A simple second monitor for Rigol MSO1000Z/DS1000Z-series digital oscilloscopes and Android devices.
- I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF THIS BREAKS YOUR ANDROID DEVICE OR YOUR TEST EQUIPMENT, SENDS IT OUT OF CALIBRATION, VOIDS THE WARRANTY, OR RELEASES THE MAGIC BLUE SMOKE. IT IS BEING PROVIDED AS-IS.
- This has only been tested on a Rigol DS1054Z and an Android Nexus 6 running Lollipop 5.0.1 and 5.1
- It requires a "USB-on-the-go" adapter to enable the Android device to act as host, and this should ultimately plug in to the USB port on the back of the 'scope.
- Currently it only detects the 'scope when it is plugged in after the app has been launched.
- Due to a bug in Android (or maybe a misunderstanding on my part), the app will ask you for permission to access the 'scope every time you plug it in, regardless of whether you check the "remember permission" box.
- Only channel 1 is supported at the moment, but other channels are easy to add.
- It seems there is no way to determine the RUN/STOP mode the 'scope is currently in, so the RUN/STOP button on the phone provides no feedback, merely sends the command to the 'scope and assumes the 'scope is in RUN mode when the app is started.
- Thanks to the eagle-eyed PeDre on the EEVBlog forum, it is possible to get the RUN/STOP status by calling :TRIGger:STATus? So expect this in an upcoming commit.
I have tinkered with the Ethernet interface to my scope and come up with this Python script to test it: https://gist.github.com/MerseyViking/c67b7d6ebdda55929fbd
Seems fairly straightforward, so implementing it on Android should be a breeze.
- Implement remaining channels.
- Add channel statistics as selected from the left-side buttons.
- Detect the presence of the 'scope when the app is started.
- Add support for other 'scopes that use the USBTMC standard. Anyone with a bunch of 'scopes and a desire to write some Android code?
- Test on a wider variety of phones.
- See if reasonable throughput can be achieved via a USB Bluetooth dongle.
It might be quite fun to record waveform data on the Android device, but as we can't gurantee we get every part of the waveform due to USB bandwith and CPU speed, and there appears to be no way of getting an absolute timestamp, this might only be useful as a series of frames rather than a continuous signal. Maybe in rolling mode we could get something suitable for playback, but the timebase for that has to be quite large so there will be signal bandwidth limits. We could trigger the 'scope's record/playback mode and maybe suck out the data via that interface, but I've not looked at that.
This app was developed for fun, and so I can see the waveform without moving my head much when probing hard-to-reach and fiddly pins. I have no intention of turning it into a full interface to the 'scope unless someone pays me to do it. Of course, feel free to fork and enhance the app if you want.
This code is released under the MIT license, so you can pretty much do what you like with it, but I would like to reserve the right to put it on the Play Store at some point in the future. If you have a burning issue with this, let me know and we can sort something out.