Computing stuff tied to the physical world

Logic Analyzer: fantastic!

In Hardware on Jan 27, 2009 at 20:39

Today, I received my new USB-connected/-powered 16-line 100 MHz logic analyzer:

DSC_0021.jpg

It captures signals in time and displays / analyzes patters in them. Here’s a setup which decodes 2 signals of an I2C bus:

DSC_0022.jpg

The instrument shown here is a ZeroPlus LAP-16032U (old version: 32 Kb memory w/ compression), now superseded by this one. For € 120 this includes several protocol analyzers, including I2C, SPI, and async serial (RS232). And the built-in hardware compression means it can capture very long pulse sequences.

This is a phenomenal debugging tool and time-saver. Well… for people who deal with logic signals and need to analyze them, that is!

  1. Hi:

    I am planning on buying this logic analyzer in the US. seems like a really good price for $120. Is it really worth it?

    what were your impressions? I think the good selling point is the sampling frequency. How’s the software interface ?

    sorry for so many questions.

    Thanks! -raj

    Rajesh Kovvuri 28 January 2009 at 12am

  2. Hi:

    I just bought one today. going crazy on how to get the thing working. Can you help?

    I am using the Port A0 to sampling a simple 1khz oscillator at 3.0v. I set the internal sampling to 80Mhz and try all the trigger and the enable(what is this enable?). No luck. I get the window at the bottom saying “waiting” and i dont see any signals. Any help appreciated.

    Thanks!

    raj 3 February 2009 at 6am

  3. Weird. I don’t remember having any trouble with it. DId you plug the cables in on the proper side? The connector has two rows, but only the side marked A0 etc actually works (I think the other row is for the 32-channel version). Also, you can manually trigger it to press the Start button – if that doesn’t work for you, I suggest contacting the people you got it from for support.

    FYI, sampling a 1 KHz signal at 80 MHz only makes sense with compression on (each signal level takes 80,000 samples). Try a lower rate first, i.e. say 5..10x the signal you’re trying to watch.

    jcw 3 February 2009 at 9am

  4. Thanks for your reply. Yup, i guess the 80mhz was the culprit. There were way too many samples to capture the 1khz signal. Looks like about 3x sampling should be sufficient. Another question: Did the I2c, SPI and the UART decoders come with the logic analyzer ?

    The printed manual is no good. I had to download a 16064U’s manual and figure what the “enable” in the logic analyzer meant.

    Thanks!

    Rajesh Kovvuri 3 February 2009 at 4pm

  5. Yes – I2C, SPI, UART included.

    jcw 4 February 2009 at 11am

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