M
Mr Stonebeach
Dear Colleaques,
I have acquired a Rigol DG5252 signal generator some time ago, and
just have used its built-in waveforms so far. Recently I tried to
activate its ARB capability, which has turned out to be a nightmare.
The instrument apparently eats .RAF waveform files, but the user guide
gives no hint about how to generate them. I was thinking it's as
simple as processing a datapoint table through some utility, and move
the file to the generator on a USB memory stick. Not a chance. The
instrument came bundled with a CD-ROM, but the installation
instructions were limited to a very terse readme file:
1¡¢Download the USB driver from NI website-"NIVISAruntime.msi".
2¡¢Execute "NIVISAruntime.msi" to install the driver program.
3¡¢Execute and install the application software.
I already hated the idea of installing the NI runtime, as I have
encounterd too many mysterious conflict and instability problems
before, and would prefer not to install anything which is not
absolutely necessary. Still, after NIVISA installation, the Ultra
Signal Studio (sounds like the program for creating the .RAF files,
although I didn't find it documented anywhere) installer just popped
up a window saying 'archive not found'. After surfing here and there
in the Rigol web pages I finally found out that one needs to first
install the 300-megabyte Ultra Sigma software and run that at least
once (the fact was not documented in material found in the CDROM).
Well, a whole lot more crap code to install, likely to destabilize my
PC. And as it comes from China I don't know how many keyloggers and
pieces of spyware I got installed with it, either.
Let me digress a bit, as the european Rigol web pages were really not
functioning well at all - I got a feeling that they are hosted in
China, and suffer from their web censorship. At least I felt the same
as when surfing in a hotel in Beijing last summer: weird omissions and
unavailable files, as well as latched-up connections which take
forever to load. The north american Rigol web pages were much better,
maybe hosted somewhere in the West. Anyway, access to the FAQ and
download sections requires a registration, which is OK, but the
registration pages don't work well. For instance, the 'forgotten
password' service requires typing a CAPTCHA, but the picture does not
show up - the browser shows the red 'X' indicating that the picture
file is missing. So I was stuck, no help from here either, had to
proceed with trial and error.
The final A-HA was that the Ultra Signal Studio installation file
must be moved to the directory where the Ultra Sigma software is
installed, and launched there (this too is undocumented - there's no
instructions beyond the readme file, see above). Now the application
window opens, but asks me to type in an 'Attest' code from the
Certificate of Ownership, and refuses to work. I do have the
instrument (with the S/N in the back panel), I do have the warranty
card (with the S/N printed in), I do have the installation CD-ROM, but
I don't have the slightest idea about the Certificate of Ownership.
Looks like they are paranoid about their waveform-creating software
getting pirated.
So I now have megabytes after megabytes of all sorts of crap
installed, I have registered and shall no doubt receive piles of spam
which I'll have to figure how to block, and I still cannot create my
first 'hello world' -style waveform. The Rigol is a nice sine and
squarewave generator, but if you're after arbitrary waveforms, stay
far away. It's a pity, because the hardware looks quite nice actually.
Maybe I shall still collect my remaining stamina, go back to the
Rigol web page, trying to figure out how to get the 'attest code'.
Regards,
Mikko
P.S. Has anyone reverse engineered the .RAF file format? It might be
easiest to generate them form ones own C code...
I have acquired a Rigol DG5252 signal generator some time ago, and
just have used its built-in waveforms so far. Recently I tried to
activate its ARB capability, which has turned out to be a nightmare.
The instrument apparently eats .RAF waveform files, but the user guide
gives no hint about how to generate them. I was thinking it's as
simple as processing a datapoint table through some utility, and move
the file to the generator on a USB memory stick. Not a chance. The
instrument came bundled with a CD-ROM, but the installation
instructions were limited to a very terse readme file:
1¡¢Download the USB driver from NI website-"NIVISAruntime.msi".
2¡¢Execute "NIVISAruntime.msi" to install the driver program.
3¡¢Execute and install the application software.
I already hated the idea of installing the NI runtime, as I have
encounterd too many mysterious conflict and instability problems
before, and would prefer not to install anything which is not
absolutely necessary. Still, after NIVISA installation, the Ultra
Signal Studio (sounds like the program for creating the .RAF files,
although I didn't find it documented anywhere) installer just popped
up a window saying 'archive not found'. After surfing here and there
in the Rigol web pages I finally found out that one needs to first
install the 300-megabyte Ultra Sigma software and run that at least
once (the fact was not documented in material found in the CDROM).
Well, a whole lot more crap code to install, likely to destabilize my
PC. And as it comes from China I don't know how many keyloggers and
pieces of spyware I got installed with it, either.
Let me digress a bit, as the european Rigol web pages were really not
functioning well at all - I got a feeling that they are hosted in
China, and suffer from their web censorship. At least I felt the same
as when surfing in a hotel in Beijing last summer: weird omissions and
unavailable files, as well as latched-up connections which take
forever to load. The north american Rigol web pages were much better,
maybe hosted somewhere in the West. Anyway, access to the FAQ and
download sections requires a registration, which is OK, but the
registration pages don't work well. For instance, the 'forgotten
password' service requires typing a CAPTCHA, but the picture does not
show up - the browser shows the red 'X' indicating that the picture
file is missing. So I was stuck, no help from here either, had to
proceed with trial and error.
The final A-HA was that the Ultra Signal Studio installation file
must be moved to the directory where the Ultra Sigma software is
installed, and launched there (this too is undocumented - there's no
instructions beyond the readme file, see above). Now the application
window opens, but asks me to type in an 'Attest' code from the
Certificate of Ownership, and refuses to work. I do have the
instrument (with the S/N in the back panel), I do have the warranty
card (with the S/N printed in), I do have the installation CD-ROM, but
I don't have the slightest idea about the Certificate of Ownership.
Looks like they are paranoid about their waveform-creating software
getting pirated.
So I now have megabytes after megabytes of all sorts of crap
installed, I have registered and shall no doubt receive piles of spam
which I'll have to figure how to block, and I still cannot create my
first 'hello world' -style waveform. The Rigol is a nice sine and
squarewave generator, but if you're after arbitrary waveforms, stay
far away. It's a pity, because the hardware looks quite nice actually.
Maybe I shall still collect my remaining stamina, go back to the
Rigol web page, trying to figure out how to get the 'attest code'.
Regards,
Mikko
P.S. Has anyone reverse engineered the .RAF file format? It might be
easiest to generate them form ones own C code...