Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST0006)

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Tony Jaques
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:26 am

Re: Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST000

Post by Tony Jaques » Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:15 pm

Hi all,
I received my Hobby components 8 channel logic analyser
module last Friday, and by Sunday had registered with this group.
So you have probably already guessed that I have not be able to
install the driver!
It would be a big help to me if someone could either confirm
that installation of a recent module is possible under Windows
XP (SP3) - in which case I will wait to see if any other driver
appears some day, or confirm that it is not possible - in which
case it can go into the "keep for parts" drawer. It was cheap
enough after all.

For anyone trying to follow the same route...

I have worked through the "Solving USB problems" guidance:
1: Not the cable or port
2: Not applicable
3: In device manager the Analyser has a "yellow" warning.
ID50 and 608c confirmed.
Repeated uninstall and re-install is the same.
4: zadig.exe - which should of course be zadig xp.exe reports
a WCID driver installed, but
5: The analyser is not seen in Pulseview.
An attempt to produce a log file using c:\Program Files\sigrok
(etc) merely reports "c:\Program is not recognised as an internal
or external command.". (Of course).
Navigating to the sigrok-cli directory and running the command
from there does produce plenty of verbiage, but no file appears
in directory c:\test. So I can not produce a log file.

I have no intention of paying a lot of money to downgrade to
a later version of Windows. It would be cheaper to buy a surplus
analyser!

Even if there is no response, thank you for reading through this.

Tony...

RedEyer
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:39 pm

Re: Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST000

Post by RedEyer » Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:25 pm

Tony Jaques wrote:Hi all,
I received my Hobby components 8 channel logic analyser
module last Friday, and by Sunday had registered with this group.
So you have probably already guessed that I have not be able to
install the driver!
It would be a big help to me if someone could either confirm
that installation of a recent module is possible under Windows
XP (SP3) - in which case I will wait to see if any other driver
appears some day, or confirm that it is not possible - in which
case it can go into the "keep for parts" drawer. It was cheap
enough after all.

For anyone trying to follow the same route...

I have worked through the "Solving USB problems" guidance:
1: Not the cable or port
2: Not applicable
3: In device manager the Analyser has a "yellow" warning.
ID50 and 608c confirmed.
Repeated uninstall and re-install is the same.
4: zadig.exe - which should of course be zadig xp.exe reports
a WCID driver installed, but
5: The analyser is not seen in Pulseview.
An attempt to produce a log file using c:\Program Files\sigrok
(etc) merely reports "c:\Program is not recognised as an internal
or external command.". (Of course).
Navigating to the sigrok-cli directory and running the command
from there does produce plenty of verbiage, but no file appears
in directory c:\test. So I can not produce a log file.

I have no intention of paying a lot of money to downgrade to
a later version of Windows. It would be cheaper to buy a surplus
analyser!

Even if there is no response, thank you for reading through this.

Tony...

Hello Tony!

I do not use Windows, but I use cross-platform tool under Linux, so it can be used for Windows as well.
Did you try it?

Anthony
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2016 1:52 am

Re: Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST000

Post by Anthony » Tue Nov 01, 2016 5:22 am

I do not use Windows, but I use cross-platform tool under Linux, so it can be used for Windows as well.
Did you try it
?

I did :)
On Mint 17.3 it shows Disconnected. I installed the udev rules and added one with my device's VID/PID, and did sudo /etc/init.d/udev restart. I even tried running the tool with gksudo! Any suggestions?

Tony Jaques
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:26 am

Re: Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST000

Post by Tony Jaques » Wed Nov 02, 2016 7:25 pm

Hi Redeyer,
Than you for the suggestion. I have not used Linux, though on a couple of occasions
I did try "run from the disk" magazine cover disk versions of it. So I certainly have not
tried emulating Windows from within Linux!
Looking on this board though there seem to be about as many queries from Linux
users as from Windows users. Having read quite a few of them I think that is is fairly
safe to assume that it is not going to work.
I will direct a query to Hobby components' e-mail and if anything useful does come
out of it I will report back here in case it might help someone else.

Tony...

andrew
Site Admin
Posts: 1374
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:15 pm

Re: Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST000

Post by andrew » Thu Nov 03, 2016 11:12 am

By coincidence another user (philg54) has recently reported the same issue on XP and was able to resolve the problem. You can find the thread here:

http://forum.hobbycomponents.com/viewto ... 5142#p5142

I believe that the current version of drivers available in the first post of this thread are are not suitable for Windows XP. For XP you need to install the drivers via the Zidag utility. As you have already pointed out this needs to be the Zidag_xp version which you'll find in the following location:

C:\Program Files\sigrok\PulseView\


However before installing the drivers via this utility you will need to completely remove your currently installed drivers. You can follow these steps (written for later version of windows but should be the same for XP) to do this:


1)Open up device manager and right click on the entry for the logic analyser. In the window that opens up select 'uninstall'.

2) A new window will open up, THIS BIT IS VERY IMPORTANT - in this windows you will see a checkbox labeled 'Delete the driver software for this device'. Make sure this checkbox is ticked and then click ok.

3) Windows will now both uninstall and delete the driver from your system.

4) Unplug, then reconnect the USB cable of the logic analyser and check to see if Windows is able to find a driver. If it does this means there is more than one copy of the driver installed and you will need to remove any additional copies. Just keep repeating the above steps until Windows can no longer find a driver. You may have to do this a few times.

5) If you are using a 64 bit version of windows or have Windows Signed Driver Enforcement enabled you will need to disable it. This is usually done by selecting an option in the boot menu when the computer reboots. For Windows 7 and earlier you can normally bring this menu up by pressing F8 whilst rebooting Windows.

6) Finally install the driver via the Zidag utility.
Comments made by this poster do not necessarily reflect the views of Hobby Components Ltd.

Tony Jaques
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:26 am

Re: Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST000

Post by Tony Jaques » Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:42 pm

Hi again,
Andrew did e-mail me directly as well, so I have not been ignoring his post.
Even so it is appropriate to also thank him " in public" here.
Partly because of Andrew's help, and partly from my ovn experiments
I have been able to arrive at a working setup. I do intend to write my procedure
up and post it here, in case it helps someone else, but there will be a short
delay. Not because I can't read my own scribbles, but because over the last
couple of days I have had a series of electronic failures - one of which is my
fancy electronically controlled soldering iron, which is needed to fix the others!
They are not related to the Logic analyser, but they must take priority
over playing with it unfortunately.
Tony...

Tony Jaques
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:26 am

Re: Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST000

Post by Tony Jaques » Mon Nov 07, 2016 9:07 pm

Hello again,
Sorry about the pause. Duff gear now fixed.
Now about the installation of drivers for the Logic analyser
module:
First I should mention that previously I had not looked at
the Sigrok documentation. There seemed little point when the
module was not recognised. However there are a few helpful
things that I picked up by reading through it. So if you were
thinking as I was - think again.
I will also point out that I use plug in drives "c:" and
one of my plug-ins is specifically for trying new software
before it is allowed near my "General purpose" or "Internet"
drives. The significance of this will become evident later.

The routine that I followed to get a working setup was pretty
much as Andrew recommended:
Install PulseView first
Plug in analyser
Cancel Windows "Found new hardware" attempts to find drivers
- it won't work anyway
Run Start/Program Files/sigrok/PulseView/zadig (WinXP).
I set "No" to updates
Zadig should show that it has found a USB device, and with
the correct ID: 1D50 608C.

Now here there are two possibilities
On a laptop that I have, just selecting the default driver
Win USB (V6.1.7600.16385) resulted in the module being seen by
PulseView.
However on my "experimental" drive (also running Win XP+SP3)
It didn't work. But when I instead selected a WCID driver the
module was later seen by PulseView!

I then made a mistake!
I decided to overwrite my "Experimental" drive with its Ghost
image. I wanted to confirm that the result did not depend upon
some other existing software. (That's just one of the beauties of
using plug in drives and Ghost images; you can cheerfully start
again when something gets corrupted.) This "new" drive had no
software installed - except Win XP (SP3) of course.

Now PulseView won't run!

It stops with the error message "The application failed to
initialise (0xc0150002)".
Oh dear! Some trial software on my experimental drive must have
left behind some software that is not in Windows, and PulseView
requires it. I have of course no idea what trial program did it,
much less what it put there.
Worse still; I have just tried PulseView on my "General
purpose" drive and it won't run there either.

I will analyse what is on the laptop and see if I can discover
what it has that my GP drive does not have, and try things one at
a time. (One of the .net versions perhaps?).

Watch this space!

Tony...

nedw
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2017 5:44 pm

Re: Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST000

Post by nedw » Sat Feb 11, 2017 6:17 pm

I eventually got this working on my Win7-64 system, and wanted to post my experiences in case it's of help to someone else. Bottom line is that the Hobby Components driver posted on the HC instruction webpage did not work and I had to use Zadig to install "WinUSB v 6.1.xx.xx" with the "Install Driver" option rather than "Install WCID Driver" as directed on the webpage.

When first plugging the analyser in, it was detected as an unknown device in Device Manager, as expected.

All of the next steps I did with Driver Signature Enforcement turned off. On Win7, this is changed via the boot menu accessed by pressing F8 continuously during boot. I'm not sure if it's necessary for all steps, but that's what I did anyway.

When I tried the HC driver first of all, I could not get the install_x64.exe binary to run - it just produces a brief flash showing the outline of a window before disappearing again. After trying a few times and giving up, I downloaded PulseView from the sigrok site and ran the Zadig executable (the PulseView link on the instruction page is broken btw).

When I tried "Install WCID Driver" for "USB v6.1.xxx.xxx" driver, as directed by the webpage, this did not work. Although Zadig says that the driver installed successfully, the Win7 "USB driver install" popup (the one that appears whenever you install a USB driver) indicated that the driver was not installed successfully. Clicking the dialog showed a couple of drivers with "not found" against them. This is when I tried the "Install Driver" option instead of "Install WCID Driver" for the same "USB v6.1.xxx.xxx" driver, and this worked okay. I was then able to find the device in PulseView and was able to capture.

Hope this helps.

frankchannel
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 8:48 am

Re: Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST000

Post by frankchannel » Mon Mar 20, 2017 8:57 am

Has anyone managed to get their logic analyzer working under Mac OS X?

I received my logic analyzer a few months ago, but have only now gotten around to trying to set it up.
I was able to install sigrok just fine using homebrew and the instructions on sigrok's wiki.

But when I run pulseview my device is not recognized. I also tried running "sigrok-cli --scan" and the ouptut of which is:

Code: Select all

sigrok-cli --scan
sr: resource: Failed to open resource 'fx2lafw-sigrok-fx2-8ch.fw' (use loglevel 5/spew for details).
sr: fx2lafw: Firmware upload failed for device 20.27 (logical).
sr: testo: Failed to get manufacturer string descriptor: LIBUSB_ERROR_OTHER.
sr: testo: Failed to get product string descriptor: LIBUSB_ERROR_OTHER.
sr: testo: Failed to get manufacturer string descriptor: LIBUSB_ERROR_OTHER.
sr: testo: Failed to get product string descriptor: LIBUSB_ERROR_OTHER.
The following devices were found:
demo - Demo device with 12 channels: D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 A0 A1 A2 A3
fx2lafw - sigrok FX2 LA (8ch) with 8 channels: D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7
It doesn't seem like the device is recognized to me. For example, when I list the devices using "ls /dev/" there is no entry for the logic analyzer (sometimes USB devices are listed here when they are plugged in).

I tried a few different USB cables and both USB ports on my MacBook.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Edit:

I tried the command "ioreg -p IOUSB" and something does indeed show up for the device:

Code: Select all

VendorSpecificDevice@14113000  <class IOUSBDevice, id 0x10000d863, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (5 ms), retain 9>
            {
              "sessionID" = 572661082923815
              "iManufacturer" = 0
              "bNumConfigurations" = 1
              "idProduct" = 24716
              "bcdDevice" = 0
              "Bus Power Available" = 50
              "bMaxPacketSize0" = 64
              "iProduct" = 0
              "iSerialNumber" = 0
              "USB Address" = 30
              "bDeviceClass" = 255
              "IOUserClientClass" = "IOUSBDeviceUserClientV2"
              "bDeviceSubClass" = 255
              "locationID" = 336670720
              "bcdUSB" = 512
              "PortUsingExtraPowerForWake" = 0
              "PortNum" = 3
              "IOCFPlugInTypes" = {"9dc7b780-9ec0-11d4-a54f-000a27052861"="IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBLib.bundle"}
              "bDeviceProtocol" = 255
              "Device Speed" = 2
              "idVendor" = 7504
              "IOGeneralInterest" = "IOCommand is not serializable"
            }
I also opened the case to have a look at the PCB. There are several components on the bottom side that have not been soldered (C1, C5, and R4). I'm not sure if this is normal or not. On the top side, 2 of the USB pins appear to be bridged. Overall the soldering is not great. See the attached photo.
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andrew
Site Admin
Posts: 1374
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:15 pm

Re: Hobby Components USB 8CH 24MHz Logic Analyser (HCTEST000

Post by andrew » Mon Mar 20, 2017 3:34 pm

I also opened the case to have a look at the PCB. There are several components on the bottom side that have not been soldered (C1, C5, and R4).
I can confirm that it is normal for components C1, C5, & R4 not to be fitted.
On the top side, 2 of the USB pins appear to be bridged.
They are a GND and NC (not connected) pin so being connected together shouldn't have any effect on the operation of the analyser.

Any help would be very much appreciated.
We actually program these analysers ourselves. As part of the programming process we have to push software into the analysers volatile RAM via the USB interface. If there are any USB interface or processor issues it is normally pick up at this point. Barring a problem occurring in transit to you it's unlikely for there to be an issue with the analysers USB interface. One exception to this is the supplied USB cable which we don't test. If you have a spare one it doesn't hurt to give it a try as it's is more likely to be faulty then the analyser itself.

I'm afraid I'm only going to be able to give you very limited help in getting the software up and running on OSX but I do notice from the sigrok-cli scan that it is complaining that it can't find the firmware file (fx2lafw-sigrok-fx2-8ch.fw). This is the firmware that gets transferred into the analysers RAM when Sigrock first initialises the analyser.

Do you have this file on your computer? If not you may want to take a look at step 3 in the Linux install guide in the first post of this thread.
Comments made by this poster do not necessarily reflect the views of Hobby Components Ltd.

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