Dangerous Prototypes Open Source Hardware

miniscope v3

October 16, 2010, 02:35:49 pm

I saw miniscope v3 on the net and contacted Tomasz Ostrowski asking about Bus Pirate support... Since he does not have Bus Pirate I gave him access to my computer with Bus Pirate attached to it... He made dll for BusPirate... and it's available for download alongside of miniscope at:

http://tomeko.net/miniscope_v3/index.php 

For now it only has only  manual trigger. Features that can be added are: rising/falling edge trigger, "continuos trigger" (continuous streaming), variable sampling rate (Bus Pirate has single sampling frequency but library could simulate lower sampling frequencies by data decimation)

Re: miniscope v3

Reply #1 – October 16, 2010, 03:13:02 pm

Fantastic, thanks! I'll post this up.

Re: miniscope v3

Reply #2 – October 22, 2010, 10:40:19 pm

I've updated library with slope trigger and continuous sampling mode. I think data decimation would not interest anyone (buffer capacity is not a problem as it is software defined and zooming in/out is a part of a GUI). Most interesting function would be recording samples stream to binary file for further browsing - samples are divided into blocks, but multiple blocks can be selected for viewing at once (working with 1M samples should be no problem for less than 8 years old PC with OpenGL supporting graphics card).

Just for convenience I've put together minimal (binaries only) package: http://tomeko.net/bin/miniscope_v3/miniscope_v3_bp.7z, use 7-zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) to unpack it. Edit device/bus_pirate.cfg file to change COM port number if needed and it's ready to run.

Thanks to Siklosi for testing, any problem reports or usability confirmations would be welcome.

Re: miniscope v3

Reply #3 – October 23, 2010, 10:22:37 am

Thanks Tomasz,

This is a really neat app, nice work! I started a wiki page for notes about the Bus Pirate and miniscope use. I added basic setup info and a screenshot:
http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Bus ... niscope_v3

Re: miniscope v3

Reply #4 – October 24, 2010, 09:52:35 am

I'm a  newbie with the Bus Pirate. Today I ran the self-test and Voltmeter (D), both working fine. Tried Miniscope V3 for the Bus Pirate. It doesn't plot, nothing at all. Miniscope appears to be communicating with the Bus Pirate, as the log shows it receives some start-up bytes. Assumed I connect power to measure to the ADC pin and ground pin, is this correct? Miniscope app doesn't close when I try to exit, instead it becomes unresponsive. What should I try next?

Re: miniscope v3

Reply #5 – October 24, 2010, 10:10:40 am

Which version of buspirate you are running? You can check this with the 'i' command.

Make sure you are running (at least) version 5.8. If you need to upgrade the procedure is described in the wiki:

http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Ds30_Loader_GUI

This describes the procedure when upgrade v4+ firmwares, if you have an older upgrade the bootloaders first: http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/V2_to_v4_upgrades

Re: miniscope v3

Reply #6 – October 24, 2010, 11:49:48 pm

Sjaak, Much appreciate your reply. Although I bought my Bus Pirate in July from SEEDStudio, it has V4.2 firmware. I tried to upgrade to V5.8 firmware, but something happened to corrupt the bootloader, so no luck. I'm not sure how to reload the current bootloader. The instructions to reload the bootloader are confusing for me, as the pages I found are obsolete and out of date. I need to reload the newest version of the bootloader. I realize that I may have only ONE chance to do this  via USB, if this is even possible.... please advise!

(Maybe I caused the bootloader corruption- at first I used the original ds30 Loader without the settings.xml etc files to attempt the firmware update as the link to this app is on the Bus Pirate firmware page. I didn't see that there is a special version of ds30 made just for the Bus Pirate, included with the Bus Pirate firmware!)

Otherwise, my Bus Pirate is still working ok, it passes the self test, etc.

-Ken

Re: miniscope v3

Reply #7 – October 25, 2010, 12:22:15 am

I'm sorry for the old firmware, but upgrading is fairly simple (and safe) as long as you follow the instruction precisely. I don't think you broke the bootloader, since the buspirate still functions (if the bootloader was damaged, you won't)

you need the windows pq24 instead of the ds30 loader to load the bootloader installer. the proces is described here: http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/V2_to_v4_upgrades

After upgrading to the new bootloader you can flash v5.8.

Re: miniscope v3

Reply #8 – October 25, 2010, 04:08:13 am

Sjaak,

Dangerous indeed, for newbees! Actually, the bootloader is fine and apparently up-to-date V4.2. My problem was that the Windows firmware GUI upgrader just couldn't find the bootloader. So, I set-up and tried the Pirate-Loader console program http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Pirate-Loader_console_upgrade_application_%28Linux,_Mac,_Windows%29 which worked flawlessly to upgrade this BusPirate from V4.2 to V5.8.

Miniscope V3 is now working for me with this minor quirk, that the app doesn't close until the BusPirate is disconnected.

Thanks for this cool BusPirate app.

Re: miniscope v3

Reply #9 – October 25, 2010, 08:00:01 am

Hi Windrider - glad you got it, thanks for the update. The v4.+ bootloader is super resilient, it's pretty hard to hurt it.

Re: miniscope v3

Reply #10 – May 09, 2011, 04:33:29 pm

Hi there, i'm trying to understand miniscope using with buspirate but it's kinda hard because of the lack of documentation about miniscope and how to configure it and how to plug the pins of the BP with the electrical object we want to probe. Anyway, i have a question about a picture in the wiki page here:
http://http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Bus_Pirate:_miniscope_v3
I'm wondering how and where did you probe to get a perfect sinusoidal signal like that:

It is alternate current, isn't it?
Keep up the good work for BP and Miniscope
Regards

Re: Re: miniscope v3

Reply #11 – May 09, 2011, 07:27:05 pm

Hi int0x13,

The documentation was donated by the author of Miniscope, I'd guess this is an example from other hardware.

Miniscope should measure through the ADC probe pin.

Re: Re: miniscope v3

Reply #12 – November 23, 2011, 04:46:22 pm

would it be possible to have more than one input into the scope? (i'm not sure it's hardware or software restriction as it's using internally the same command that the d/D command,not sure).

Re: Re: miniscope v3

Reply #13 – November 25, 2011, 08:41:55 am

Hi int0x13,

I'm not sure about software support, but the current Bus Pirate firmware only has one ADC probe (measured with the d/D command). Vpu also has an ADC on it, though it is not intended for that purpose :) It could be added if firmware and software support came together.