Siglent 1104 XE

[tony3d]

Thinking of buying the Siglent 1104 XE. I heard that it has no real time clock, and the date, and time must be reset after every power down. If I buy it with the dongle, must I pay for a license if all I want it to do is read the current date, and time. Don’t believe I’ve ever seen a scope without a real time clock.

[tautech]

Thinking of buying the Siglent 1104 XE. I heard that it has no real time clock, and the date, and time must be reset after every power down. If I buy it with the dongle, must I pay for a license if all I want it to do is read the current date, and time. Don’t believe I’ve ever seen a scope without a real time clock.

Many/most 1000 series DSO's don't have a RTC.
You can get a TP-Link dongle the same as those sold by Siglent and enabling the WiFi option permanently is a breeze so that the clock can sync with your local NTP server at boot.
Once it's set up correctly the clock feature works perfect and also provides a file timestamp on anything you save, screenshots etc.

Every other little thing you need to know is here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds1204x-e-released-for-domestic-markets-in-china/

[BillyO]

Rob beat me to it .. yeah, like he said.

[tony3d]

Can you explain how this is setup?

[tautech]

Can you explain how this is setup?

RTFM
https://int.siglent.com/u_file/document/SDS1000X_E_SDS1000X_U_UserManual_EN.pdf
P217

Time was introduced with recent firmware with Logging which of course it's required for logging.
There's also a little about setting Time in this Logging app note:
https://siglentna.com/application-note/datalogging-with-the-four-channel-sds1000x-e-oscilloscope-models/

[tony3d]

Thank you very much. I plan on ordering this within the next day or so. Really want the time stamps though. My Owon 7102 has a real time clock.

[bdunham7]

Find the script (it's in this forum and probably in one of the threads linked earlier) to generate all your license keys and install all the upgrades.  Then buy this dongle:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008IFXQFU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

and set up the NTP time server.  It will automagically start up and set the time every reboot and you won't even remember that it doesn't have an RTC, provided you always have WiFi.

[tony3d]

Think I’ll place my order now.

[BillyO]

If you don't yet have the scope the explanation would be meaningless .. if you have the scope it would be fairly obvious.

Set-up WIFI:

1) Install WIFI dongle in back USB "A" slot.

2) Utility --> Pg. 2 --> I/0 --> Net Interface

It will probably default to WIFI, but if it doesn't, select WIFI.  The default configuration is DHCP.

Set up NTP:

1) Utility --> Pg. 3 --> Date/Time --> NTP --> Server IP --> Enter IP address of an NTP server

2) At same level as Server IP set Power On sync to On

[tautech]

Mostly right but connections don't default to anything, they need be manually configured, especially WiFi and saved.
Date/Time once set up correctly can be configured to sync at boot or done manually.

Couple of screenshots for your pleasure with the scope configured for a LAN connection on the bench and set to NZ NTP server.

[Muttley Snickers]

A post in another thread mentions that it might be possible to synchronise the scopes clock to a wired network router without having the need for an internet connection for the ntp server. This would be my choice if it worked but I am still waiting on a friend to test and confirm.   

[mwb1100]

A post in another thread mentions that it might be possible to synchronise the scopes clock to a wired network router without having the need for an internet connection for the ntp server. This would be my choice if it worked but I am still waiting on a friend to test and confirm.   

That'll work fine as long as the router supports being an NTP server.  I don't know how common that is for consumer-oriented routers (my ASUS RT-AC68U doesn't).

But apparently Windows has included an NTP server service since at least WinXP.  It's disabled by default, instructions to enable it: https://www.interfacett.com/blogs/creating-standalone-ntp-server-windows/  (note: I haven't tested these instructions, as I just configure the scope to use a public NTP server).

If you use Linux instead of Windows, I'm 100% sure that an NTP server can be easily setup on those systems as well

[tautech]

A post in another thread mentions that it might be possible to synchronise the scopes clock to a wired network router without having the need for an internet connection for the ntp server. This would be my choice if it worked but I am still waiting on a friend to test and confirm.   

Alright, alright I've been busy ! However recently I obtained a nice little mini PC that I can use to log into a modem/router and see if it can supply a clock for the X-E DSO to sync to. 

I thought the solution we found tethering the scope to a cellphone's WiFi so to access your NTP server was as simple as it got as it didn't require lugging anything else around but your cellphone.
For those trying to follow, discussion and findings are here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/siglent-sds1204x-e-released-for-domestic-markets-in-china/msg4419727/#msg4419727

[tautech]

A post in another thread mentions that it might be possible to synchronise the scopes clock to a wired network router without having the need for an internet connection for the ntp server. This would be my choice if it worked but I am still waiting on a friend to test and confirm.   

Alright, alright I've been busy ! However recently I obtained a nice little mini PC that I can use to log into a modem/router and see if it can supply a clock for the X-E DSO to sync to. 

Sorry Muttley I couldn't make it work as without an internet connection the scope couldn't negotiate an IP with the Modem/router.
Maybe someone more clever than I can enter all that stuff manually and get it working when instead it was just so much easier to WiFi tether the scope to a phone for it to sync with a NTP server < that took me just a minute or 2 to arrange whereas trying to sync with an unconnected modem/router was a PITA.

Sorry mate but not wasting more time on it and if you want to chew my ear by all means gimme a call.....been a bit since we had a chat.
You keeping your head above the floods ?

[Muttley Snickers]

Sorry Muttley I couldn't make it work as without an internet connection the scope couldn't negotiate an IP with the Modem/router.

No problem and thanks for trying.   
As mwb1100 mentioned, it might be dependent on having a router with a specific feature set or a need to configure the computer for NTP, or perhaps modify the firmware to support offline time management. As we previously discussed, in the past time and date stamps have always been critical for my applications and something I have always had with the TDS-1002, so for me it's a must have feature with any replacement scope.

For general use and diagnostics time stamps aren't of importance but I do occasionally conduct particular test sequences and diagnostics which need to be roughly time correlated with other devices and equipment. The manual setting of time and date when required is sufficient as we have already covered in your linked thread. The reason for asking if a router could be used as a time source might mean having to adjust or synchronise the time on say a weekly basis rather than daily in an offline configuration.

[tautech]

Sorry Muttley I couldn't make it work as without an internet connection the scope couldn't negotiate an IP with the Modem/router.

No problem and thanks for trying.   
As mwb1100 mentioned, it might be dependent on having a router with a specific feature set or a need to configure the computer for NTP, or perhaps modify the firmware to support offline time management.

For the modem tried it had a Date/Time feature and potential to sync with 2 NTP severs  so I thought we might be onto a winner but without an internet connection it just wouldn't negotiate an IP with the scope although with a PC I could 'ipconfig' it and get its IP and crash around in its menus but the darn scope couldn't find it. 

[tony3d]

Got it all setup to read the time at startup off google. Can’t find the script to load the upgrades though.