<d1b2>
<david.lenfesty> I'll take it on in lieu of someone else doing it. Obviously more delay because I'm fairly busy, but IMO it doesn't make sense to work on the host w/o the probe.
<d1b2>
<david.lenfesty> I'll probably just use an F-series STM32 and FUSB302 to reduce the driver work though, if someone wants to port it to an STM32G0 later that shouldn't be too much work if I architect things right
<azonenberg>
Yeah
<azonenberg>
Just as a reminder, the host is the primary deliverable here
<azonenberg>
As i need that to build the BLONDEL acquisition board
<azonenberg>
I only need enough of the probe side in order to be confident we can design a future probe to work on this host
<azonenberg>
What i want to avoid is designing an active probe in six months and having to throw away or rework assembled hardware because it's not compatible
<d1b2>
<david.lenfesty> yep, that's the intent
<azonenberg>
I think for BLONDEL i'm going to try and make the probe vdd range configurable either via a dac or at least resistor strap all the way up to +/- 12V
<azonenberg>
Is that compatible with your hardware so far?
<azonenberg>
basically, i dont yet have a great feel for how much power probes will need
<azonenberg>
so while +/- 7V sounds reasonable i don't want to be too locked into that yet
<azonenberg>
Once we have the first probe or two designed we can fine tune the actual vdd spec
<d1b2>
<david.lenfesty> yeah the only things that would have to change would be the ESD diodes maybe. And I'd have to double check some of the MOSFET voltage tolerances, but those can be swapped out pretty easily and/or I can bodge in minor tweaks. I'll probably test up to 20V with a bench supply and a partially assembled board.
<azonenberg>
Ok great. I don't foresee ever having a boost converter involved
<azonenberg>
and the main supply for BLONDEL will be 12V
<azonenberg>
The question is more if we'll step down or not
<azonenberg>
and if so by how much
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<azonenberg>
grr looks like the diffprobe board isnt coming today
<azonenberg>
it's at the fedex warehouse but "not due for delivery"
<azonenberg>
so i guess it got bumped down in priority
<miek>
:(
<azonenberg>
also ooooh
<azonenberg>
just got a message from the founder of pico about a potential collab getting glscopeclient working on pico platforms
<azonenberg>
i had been thinking about reaching out to them anyway but he made the first move
<azonenberg>
So we'll see where this goes
<miek>
oh neat
<miek>
i looked into their scope drivers ages ago and they didn't seem interested in OSS back then, maybe that's changing a bit
<azonenberg>
i suspect they've realized my software is better than theirs :p
<azonenberg>
Still a bit rough around the edges of course, but they might be starting to consider the possibility that maintaining a driver for an open platform is going to be less dev effort for more payoff than maintaining an entire waveform viewing/analysis platform
<azonenberg>
Which is honestly the direction i was hoping to go in the long term anyway
<d1b2>
<mubes> Would they be interested to create a 'developer variant' or something? If it were sensibly priced I'd pitch in while waiting for the good stuff to arrive.
<azonenberg>
I just saw a message from him a few minutes ago, not sure. Devkits of some sort are certainly something i'd want to discuss
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<d1b2>
<mubes> Their hardware seems decent, software not so much and has always put me off, a lot.
<azonenberg>
Yeah same here. Which is why this seemed like the perfect opportunity for a collab
<azonenberg>
Making less awful software for their hardware
<azonenberg>
Had a very productive chat with him. Seems they've been getting requests from customers for higher end features that glscopeclient has and their software doesnt
<azonenberg>
They see obvious potential for collaboration and are interested in sending me and possibly one or two other folks dev units to work on, as well as advertising the project in their newsletter to get more attention from their userbase
<azonenberg>
Might be room for some fun around the probe stuff too, but we didnt have time to discuss that in depth yet
<azonenberg>
They're most interested in glscopeclient on their 5000 series (1 GHz 5 Gsps) scope, as well as any future products they develop in the 2+ GHz class
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<d1b2>
<mubes> Is that the 6000 series rather than 5000? How does all this jibe with your intended direction of travel. I don't have the time to spend on this project to justify claiming a freebie, but I'm in the market for a new high performance scope and if I knew theirs was going to actually get decent software at last I might be more interested (if they wanted work doing on the digital channel side I might be more able to spend some time....)
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<azonenberg>
oops, yeah it is the 6000 series i think
<azonenberg>
and well, i had wanted better pico support already
<azonenberg>
they have potential for much higher WFM/s than most of the other scope vendors
<azonenberg>
their firmware and decode packages are free, so glscopeclient isnt a threat to their business model
<azonenberg>
(our open scopes are another story of course)
<d1b2>
<mubes> Indeed, it's the open scope thing I was mostly thinking about...if you see this as a business long term then you might be enabling a competitor, if you're doing it cos there's nothing really good on the market and you want to see better tools then you're just developing a manufacturing partner :-)
<azonenberg>
I have no problem with commercial scopes competing with our open designs
<azonenberg>
I want better tools
<azonenberg>
While i do plan to sell my own designs it would be just to subsidize development
<azonenberg>
the intent was never to live off it or make a substantial profit
<d1b2>
<mubes> So, this is a win-for-all then. If they cut some discount for this community (perhaps with a code they you knew and gave out, so there's no attrition of their 'real' customer base) they would get goodwill and a (small) amy of developers/testers for very cheap.
<azonenberg>
I think it's a win for us too, having official support from a scope vendor - even if not one of the super big ones - would be a good step towards legitimizing the project more
<d1b2>
<mubes> ...and you get an early test and development base for the 'real' hardware.
<d1b2>
<mubes> They've always been a bit of a 'left field' player....I had one of their very early scopes that ran on the parallel port!