Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope

© Brooke Clarke 2010

A scope is one of the basic electronic bench test instruments.  Although I have a rack mounted HP 54501A CRT based digital scope, it's not the most convenient thing to use and using a camera to capture screen shots leaves a lot to be desired.  The Rigol (Rigol-USA, DS1000E Series) 1052E has a color screen and easy to use digital screen capture.  Rigol scopes are re-branded by Agilent - 1000 Series and so are very high quality.

I went to some trouble to get both the scope and carry bag.  Without the carry bag the loose accessories have a way of getting lost.  I ended up making a custom box for the chain saw and it's accessories to keep them together.

The two included probes have a switch for 1:1 or 10:1 operation.   The probe is marked 1X to the left (forward) of the switch and 10X to the right.  To the left of the switch is the trimmer cap to square up a square wave for probe compensation.
At 1X the probe is speced at 7 MHz and at 10x 150 MHx.

In EEV Blog # 37 David L. Jones speculated that it might be possible to do a hardware mod on this scope to increase it's bandwidth to 100 Mhz.  Some of his viewers have figured out the hardware varactor diode circuit that sets the bandwidth.  This could be overcome by a couple of resistors to bias the diode.  BUT, a simpler way is to make a software hack using a 1:1 serial cable.  See:

EEVblog #70 – Turn your Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope into a 100MHz DS1102E (Hack)

Oct 2010 - Note: firmware version 2.2SP2 (0.2.2.2) blocks the ability to do the upgrade to 100 MHz.
The workaround is to load firmware version 2.1, do the upgrade, then reinstall the 2.2 firmware.

Thumb Drive

Select .bmp file type to save a screen shot

Press the top menu botton (to the right of the display) and use the knob to select Bit Map.  The choices are:
Wafeform -> Setups -> Bit Map -> CSV -> Factory -> Waveform

Set the Scope Time & Date

This needs to be done since it is used to stamp the file.
The file is stamped 1 Jan 2006, How to change it? let me know.

Save .bmp to Thumb Drive

Press the STORAGE white button at the top right
Select External
Press New File
Input a file name using the knob (left - right to select a letter) press knob to set the letter.
[Note: the lower right conrer of the letter selection box switches between upper and lower case letters.]
The screen shot (320 wide x 234 high, i.e. 1/4 VGA) below is of the scope probe cal signal.

UltraScope

Getting UltraScope control software to work is not obivious. 
Working second Attempt 5 Apr 2010:

• Install "Ultrascope for DS1000E Series.msi" from the CD that came with the scope (not a downloaded version).
• Try to run Ultrascope and get missing VISAxxx.DLL error
• Download and install NI VISA 4.6.2 (360 MB file), reboot computer
• Connect scope using USB-B to USB-A cable
  Computer finds new hardware and installs driver
• Check Device Manager, if ?DS1000series then "Reinstall Driver", when done no ?
  In Properties you'll see DS1000 series USB0
  
• Run Ultrascope and click on "Connect to Oscilloscope"
• Select Resource:  USB0::ox1AB1::ox0588::DS1K0005888::INSTR
• Can not make connection to scope, Red ball in upper right of Ultrascope (disconnected)
• After powering the scope off then back on, and confirming that Device Manager shows no problems,
  started Ultrascope and selected the USB0 device, now it's running (blue ball in upper right of window,
  BUT there is no option to set the date or time of the scope to fix the incorrect file date/time stamp.
  

Test Equipment
Microwave Test Equipment

EEVblog #19 - Rigol caught with their pants down!
EEVblog #37 - Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope Teardown & Upgrade Instructions
Agilent firmware update confirms Rigol connection - Agilent firmware for the DSO1014A has "Rigol Technologies" in the code.
Deal Extreme (on of the China disties I've done business with) has the DS1052E for ($404  Feb 2010, $362 Oct 2010)
Dave Jones also makes the uCurrent adapter for measuring low currents with a DMM