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XScopes

 

 

User’s Manual 

 

 

 

                                          DS-XScopes-3.5 

– December, 2014

 

  Page | 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Description: 

The XScopes (Xminilab and Xprotolab) are a combination 
of  three  electronic  instruments:  a  mixed  signal 
oscilloscope,  an  arbitrary  waveform  generator,  and  a 
protocol sniffer; all housed in a small  breadboard friendly 
module. The XScopes can also be used as development 
boards for the AVR XMEGA microcontroller. 

Main Features: 

 

Mixed Signal Oscilloscope

: Simultaneous sampling of 

2 analog and 8 digital signals. 

 

Arbitrary  Waveform  Generator

  with advanced sweep 

options on all the wave parameters. 

 

Protocol Sniffer:

 SPI, I

2

C, UART 

 

Advanced Triggering System

: Normal / Single / Auto / 

Free, with many trigger modes; adjustable trigger level, 

and ability to view signals prior to the trigger. 

 

Meter Mode

: VDC, VPP and Frequency readout. 

 

XY  Mode:

  For  plotting  Lissajous  figures,  V/I  curves  or 

checking the phase difference between two waveforms. 

 

Spectrum  Analyzer

  with  different  windowing  options 

and selectable vertical log and IQ visualization. 

 

Channel Math

: add, multiply, invert, and average. 

 

Horizontal  and  Vertical  Cursors 

with  automatic 

waveform measurements, and waveform references. 

 

 

Gabotronics 
PO BOX 110332 
Lakewood Rch, FL. 34211 
www.gabotronics.com

 

Figure 1: Xprotolab, Xminilab, and the Portable models

 

Figure 2: XScopes Block Diagram

 

Summary of Contents for XScopes

Page 1: ...he wave parameters Protocol Sniffer SPI I 2 C UART Advanced Triggering System Normal Single Auto Free with many trigger modes adjustable trigger level and ability to view signals prior to the trigger Meter Mode VDC VPP and Frequency readout XY Mode For plotting Lissajous figures V I curves or checking the phase difference between two waveforms Spectrum Analyzer with different windowing options and...

Page 2: ...s XScope Xprotolab Xminilab Xprotolab Portable or Xminilab Portable Portables Xprotolab Portable or Xminilab Portable CH1 Analog Channel 1 CH2 Analog Channel 2 CHD Logic Inputs Fast Sampling 10ms div or faster time base Slow Sampling 20ms div or slower time base Helpful tip Warning Technical Detail Manual Revision History Version Date Notes 3 0 December 2013 Updated protocol interface information ...

Page 3: ...ecifications 9 1 4 Dimensions 10 1 5 Absolute Maximum Ratings 11 1 6 Factory Setup 11 1 7 Quick Start Guide 11 1 8 User Interface 12 1 9 Saving the settings 12 2 Mixed Signal Oscilloscope 13 2 1 Horizontal Settings 13 2 1 1 Time Base 13 2 1 2 Technical Details 13 2 1 3 Explore Wave 13 2 1 4 Auto Setup 13 2 2 Vertical Settings 14 2 2 1 Disable Channel 14 2 2 2 Channel Gain 14 2 2 3 Channel Position...

Page 4: ...unter 19 2 4 3 Spectrum Analyzer 20 2 4 3 1 IQ FFT Mode 20 2 4 3 2 Logarithm display 20 2 4 3 3 FFT Windows 20 2 5 Cursors 21 2 5 1 Vertical Cursors 21 2 5 2 Horizontal Cursors 21 2 5 3 Automatic Cursors 21 2 5 4 Track Horizontal Cursors 21 2 5 5 Reference Waveform 21 2 5 6 Cursors in XY Mode 21 2 6 Display Settings 22 2 6 1 Persistent Display 22 2 6 2 Line Pixel Display 22 2 6 3 Show scope settin...

Page 5: ...PI Sniffer 25 4 Arbitrary Waveform Generator 26 4 1 Predefined Waveforms 27 4 2 Parameter Sweep 27 4 2 1 Sweep Modes 27 4 3 Technical Details 27 5 PC Interface 28 5 1 Connecting the device 28 5 1 Controlling the device 28 5 2 Custom AWG Waveform 29 5 3 Saving Waveforms and Screenshots 29 6 Interface Protocol 29 6 1 Interface settings 29 6 2 Control Data 29 6 2 1 Bitfield variables 31 6 3 Vendor ID...

Page 6: ...5 Component V I Curves 37 8 6 Frequency Plots 37 9 Firmware Updating 38 9 1 Firmware upgrade using an external programmer 38 9 1 1 Tools required 38 9 1 2 Instructions to install the tools 38 9 1 3 Instructions to update the firmware 38 9 2 Firmware upgrade using the bootloader 39 9 2 1 Tools required 39 9 2 2 Activating the bootloader 39 9 2 1 Firmware update in Windows FLIP 39 9 2 2 Firmware upg...

Page 7: ...tal Channel 4 SPI Sniffer signal SS Logic 5 Digital Channel 5 SPI Sniffer signal MOSI Logic 6 Digital Channel 6 SPI Sniffer signal MISO Logic 7 Digital Channel 7 SPI Sniffer signal SCK EXT T External Trigger Digital input max 5 5V AWG Arbitrary Waveform Generator Output range 2V CH2 Analog Channel 2 Input range 14V to 20V CH1 Analog Channel 1 Input range 14V to 20V PWR Power up output signal 3 3V ...

Page 8: ...es disable this command so to power off set the device in Scope mode The device is also powered off when the shutdown timer expires regardless of the device mode 1 2 4 USB Port Device Charging The USB port is also used to charge the device The device can be charged either when the powered on or off When the device is powered off the battery can be fully charged in about 2 hours Figure 7 Xprotolab ...

Page 9: ... 40mA to 60mA 45mA to 75mA 40mA to 60mA 45mA to 75mA Sleep current 3 6mA 1uA Logic Analyzer Logic Inputs 8 Digital Inputs Logic Input levels 3 3V only 3 3V 5V tolerant Input Pull None 24kΩ Pull Up or 24kΩ Pull Down 820kΩ Pull Down Max Sampling rate 2Msps Buffer Size 256 Frequency Counter 16MHz 1Hz resolution 100ppm accuracy Sniffer Protocols UART I2C SPI Oscilloscope Analog Inputs 2 Analog Inputs ...

Page 10: ...copes 3 5 December 2014 Page 10 1 4 Dimensions Figure 11 Xprotolab Dimensions Figure 12 Xminilab 2 1 2 2 Dimensions Figure 13 Xminilab 2 3 Dimensions Figure 14 Xprotolab Portable Dimensions Figure 15 Xminilab Portable Dimensions ...

Page 11: ...vice after the last key has been pressed On the non portable devices it will only shut off the display and put the microcontroller to sleep 3 Restore defaults Select this function to restore to the default the settings There are many settings on the device if you are not familiar with them this function is useful to set the device to a known state 1 7 Quick Start Guide Take the device out of the p...

Page 12: ... 17 shows the main menus in blue and some secondary menus in yellow Further ramifications are shown on the respective chapters Figure 17 Main Menus 1 9 Saving the settings All settings are stored to non volatile memory only when exiting from the last menu This method is used to reduce the number of write cycles to the microcontroller s EEPROM The settings are not saved if the VCC voltage is under ...

Page 13: ...s available only with fast sampling o Only 128 samples are visible at a time varying the horizontal position allows exploring the full buffer Slow Sampling 20ms div or slower Single samples are acquired and simultaneously displayed on the display o The ROLL mode waveform scrolls to the left during acquisition is only available with the slow sampling o All 256 samples are visible on the display eac...

Page 14: ...difference Multiply The channel trace will be replaced with the product Average The channel samples will be averaged to reduce aliasing See Figure 20 Channel Math Examples Gain Settings Volts Division 5 12 2 56 1 28 0 64 0 32 0 16 80m CH1 and CH2 have identical settings To display CH1 CH2 first invert CH2 and then select the SUBTRACT function Figure 22 Two signals Figure 21 CH1 CH2 Figure 23 CH1xC...

Page 15: ... Figure 24 shows the trigger menus Figure 24 Trigger menus 2 3 1 Trigger Types There are four different trigger types which determine when to display the trace on the screen Normal Trace only when the trigger event occurs Single Only one trace is displayed when the trigger event occurs Auto Trace when the trigger event occurs or after a timeout Free Trace continuously ignoring the trigger ...

Page 16: ...to below o Dual Edge The trigger occurs when the signal crosses the trigger level in any direction To select the Dual Edge mode deselect Window Edge and Slope in the Trigger Mode Menu the trigger mark will change to a dual arrow Window Trigger The trigger occurs when the signal leaves a voltage range This mode is useful for detecting overvoltages or undervoltages Two arrow trigger marks represent ...

Page 17: ...can be analyzed by varying the post trigger value Examples Post trigger 0 don t acquire more signals after the trigger Only the signals that occurred before the trigger event are shown Figure 29 Post trigger value equal zero Post trigger 50 of the sample buffer default setting Half of the buffer contains samples before the trigger and half contains the samples after the trigger Figure 30 Post trig...

Page 18: ... is only available on the Slow Sampling rates The Roll mode and Elastic mode cannot be selected simultaneously The Roll mode disables the triggering 2 4 1 2 Elastic Traces This is also called Display average on other digital oscilloscopes It works by averaging the trace data with the new data The result is a more stable waveform displayed on the screen However using this setting only makes sense w...

Page 19: ...h frequency on one channel and a low frequency on the other the channel with the lowest frequency will have low resolution Frequency measurements with the FFT are best suited for analog signals Frequency measurements on the digital inputs are done counting the pulses on the pin over one second The resolution of the measurement is 1Hz Frequency measurements with the Frequency counter are best suite...

Page 20: ...aginary component is filled with the CH2 data The result is a 256 point FFT you can use the horizontal controls described in section 2 1 3 to explore all the data since only 128 points can be shown on the display The IQ FFT is useful to monitor RF Spectrums with the proper hardware mixer 2 4 3 2 Logarithm display The log is useful when analyzing low level components on the signal When analyzing au...

Page 21: ...ce between the two markers and displays the difference as a delta voltage value 2 5 3 Automatic Cursors When the automatic cursors are enabled the device will try to automatically make measurements on the waveform Vertical Cursors The device will try find a full or half cycle of the selected waveform If both CH1 and CH2 are enabled the channel with the most amplitude will be used Horizontal Cursor...

Page 22: ...ode Figure 46 shows the pixel display 2 6 3 Show scope settings Toggles the display of the scope settings Channel gain and time base 2 6 4 Grid Type There are 4 different grid types No grid Dots for each division Vertical dots represent the scale divisions Horizontal dots represent the time base setting and the ground level of each channel Vertical grid line follow trigger Vertical dots represent ...

Page 23: ...l or use a 5V to 3 3V level converter chip Figure 47 shows the logic menus Figure 47 Logic Analyzer Menus 3 1 Input Selection A subset of the 8 digital signals can be selected Any digital signal can be enabled or disabled 3 2 Channel Position The selected digital channels can be moved up or down Only applicable if less than 8 digital signals are selected 3 3 Invert Channel All digital channels are...

Page 24: ...ed in pages There are 16 pages of data To browse thru the pages use the buttons K2 and K3 To stop and start the sniffer press the K1 button Figure 50 shows the device in sniffer mode In the UART and SPI sniffers the data can be displayed in HEX or ASCII press K2 and K3 simultaneously to toggle between them When the ASCII mode is enabled Only codes 0x0A 0x0D and 0x20 thru 0x7A will show valid chara...

Page 25: ...4800 9600 19200 38400 57600 115200 bps When the sniffer begins the screen is split in two the left side is used for the RX line and the right side is used for the TX line Each side can show 40 bytes per page With 16 pages a total of 640 bytes can be stored for each decoded line 3 11 SPI Sniffer Connect the Slave Select to Bit 4 MOSI to Bit 5 MISO to Bit 6 SCK to Bit 7 The XScope can decode both th...

Page 26: ...d You can adjust all the parameters of the waveform frequency amplitude offset and duty cycle You can sweep the frequency amplitude and duty cycle Figure 53 shows the AWG Menus Figure 53 AWG Menus When adjusting the parameters the K1 button serves as a shortcut key which sets predefined values When enabling the Sweep the waveform will be updated only on a screen refresh For a smooth sweep set the ...

Page 27: ...ion 8 6 for an example 4 2 1 Sweep Modes In the Sweep Mode menu the sweep direction can be changed Automatic change of the direction is done by enabling the Ping Pong mode The sweep acceleration increases or decreases the sweep speed the sweep speed is reset when reaching the start or end of the sweep 4 3 Technical Details The waveform is stored in a 256 byte long buffer this buffer is fed to the ...

Page 28: ...erial port To establish a serial port connection you can use a UART adapter or the Bluetooth module on the device s external port see section 1 1 5 1 Controlling the device All of the functions described previously in this manual can be controlled with the PC interface The main operating modes of the device can be selected by switching to the corresponding tab of the interface Figure 54 shows a sn...

Page 29: ...64 bytes The device uses BULK IN transfers on endpoint 1 for transferring data 770 bytes in SCOPE mode CH1 CH2 CHD FRAME and INDEX 1289 bytes in SNIFFER mode BULK OUT transfers on endpoint 1 to write to the AWG RAM buffer 256 bytes and CONTROL READ transfers on endpoint 0 for changing and reading settings The FRAME and INDEX are variables used to check the flow of the data They are also needed if ...

Page 30: ...Unsigned 8bit CH2 Horizontal Cursor B Range 0 127 pixels 21 Thold Unsigned 8bit Trigger Hold Range 0 255 0 to 255 milliseconds 22 Tpost L Unsigned 16bit Post Trigger Range 0 32767 Indicates how many samples to wait after the trigger Default is 128 23 Tpost H 24 Tsource Unsigned 8bit Trigger Source 0 CH1 1 CH2 2 9 CHD 10 External Trigger 25 Tlevel Unsigned 8bit Trigger Level Range 3 252 26 Window1 ...

Page 31: ...Bit 0 Normal Trigger Bit 1 Single Trigger The Normal Trigger bit must also be enabled for Single Trigger Bit 2 Auto Trigger Bit 3 Trigger Direction Bit 4 Round Sniffer Bit 5 Slope Trigger Bit 6 Window Trigger Bit 7 Edge Trigger Dual Edge Trigger is enabled by clearing bits 5 6 7 Mcursors Index 6 Bit 0 Roll Scope Bit 1 Automatic Cursors Bit 2 Track Cursors Bit 3 CH1 Horizontal Cursors on CH1 and CH...

Page 32: ...SPI Clock Phase MStatus Index 11 Bit 0 Update Exits triggering if the bit is set Bit 1 Update AWG The AWG parameters must be updated if the bit is set Bit 2 Update MSO The MSO parameters must be updated if the bit is set Bit 3 Go Sniffer Enters the Sniffer mode if the bit is set Bit 4 Stop Oscilloscope Stopped Bit 5 Triggered Oscilloscope Triggered Bit 6 Meter VDC If both bits are cleared the Mete...

Page 33: ...e desired AWG Frequency 32bits When using the USB interface the Index contains the lower 16bits the Value contains the high 16bits When using the Serial interface 4 additional bytes must be sent in little endian format d Save XScope s Settings in EEPROM e Save AWG wave stored in RAM to EEPROM f Stop Scope g Start Scope h Force Trigger i Auto Setup j Sets the desired Post Trigger value 16bits USB i...

Page 34: ...generated using this method The screen capture is done thru the XScope s serial port Open HyperTerminal Enter a name for a new connection example scope Enter the COM port where the device is connected Select 115200 bits per second 8 data bits Parity None 1 Stop bit Flow control None See figure 56 Figure 56 HyperTerminal Settings In the Transfer menu select Receive File Enter a folder where to save...

Page 35: ...following script and save as capture sh capture sh To use make the script executable with chmod x capture sh Then enter capture sh into a terminal followed by the serial device for example capture sh dev ttyUSB0 Then enter a name for the bmp image including the bmp file extension echo Please enter filename e g capture bmp read name stty F 1 115200 rx c name 1 1 Figure 58 Screen capture in Linux ...

Page 36: ...e measured time 𝑇1 2 69𝜇𝑠 is the half life time so 𝑅𝐶 99 95𝜇𝑠 Theory of operation Circuit theory shows that if the RC circuit is fed with a step input the output will approach a DC value exponentially figure 63 shows the equation from which we can obtain RC when the half life value is known 8 3 Half Wave Rectifier with Smoothing Capacitor 1 Build the circuit shown on figure 66 2 Set the time base ...

Page 37: ... is to plot the component s voltage versus the component s current Using the integrated waveform generator and a 1kΩ resistor we can inject current into the component The voltage is measured directly using CH1 The current thru the component is the same as the current thru the resistor the voltage on the resistor is proportional to the current The voltage on the resistor is equal to CH2 CH1 1V on t...

Page 38: ...ammer to the computer and auto install the hardware A more detailed guide on how to install the tools is found here http www atmel com dyn resources prod_documents AVRISPmkII_UG pdf 9 1 3 Instructions to update the firmware 1 Start AVR Studio 2 Connect the cable from the AVRISP to the PDI connector on the board 3 Power the board 4 Press the Display the Connect dialog button Alternatively you can g...

Page 39: ...hen connect the USB cable Once the XScope enters the bootloader the red LED will be lit and will blink with USB activity The XScope will appear as a new device on the host computer the drivers required are found in the FLIP application folder 9 2 1 Firmware update in Windows FLIP 1 Select ATXMEGA32A4U in the device selection list 2 Select USB as communication medium 3 Open the USB port to connect ...

Page 40: ...nly the old hardware revisions 1 4 and 1 5 need a PDI programmer for firmware updates 6 How much power can the non portable XScopes supply The XScope can also power external devices This is the maximum current on each voltage 5V Will be the same as the power source minus 60mA 5V Approximately 50mA but this subtracts from the available current on the 5V line 3 3V Approximately 200mA but this subtra...

Page 41: ...p then select Restore 4 The screen turns off after a certain amount of time This is the screen saver in action The screen saver time can be changed in factory options See Section 1 6 5 I built my own Xprotolab a particular button doesn t work There might be shorted pins on the microcontroller Check for debris or solder bridges Using a solder wick on the pins will help 6 When powering up the splash...

Page 42: ...scopes is available on GitHub https github com ganzziani XScopes Firmware 12 1 System Architecture The XScope uses many resources and peripherals of the XMEGA microcontroller Figure 76 shows the XScope s Architecture block diagram Figure 77 shows the Frequency Counter block diagram Figure 76 XScopes Architecture Block Diagram Figure 77 Frequency Counter Block Diagram ...

Page 43: ...XScopes User s Manual DS XScopes 3 5 December 2014 Page 43 12 2 Schematics Figure 78 Xprotolab Schematic ...

Page 44: ...www gabotronics com ...

Page 45: ...Mouser Electronics Authorized Distributor Click to View Pricing Inventory Delivery Lifecycle Information Seeed Studio 109990024 ...

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