Siglent SDS1000X-E/SDS800X-HD/SDS1000X-HD series Bode Plot

Bode plot with Siglent oscilloscopes (SDS1000X-E, SDS800X-HD, SDS1000X-HD, and probably others) and a non-siglent AWG.

Can also be used as a regular VXI-11 front-end for the supported AWGs, without the Siglent scope.

Overview

At a certain point after getting the SDS1204X-E oscilloscope I started to wonder if it might be possible to use the Bode plot function with a non-Siglent waveform generator. After some hours of researching and reverse engineering I wrote this Python program which is a small server which emulates Siglent arbitrary waveform generator.

The oscilloscope connects using LAN to a PC running this program. The program makes the oscilloscope think that it communicates with a genuine Siglent signal generator. The program extracts the commands sent to the generator, parses them and translates to the command set, which can be understood by the connected to the PC non-Siglent generator.

This tool can also be used to control the supported AWGs via other VISA tools, independently of a Siglent scope. It supports discovery over the network.

The current version of the program was tested under Linux and MacOS only. It will likely work under Windows too, with an up to date python version.

Supported AWG Models

As of September 2024 the program supports the following models:

• Uni-Trend UTG1000x (like the UTG1022X) This is a 2 channel 40MHz AWG. It connects to the PC via USB, and talks a dialect of the SCPI 1992.0 standard. There may be other devices that use this same dialect, so you may be able to use this driver for other AWGs. port must be a Visa compatible connection string. See below.

• Rigol DG800/DG900/DG1000Z series (like the DG811..DG992 and DG1062Z). When "liberated", those are 2 channel up to 100MHz AWGs with USB and ethernet interface ¹, that talks a dialect of the SCPI 1992.0 standard. There may be other devices that use this same dialect, so you may be able to use this driver for other AWGs. port must be a Visa compatible connection string, be it USB or ethernet. See below.

• BK Precision BK4075 One channel 25MHz AWG. port must be a serial port. You must also provide baud_rate if you use another speed than 19200. See below. You might also be able to get this AWG working via the visa driver.

• RD JDS6600 Chinese generator which is widely sold on eBay and AliExpress. port must be a serial port. See below.

• Feeltech FYxxxx A range of Chinese generators. This driver is a newer driver than has some improvements over the older FY6600 driver, and supports FY2300, FY6600, FY6800, the older FY6900 and probably more. port must be a serial port. See below.

• Feeltech FY6900 A Chinese generator. This driver has some improvements that are needed for the later FY6900 versions, that require the frequency to be sent as Hz instead of uHz. For the rest it is the same driver as the generic FY driver. port must be a serial port. See below.

• Feeltech FY6600 Another Chinese generator which is widely sold on eBay and AliExpress. This is an older driver that has less checking. Use it when the above drivers do not work. This will however mean that some changes to the above drivers might be needed. port must be a serial port. See below.

• AD9910 Arduino Shield DDS AD9910 Shield. port must be a serial port. See below.

Oscilloscope Configuration

Before starting the program you have to tell the oscilloscope how to connect to the waveform generator. Connect your oscilloscope to the same network where your PC is connected. Then go to Configure => AWG I/O in the Bode plot settings. Define LAN connection and the IP addres of your PC as the AWG IP. Please keep Amplitude Unit to Vpp. This program does not (yet) support other units.

When you start the program, it will automatically test the communication between the PC and the AWG, and start the AWG server on the PC. Once the program is up and running, you can press the Test Connection button on the oscilloscope to test the communication between the oscilloscope and the PC.

Requirements

To run this program you must have Python 3.8+ installed. Python 2.7 is not supported anymore.

You will need the following pip packages:

• pyserial
• PyVISA-py

If you have an old python version, you may also need to upgrade the typing_extensions version (as required by PyVISA-py).

Running The Program

The source code is located in the sds1004x_bode directory of this repository.

Under Linux, Python sockets requires elevated privileges, therefore the program has to be run with su or sudo, or better, allow python access with a command like sudo setcap 'CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE+ep' /bin/python3.10 (to be adapted to your situation). On MacOS and Windows you likely will not need all this.

The program must be run in a command line terminal. The file to be run is bode.py. In order to run it, change the current path to the directory where you downloaded the source code. Then write the following command:

python bode.py <awg_name> [<port>] [<baud_rate>] [-h] [-v[v[v]]]

where

• <awg_name> is the name of the AWG connected to your PC: jds6600, bk4075, fy, fy6900, fy6600, ad9910, dg800, utg1000x or dummy.

• <port> is the port to which your AWG is connected. The type depends on you AWG, see the explanations above. For serial port AWGs, it will be something like /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyACM0. If you use the dummy generator, you don't have to specify the port. If you use one of the SCPI compatible devices like the dg800 or utg1000x, you must specify a Visa compatible connection string, like TCPIP::192.168.001.204::INSTR or USB0::9893::6453::DG1234567890A::0::INSTR

• <baud_rate> The serial baud rate as defined in the AWG settings. bk4075 uses a default speed of 19200. All others run on 115200, and this parameter will be ignored for them.

The dummy generator was added for running this program without connecting a signal generator. The program will emulate a Siglent AWG and the oscilloscope will generate a Bode plot but no commands will be sent to the AWG.

Use -h for help text.

Use -v or -vv or -vvv for logging verbosity. The first logs the driver info, the next also logs VXI-11 info, the last also logs port mapper info. By default, only the startup phase and the incoming commands are logged.

If the program starts successfully, and with -vvv, you'll see the following output:

Initializing AWG...
AWG: jds6600
Port: /dev/ttyUSB0
IDN: jds6600
AWG initialized.
Starting AWG server...
Portmapper: Listening to UDP and TCP ports on 0.0.0.0:111
VXI-11: Listening to TCP port 0.0.0.0:9010

After starting the program, follow the usual procedure of creating Bode plot. After starting the plotting, the program output will be similar to the following (when using -vvv):

UDPPortmapper: Incoming connection from 192.168.14.27:55916.
UDPPortmapper: Sending to TCP port 9009
VXI-11 CREATE_LINK, SCPI command: inst0
VXI-11 DEVICE_WRITE, SCPI command: IDN-SGLT-PRI?
VXI-11 DEVICE_READ, SCPI command: None
VXI-11 DESTROY_LINK, SCPI command: None
VXI-11 moving to TCP port 9010
UDPPortmapper: Incoming connection from 192.168.14.27:48446.
UDPPortmapper: Sending to TCP port 9010
VXI-11 CREATE_LINK, SCPI command: inst0
VXI-11 DEVICE_WRITE, SCPI command: C1:OUTP LOAD,50;BSWV WVTP,SINE,PHSE,0,FRQ,15000,AMP,2,OFST,0;OUTP ON
> C1:OUTP LOAD,50;BSWV WVTP,SINE,PHSE,0,FRQ,15000,AMP,2,OFST,0;OUTP ON
VXI-11 DESTROY_LINK, SCPI command: None
VXI-11 moving to TCP port 9009
UDPPortmapper: Incoming connection from 192.168.14.27:50264.
UDPPortmapper: Sending to TCP port 9009
VXI-11 CREATE_LINK, SCPI command: inst0
VXI-11 DEVICE_WRITE, SCPI command: C1:BSWV?
> C1:BSWV?
VXI-11 DEVICE_READ, SCPI command: None
VXI-11 DESTROY_LINK, SCPI command: None
VXI-11 moving to TCP port 9010
UDPPortmapper: Incoming connection from 192.168.14.27:55976.
UDPPortmapper: Sending to TCP port 9010
VXI-11 CREATE_LINK, SCPI command: inst0
VXI-11 DEVICE_WRITE, SCPI command: C1:BSWV FRQ,10
> C1:BSWV FRQ,10
VXI-11 DESTROY_LINK, SCPI command: None
VXI-11 moving to TCP port 9009
UDPPortmapper: Incoming connection from 192.168.14.27:48088.
UDPPortmapper: Sending to TCP port 9009
VXI-11 CREATE_LINK, SCPI command: inst0
VXI-11 DEVICE_WRITE, SCPI command: C1:BSWV FRQ,20
> C1:BSWV FRQ,20
VXI-11 DESTROY_LINK, SCPI command: None
VXI-11 moving to TCP port 9010

When done, you can stop the process via Ctrl-C.

Some possible errors

If you get an error message with Address already in use. Cannot use ... for listening., use netstat or lsof to look what process is already using the port. It might be because you have nfs.server running via rpcbind. For that case, just disable it while running the bode plot: sudo systemctl stop rpcbind.socket rpcbind.service.

SCPI compatible AWGs

Many different SCPI dialects exist. If you have an AWG that is not listed but is SCPI compatible, you may try one of the existing SCPI drivers (dg800 or utg1000x). If you want to do a quick test, adapt awg_tests.py to your device and address, it will test all commands. If your device does not talk one of the existing dialects, you can create a new one easily by using one of the existing drivers as example. Please tell us if you have done so (via github Issue or Pull request), so that we can add the device to the list.

Using independently from the scope, via VISA

This is possible, but you should set a large timeout on your Instrument or when using open_resource() when using serial AWGs. See the example in testSCPI.py

Changelog

2024-09-19

• new driver for newer fy6900 devices.
• better serial port handling for some drivers.
• better VISA compliance: no longer a need to specify UDP or not. This version listens on both UDP and TCP and is therefore compatible with most VISA tools and older plus newer Siglent scopes.
• better logging handling, now available in 4 verbosity levels

2024-09-06

• compatibility with older Python versions (tested down to 3.8).
• better exception handling on port opening.

2024-08-25

• lint cleanup.
• added generic fy gen support (FY2300, FY6600, FY6800, FY6900 and probably more) from the 3tch-a-sketch and mattwach forks
• readme clarifications.

2024-06-27

• Added support for Uni-Trend UTG1000x

2024-05-01

• The program supports the SDS800X-HD series (that uses UDP instead of TCP for the port mapping, and has trouble with re-using the VXI port)
• Added support for the Rigol DG800/DG900 series AWGs over Ethernet. USB was not tested, but should work. You might even use this implementation to connect to other Ethernet or USB connected SCPI 1992.0 standard compatible devices.

2023-11-13

• The program supports the AD9910 Arduino Shield sold by GRA & ACFH.

2019-01-30

• The program supports Feeltech FY6600 AWG.

2018-07-18

• The first version of the program was uploaded to GitHub.

Follow-up Projects

• espBode by Jakub Stępniewicz SQ6SFO - an interface between a Siglent SDS1004X-E oscilloscope and FY6800 AWG implemented on ESP-01 module.

Contributing

I'd like to add here more AWGs but it's impossible to have them all at the home lab. If you'd like to write a driver for an AWG which isn't listed here, please contact me.

Authors

• Dmitry Melnichansky @4x1md - Project idea and implementation.

• hb020 - Allow use with the newer SDS800x HD (12 bit) scopes, Driver for Rigol DG800/DG900 series, maintenance since May 2024.

• Nick Bryant (Dundarave on EEVblog Forum) - Driver for Feeltech FY6600 AWG.

• Don F Becker - Driver for AD9910 Arduino Shield.

• alfredfo - driver for Uni-Trend UTG1000x.

• 3tch-a-sketch - generic Feeltech FY driver.

Links

1. Siglent SDS1104X-E and SDS1204X-E: Bode plot with non-Siglent AWG on EEVblog Forum.
2. Running the script with SDS1204X-E and JDS6600 AWG on YouTube (best viewed in 1080p quality).

Questions? Suggestions?

You are more than welcome to contact me with any questions, suggestions or propositions regarding this project. You can:

1. Visit my QRZ.COM page
2. Visit my Facebook profile
3. 📧 Write me an email to iosaaris =at= gmail dot com

How to Support or Say Thanks

If you like this project, or found here some useful information and want to say thanks, or encourage me to do more, you can buy me a coffee!

You can aslo make a donation with PayPal:

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73 de 4X1MD

Footnotes

1. On the DG800/DG900, the ethernet interface requires a suitable adapter. It is however strongly recommended to use this interface. ↩