Hacking the Rigol DHO800/900 Scope

[FxDev]

I tried DHO804 with 30.000mAh battery bank.
It worked around 2.5 hours. FYI.

[RogerG]

Just bored, or were you waiting for anything specific? 

Waiting for new FW or another interesting hack  .

[norbert.kiszka]

Just bored, or were you waiting for anything specific? 

Waiting for new FW or another interesting hack  .

Do Your own one and share it with us.

[ebastler]

Just bored, or were you waiting for anything specific? 

Waiting for new FW or another interesting hack  .

Do Your own one and share it with us.

... or consider actually using the scope to measure something interesting. 

[Lathe26]

...
Exporting waveform (to a file) from internal memory doesn't work and I have no idea why. According to DHO800-Series_programmingguide_EN.pdf it should work. Command :WAV:DATA? return is: "The instruction is not supported!". Please let me know, if somebody knows how to do it.
...

I've seen ":WAV:DATA?" work but only for the analog channels.  It doesn't work properly for LA channels (D0, D1, etc) due to bugs causing an earlier ":WAVeform:SOURce D0" to fail.

Attached is a Python file from Rigol that I think I haven't changed too much.  This should still be in its original working form, but not guaranteed.

[VP 777]

Thank you very much, I managed to make 924S from 914. I really want the signal generator to work. What needs to be done? Has anyone tried to do this? Thank you.

[Fungus]

Thank you very much, I managed to make 924S from 914. I really want the signal generator to work. What needs to be done? Has anyone tried to do this? Thank you.

You have to add another PCB inside it.

They don't sell them, you have to make it yourself.

[fearas38]

How to use the scope as an android tablet
With sound!

0) Open your scope and make full backup of the MicroSD card, with the "HDD Raw Copy Tool" for eg. (compressed image takes ~500MB of disk space only)

1) Find any USB headphones (or other USB sound device identified as headphones with default driver in windows. I've checked two old ones and both are working.).

2) Find a USB hub.

3) Find a USB keyboard with the "home" key.

4) Connect 1), 2) and 3) to the scope. (Reboot was not required in my case, press "win+n" to access system notifications bar, sound levels and settings).

5) Install some simple launcher:
adb connect
adb install yourSimpleLauncherName.apk

6) Install chrome (the last version for the android 7 is chrome 119.0.6045.194, probably, it will argue for absence of play services, but will launch nevertheless).

7) PRESS "Stop" BUTTON (it's required to release CPU resources).

8 ) Press "Home" button on the USB keyboard, select yourSimpleLauncherName and press "always". (This will substitute the com.rigol.launcher, but scope should initialize successfully anyway).

9) Now on boot yourSimpleLauncher should always launch before the "com.rigol.scope" application, and you should be able to switch to yourSimpleLauncher with the "home" key, or with the "alt+tab" keys. (Don't forget to press the "Stop" button to release CPU resources).

10) Enjoy chrome browsing and 1080p YouTube videos with sound and no frame drops.

11) OPTIONAL. If you plan to boot into yourSimpleLauncher and be able to launch the scope app any time later:
- install MyAndroidTools,
- disable "GuardServiceReceiver" for the "com.rigol.launcher" application (MyAndroidTools/apps/com.rigol.launcher/see all component info/broadcast receiver/GuardServiceReceiver).
This will prevent FPGA initialization, reduce CPU usage, thus reducing power consumption (from 2.5 A to 1.2 - 1.4 A @12V), chip temperature, and increase device sustainability.

But in this way, you can launch the RIGOL.SCOPE app from the launcher any time later.

Hello, I have a question about using DHO800 series scope as an android tablet. If I will install launcher on this scope and other android apps, do these changes slow down oscilloscope's performance? Has anyone noticed any glitches or bugs? Thanks.

[norbert.kiszka]

Hello, I have a question about using DHO800 series scope as an android tablet. If I will install launcher on this scope and other android apps, do these changes slow down oscilloscope's performance? Has anyone noticed any glitches or bugs? Is it safe to install other android apps on this scope? Thanks.

Im using DHO924S with other apps including games. But DHO800 series probably has less RAM for a CPU (RK3399). In both cases, there is no swap on the SD card.

Anyway, I advice to do a SD card image backup.

[mrisco]

Hello, I have a question about using DHO800 series scope as an android tablet. If I will install launcher on this scope and other android apps, do these changes slow down oscilloscope's performance? Has anyone noticed any glitches or bugs? Thanks.

There isn't a slowdown, you can see in the video how the Rigol performs along with another applications: https://youtu.be/OXJZxY9YVwE?si=aRrtFxmTiAf2bcxa

[VP 777]

Thank you very much, I managed to make 924S from 914. I really want the signal generator to work. What needs to be done? Has anyone tried to do this? Thank you.

You have to add another PCB inside it.

They don't sell them, you have to make it yourself.

And if you solder a microcircuit in place of the missing one, it might work. And the generator signal will go. Has anyone tried to do this? The boards of the 914 and 924Ы are the same, only one microcircuit is missing. Thank you.

[AndyBig]

And if you solder a microcircuit in place of the missing one, it might work. And the generator signal will go. Has anyone tried to do this? The boards of the 914 and 924Ы are the same, only one microcircuit is missing. Thank you.

There, for the generator, you need not just one microcircuit, but a whole printed circuit board with dozens of components

[VP 777]

And if you solder a microcircuit in place of the missing one, it might work. And the generator signal will go. Has anyone tried to do this? The boards of the 914 and 924Ы are the same, only one microcircuit is missing. Thank you.

There, for the generator, you need not just one microcircuit, but a whole printed circuit board with dozens of components

Thank you. Is there a photo of the board from the DHO924S oscilloscope?

[norbert.kiszka]

Thank you. Is there a photo of the board from the DHO924S oscilloscope?

DHO924S:

[Fungus]

Simple to make!

[ebastler]

Simple to make!

Sure.  
@Mechatrommer has tried, but I am not sure what the current status is, and I can't find the thread where he reported on his progress. Last I recall it was "kind of working"?


Edit:
Found the relevant thread on bringing up Mechatrommer's DIY function generator PCB. The most recent update seems to be this:

Any news?
After 2 mons waiting no changes?
I have a question - in the beginning, you couldn't get an X-ray of the original board?
I think things would go much faster.

i too wished someone with the original module can do the xray and complete BOM but, i cant wait for such hope. btw still stuck with other things i cant get back to progress yet... cheers.

[artmau]

My DHO804 is not booting. Today, after pressing power button the other buttons light up for a moment (as usual) and than there is only a black screen. Tried two different power supplies.

Do you guys have any ideas?

[norbert.kiszka]

My DHO804 is not booting. Today, after pressing power button the other buttons light up for a moment (as usual) and than there is only a black screen. Tried two different power supplies.

Do you guys have any ideas?

If You have void warranty, try to remove SD card, clean contacts and put it back firmly. Please remember to use ESD protection(s).

On top right side, there is a RK808 as a switching converter, so You can check voltages after pressing power.

Emergency shutdown is available after pressing power for a couple seconds.

From which city are You? Eventually, maybe I will be able to help.

BTW. IMHO this should be as a separate topic.

[artmau]

Poking SD card through the vent hole helped! I did not want to remove warranty sticker.
Greeting from Gdańsk!

[norbert.kiszka]

Poking SD card through the vent hole helped! I did not want to remove warranty sticker.
Greeting from Gdańsk!

I was hacking and modifying my DHO924S. Often I was flashing SD with my own software (see my "signature" in my footer) and sometimes that (bad card connection) was the reason of not booting with silence on a UART (goldpins close to a SD card).

Speaking of modifying. It's possible to gain bandwidth up to ~1 GHz on this puppy (with higher noise, so it's a good idea to mod one or two channels only) and even lowering the input noise (I did it partially). But this is a very precise SMD work.

BTW. If You don't want to remove sticker, I advise to make a backup of most important files from a /rigol directory via adb and a network or usb connection.

Anyway, support from a Rigol is very very bad in my opinion. Next time I will buy Siglent at least.

Greetings from a Crackow/Kraków.

[diegodgo]

Hello .
 A quick question, I have a DH804 with the upgrades mentioned here, it has firmware 00.01.02, it has a more recent firmware version V00.01.03.00.06

If I update the firmware, the upgrades continue normally on the correct device?

Thanks.

[shapirus]

Hello .
 A quick question, I have a DH804 with the upgrades mentioned here, it has firmware 00.01.02, it has a more recent firmware version V00.01.03.00.06

Wow no way! So they did finally release a new firmware. I thought it would never happen.

If I update the firmware, the upgrades continue normally on the correct device?

Well, apparently it was released today, so it's not very likely that anyone has already tried it. Maybe someone will be brave enough to try it out and let all of us know :)

[Fungus]

Well, apparently it was released today, so it's not very likely that anyone has already tried it. Maybe someone will be brave enough to try it out and let all of us know

I started a thread. 

Note: These 'scopes can be downgraded if a firmware doesn't work out. The upgrade process uses a shell script to extract the files from an archive and there's no version checking or anything like that in the script.

FWIW:

The upgrade process is:
a) Shell command to uninstall the android app
b) tar xf DHO800_DHO900_Update.GEL ...
c) Shell command to install the new android app

[norbert.kiszka]

Well, apparently it was released today, so it's not very likely that anyone has already tried it. Maybe someone will be brave enough to try it out and let all of us know

Im almost ready to test new and old bugs in new firmware. Almost, because I had small accident yesterday. Scope is ok, but me not so much 

Note: These 'scopes can be downgraded if a firmware doesn't work out. The upgrade process uses a shell script to extract the files from an archive and there's no version checking or anything like that in the script.

Best idea is to make a backup as a SD card image. No matter what will fail (including SD card itself), You can always flash it back.

If somebody don't want to remove warranty sticker, there is always ADB available. It's even possible to get SD card image in that way, but it will be good idea to run fsck on every FS (partition) directly on a image file (in Linux files can be used as a disk, even without partition table as in this case). However, working on a Android is a pain in the a** in compare to a normal Linux/GNU distribution.

[Fungus]

Best idea is to make a backup as a SD card image. No matter what will fail (including SD card itself), You can always flash it back.

Such a lot of work. 

I already upgraded, the thread is here:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/rigol-dho800900-new-firmware-1-03/