkward to find events, the serial decoders used for triggering are built into the FPGA. (Verilog on github along with reprogramming instructions)
The key features I liked / use:
* 16 channels I use this most of the time (100Mhz will normally suffice)
* 400Mhz (I look at some signals where 100Mhz isn't quite fast enough, the 4 channel limit is little low, but constrained by DRAM bandiwdth)
* 16M sample buffer, making easy to see what else was going on during a long wake interval <-- this great
* "Complex" Hardware triggering (yes it is built into the FPGA) with several trigger states
* streaming @ data rate below ~10MB/s

Features I've not used:
* trigger in
* trigger out
* clock (because my system doesn't have a visible clock synchronous with the data)

Minor gripes:
* The complex hardware triggers only work up to 50MHz, so I've not been able to use them on the 80Mhz QSPI bus I monitor
* The LA signal cables are a little fiddly to attach, even compared to a cheap Rigol.
* Software should make it easier to display buses and bus states, I use the "parallel" decoder but the last transition is not shown, and it only decode to a number.

Overall (bar the minor gripe above) I've been happy with the Sigrok derived software, though more features would be nice (I've got used to segmented memory on regular scopes and figure an FPGA based one could manage something similar).
Triggering, even advanced triggering was easy to setup. Measurements are easy to make, with cursors.

Overall it's got the speed many of the cheaper ones are missing and a great buffer depth, Verilog available to add trigger option if needed.
At $99 I've found it great purchase.
 


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