Rigol DHO800/900 Oscilloscope Bug Reports + Firmware

[Martin72]

Hi,

I have never had that behavior here.
What I have just found:
After a restart, the decoder function is switched off, you have to reactivate it.
At least the last values set there are retained.

[Fungus]

I have never had that behavior here.

I get the feeling it's related to another setting. Let's see if it was the wave intensity. I remember setting that to 100% and I forgot to put it back afterwards.

PS: Is your transparency the same as your wave intensity?

[Martin72]

I think not, could check this later..

[Martin72]

What the...
I´ve set the transparency to 50%, wave intensity 70%, then restart...
Transparency is now 66%...

[Fungus]

What the...
I´ve set the transparency to 50%, wave intensity 70%, then restart...
Transparency is now 66%...

OK, I've been playing.

When you reboot it: The window transparency is set to whatever the wave intensity was when it booted up.

eg. Boot up with wave intensity=80% then set wave intensity to 20%

On the next boot the transparency will be 80%.

On the boot after that it will be 20%.

So if your wave intensity is 70% or something like that you'll never notice. I only noticed because I had it at 100%.

There's definitely something wrong with state save/restore for some parameters (most are fine).

I'm guessing they're the parameters at the end of the state file and there's a missing/extra item in the save compared to the load.

(or an item with a different size...something like that)

[Fungus]

Update: I just pressed the "DEFAULT" button and the waveform intensity and window transparency were set to 50%, that's why nobody else noticed it. 

[Fungus]

The bug where it doesn't save the setting for Fine/Zoom mode is probably related to this one...

[Martin72]

I just pressed the "DEFAULT" button and the waveform intensity and window transparency were set to 50%.

Hm,
there seems to be something wrong with the power on state routine which you mentioned earlier.
That's why I never noticed it before, because I had the power on state set to "default" the whole time, until I didn't feel like setting everything up again after every start.

[Fungus]

OK, steps to reproduce this:

1) Enable "Load last" in the setup
2) Set "Wave Intensity" to 100% in the Display settings.
3) Reboot twice.

You now have 100% transparency in the overlay dialogs.

[ebastler]

3) Reboot twice.

I missed that part in your earlier description. That's surprising, what mechanism would be behind that? Store & retrieve works for the first reboot, and then fails the second time 'round although you have not touched the settings any further?

[Martin72]

OK, steps to reproduce this:

Can reproduce this...
Wave intensity set to 100%, transparency 50%.
After the first reboot, transparency is 70%, after the second reboot 100%...

[ebastler]

Wave intensity set to 100%, transparency 50%.
After the first reboot, transparency is 70%, after the second reboot 100%...

Ah, so the problem somehow "accumulates" and gets worse with the second reboot?

Try rebooting a third time. Maybe traces covered by the dialog window now become brighter than around it, because of 150% transparency? 

[Martin72]

Ah, so the problem somehow "accumulates" and gets worse with the second reboot?

It seems so and since power on is set to last state, it holds this and goes one better...
But it stops at 100%.

[tautech]

I just pressed the "DEFAULT" button and the waveform intensity and window transparency were set to 50%.

Hm,
there seems to be something wrong with the power on state routine which you mentioned earlier.
That's why I never noticed it before, because I had the power on state set to "default" the whole time, until I didn't feel like setting everything up again after every start.

Any scope should boot at/with last settings as a default operation.
Default to factory settings should be a user only defined operation.

Default should also be definable as a user custom operation and/or all should be able to be bypassed by loading previously saved Setup file.

[Martin72]

I have to add that I consider this behavior to be a minor bug, not really decisive, just a bit annoying.
In general, my soon to follow interim conclusion about the DHO800 Scope might surprise some of you.
I've had it for almost 5 weeks now and have spent an hour or two with it almost every evening.

[Fungus]

Can reproduce this...
Wave intensity set to 100%, transparency 50%.
After the first reboot, transparency is 70%, after the second reboot 100%...

That means wave intensity was 70% before you started doing anything.

Ah, so the problem somehow "accumulates" and gets worse with the second reboot?

No, it lags by one boot. It's not "accumulating" or doing any interpolation.

[Fungus]

\
In general, my soon to follow interim conclusion about the DHO800 Scope might surprise some of you.
I've had it for almost 5 weeks now and have spent an hour or two with it almost every evening.

Can't wait to find out what an "interim conclusion" is... 

(Should be in another thread though... this one is bug reports only)

[tautech]

In general, my soon to follow interim conclusion about the DHO800 Scope might surprise some of you.

I trust your impartiality and I would ask for your rating in 2 ways:
1. Suitability as a first scope. Is the UI too complex and does the OS provide suitable protection for the scope newbie managing aliasing ?
2. For the experienced DSO user.

[Fungus]

Did I ever mention that you recognize a salesman by his selective picking of arguments and angles which suit his agenda?

He never disappoints... this new demand is brilliant! 

I typed up a long reply but I deleted it because first post says "No other discussion please".

[Martin72]

I trust your impartiality and I would ask for your rating in 2 ways:
1. Suitability as a first scope. Is the UI too complex and does the OS provide suitable protection for the scope newbie managing aliasing ?
2. For the experienced DSO user.

I don't want to anticipate this because I want to post it in "my" thread, but here it is in brief:
To 1: The user interface of this rigol in particular is a bonus for beginners, you can always fall into the aliasing trap with any scope.
Regarding 2: Experienced users would not buy this scope as their main measuring device, but rather as a second one, the small form factor and the USB supply are an invitation to do so.

[Howardlong]

I don't want to anticipate this because I want to post it in "my" thread, but here it is in brief:
To 1: The user interface of this rigol in particular is a bonus for beginners, you can always fall into the aliasing trap with any scope.

I'm not a fan of the UI TBH: ignoring the soft buttons on the non-touch DS1000Z, there are more physical buttons & knobs on the DHO800/900 than the DS1000Z, but it's harder to use as important physical buttons are relegated to touch only, in favour of infrequently used ones, in particular the search navigation buttons. But then I'm not a fan of touch UIs on scopes anyway.

Regarding 2: Experienced users would not buy this scope as their main measuring device, but rather as a second one, the small form factor and the USB supply are an invitation to do so.

I agree with the basis of this, however with the firmware as it currently stands, it's little more than a desk ornament, particularly the 900. I do look forward to it being my field scope at some time in the future though.

[Fungus]

I agree with the basis of this, however with the firmware as it currently stands, it's little more than a desk ornament

I don't know of any serious bugs in the DHO800.

There's a few annoyances, that's it. All functions appear to work. It's never crashed or locked up, not once.

We'll see what the next update brings for the DHO900 but let's not pretend this is a Rigol problem. EEVBLOG has long bug threads for every new oscilloscope model from every manufacturer, including some very expensive ones.

[Fungus]

there are more physical buttons & knobs on the DHO800/900 than the DS1000Z

DHO800: 24

DS1000Z: 38

[Howardlong]

there are more physical buttons & knobs on the DHO800/900 than the DS1000Z

DHO800: 24

DS1000Z: 38

Why did you quote without my explicitly defined context?

What I said:

"ignoring the soft buttons on the non-touch DS1000Z, there are more physical buttons & knobs on the DHO800/900 than the DS1000Z"

MSO1074Z-S: 6 knobs, 24 buttons
DHO924S: 7 knobs, 26 buttons

The physical soft buttons can reasonably be replaced by on screen touch. That I'm not too fussed about.

My point was that there are too many regularly used primary functions that have been moved onto the touch screen, while much lesser-used functions enjoy individual buttons, most obviously the search navigation buttons.

On the same theme, the screen real estate has become unnecessarily cluttered with touch junk now, negatively impacting the waveform window size.

[ebastler]

I know I have been guilty of an off-topic post myself (which I have just deleted), in response to tautech's "final report request". But can we please relegate this discussion to a different DHO-related thread, if it needs to be continued at all?

If we want any hope of Rigol reading this thread and acting upon it, we should keep it focused on bug reports.