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Sending an email from MSO8000/DS7000/MSO5000 series oscilloscopes

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

You can send a screen shot, setup files and other files in an email from DS7000 and MSO5000 series oscilloscopes. 

To set up email service press the Utility key and then More and Email at the right side of the display.

Now you can press Settings at the bottom right corner of the display to enter the email server login settings menu:


The following window is displayed. After the settings are entered tap OK to complete the server login. To cancel login, tap Cancel to exit or tap the icon at the upper-right corner of the window to exit.

  • Press SMTP to set the mail transmission protocol.
  • Press Port to set the protocol port in the pop-up numeric keypad. Its range is from 0 to 65535.
  • Press UserName to set the user name of the server.
  • Press PassWord to set the password of the server.

You can then press Test to verify whether the email server is properly set up.

Once the scope is set up to send emails you can then use File Select and and Attachment to select the file to be sent along with any desired attachments.

Web control for the MSO8000, DS7000 and MSO5000 series scopes

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

Remote control of the  DS7000 and MSO5000 is possible using Web Control.

To set up web control connect the scope to a PC with a LAN cable.
Push the Utility key followed by I/O and then LAN on the side of the display.
The Lan settings window  will now be brought up. For this  example we will  use the IP address generated by Auto IP. It will take a few moments to generate the IP address and show status as  connected.



Now enter the IP address into your browser on the PC and you will be presented with the Web Control Welcome  screen.



Press the Web Control button and enter the user name and password.



The display of the scope will appear on the PC screen along with selectable menu items once logged in.

How to add measurements to the MSO5000, DS7000 and MSO8000

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

Measurements can be added to the bottom of the display quickly and easily, or all measurements can be displayed at once.

  • To add measurements press “Measure” then press “Add” on the right side of the display.  Now the Quick Measurement Menu appears.
  • You are able to change between the different categories by either pressing on the tabs in the menu or by changing the “Category” section on the menu on the right side of display. This will allow you to pick between vertical and horizontal measurements along with use the other comparison measurements and then analyze the signal.
  • You can change which channel is associated with the measurements by toggling between channel 1 and channel 2 by changing the source on the right side of the display

  • To show all measurements for one channel you can do this by pressing “Measure” and then “All Measure” and you can select to display either all of the measurements on channel 1 or channel 2.

How to perform Serial Decode on the MSO5000, DS7000 and MSO8000

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

Protocol Analysis allows you to quickly decode serial communication.  The oscilloscope is capable of triggering on and decoding parallel, RS232, I2C, SPI, LIN, CAN, FlexRay, I2S, and 1553B.

For the example below I am decoding an I2C signal but the other protocols follow a similar set up.

  • With my probes connected to the clock line and the data line of the signal I first need to set up the signals trigger.  To do this press the “Menu” button in the triggering section on the front panel of the instrument.  This is the right most “Menu” button.
  • Next I changed the trigger type so that it is listing the correct decode type.
  • With the Trigger type now set to I2C I now configure the SCL and SDA lines so that they are corresponding with the correct channel on the instrument.
  • With the instrument now triggering on the I2C signal I can now enter the instruments decode menu.  To do this press decode.
  • Once in the decode menu press “Copy Trig” and then switch “Bus Status” to “ON”.  You will start to see the instrument decoding the signal and displaying this in the middle of the display.
  • Currently the signal is being decoded in a hex format, but this can easily be changed to either decode hex, binary, decinormal or ASCII.  To do this press “Display” and then press “Format” and change it to “ASCII”.  
  • In the “Display” menu there are several different settings first you can change the decode format, then you can move the position of the decoded line, then there is the ability to label the signal and then finally the event table.
  • Press “Event Table” and then turn ON the “Event Table”.  At this point it will be displayed in the middle of the screen.
  • Change the format of the event table to ASCII by pressing “Format” and then select “ASC”.
  • Change the view to payload, to do this press “View” and then select “Payload”. Here you will see the decoded signal being displayed in a matrix which this is a great way to view a serial signal all at once to quickly allow you to see if there is a problem with the serial signal.
  • Next change “View” to “Packets”.  In this view you can scroll on the menu to view all of the data packets, in this case “RIGOL” you can see the time that it was sent in relationship to the trigger point, weather it is a read or write packet then address of the packet, the data and then if it was acknowledged.
  • Another useful aspect of the event table is the jump to capability.  First press “SINGLE” then select the “6th“ packet by pressing on it.  Notice that there are two dotted lines both above and below that packet and then press “Jump to”.  This will cause the instrument to automatically move the 6th packet into the middle of the display so that you can zoom in on it.
  • Exit out of the event table by pressing the “X” in the upper righthand corner of the window and then change the horizontal scaling to be 100 us by rotating the “Horizontal Scale” knob clock wise. 

Using a MASK over the bus with the 1000Z Scope

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

Using Pass/Fail mask on the DS1000Z is a great way to debug signals. Controlling the mask settings over the bus can be tricky.

Here we show an example for Mask Operation.

First, get the signal you want on the scope display.

Then, send:

-> :MASK:ENAB ON

// set the mask to pass 0.25 divisions wide and tall around the last signal
-> :MASK:X 0.25
-> :MASK:Y 0.25
-> :MASK:CREATE
-> :MASK:DATA?
//this command returns binary data that looks like this in text:



//then you can reset your instrument or change your settings, but after that still get the mask back with:

-> :MASK:DATA <binary stream>

//for binary stream simply send the same data that came back when you requested the mask previously

Finally, you can activate the mask calculations with:

-> :MASK:OPER RUN

MSO5000, DS7000, MSO7000, MSO8000 BIN file conversion

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

The oscilloscope models including the MSO5000, DS7000, MSO7000, and MSO8000 all include the ability to create compact .BIN file types for saving to USB sticks or the internal hard drive.

The .BIN files are easy ways to save and archive display and memory data. Creating these files is done from the Storage/Save Wave menu. Here we show the settings used to save 10 MPts of deep memory to a USB stick mounted as the D Drive:




Complete the save process by pushing Save at the bottom right of the display.

Move the USB stick to your PC and put the Saved file, whose default name would be “RigolDS0.bin”), into a directory with the EXE file found in this zip package.


With both files in the same folder open the Command Prompt, navigate to the folder with the files, and then execute this command:



“out.csv” is the filename you desire for the output data. It should not yet exist. This is the command for a BIN file with a single channel in it. For multiple channels include a separate filename for each channel to be output.

Once completed, you can then open the output file with a utility like UltraEdit that allows you to view very long text based files. Here is a view of UltraEdit showing the end of the 10 Mpt file:

Missing Trial Licenses on the DS1000Z Series

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

All new DS1000Z series oscilloscopes are being shipped with all of the instrument’s options fully activated.  This elimenates the need for trial licenses on the instrument.  Instruments with serial numbers DS1ZA2001**** or DS1ZB20001**** and larger have their licenses fully enabled.

To confirm this you can view which options have been fully installed by pressing the following buttons. “Utility” -> Arrow Down -> “Options” -> “Installed” 

You will be presented the following table on the instrument’s display. 

Record Mode on the MSO5000, DS7000 and MSO8000

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

You can use Pass/Fail measurements for a number of applications. With this scope family you can set it up to stop or continue when there is a failure, you can have the instrument make a beep or take a screen shot when a failure occurs.  You can create masks with varying error budgets around a target signal, and you can even use the record mode to record all the failures as frames. In this way, you could set up a test over night, let it run, and come back and have all the failure states recorded for you.

  • Press “Utility” and then press “PassFail”.
  • Set “Enable” to ON.
  • To change the mask parameters, press “Mask”, and then “Create”, you can then change the Masks X parameters and Y Parameters and even select if you would like to mask effect the full screen or between two cursor points.  Once this is done press “Create”.
  • You can turn on the information display by first pressing “Back” and then press “Information” to turn on the display.
  • At this point you can then turn on the mask by pressing “Operate” to begin your testing.

The MSO5000, DS7000 and MSO8000’s cursor capability

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

The MSO5000, DS7000 and MSO8000 can all use several different types of cursors to measure the signal.  These include manual, Track, XY and Measure.  Manual cursors allow you to set the X and Y relationship of the cursors to manually measure the signal.  Track cursors allow you to move in the X direction and the instrument keeps the cursor on the signal. XY cursors will be grayed out under normal operations but can be activated and used similar to the manual cursors when the instrument is placed into the XY view.  Finally the measure cursor can not be adjusted by the user but show exactly how the instrument is measuring the signal for a given measurement. 

To perform the measurements below I have connected one of the instrument probes to the probe compensation port so that we are able to view a square wave signal.

  • Press “Measure”, press “Remove” and then press “Remove All” Delete all of your previously set measurements, then add “Frequency” as the only measurement. It should display on the screen. Then press “Cursor”, then set mode to “Measure” and turn on “Indicator”. It should now look like this:



The cursor is locked to the zero-crossing showing the time between consecutive waves.

  • You can also show the “Track” and “Manual” modes of the “Cursor”.
  • Use the “Intensity Knob” to move the cursor position.
  • In “Manual” mode note that you can use the soft keys or touchscreen to highlight Cursor A, Cursor B or Cursor AB.  This determines which cursors will change with the “Intensity Knob”.  If you haven’t shown the Recording and Playback yet, this is a great time to show the Sinc or Sine wave signals and you can use the cursors on the recorded data.  That is a great way to do post-analysis of signals.

How to create a reference on the MSO5000, DS7000 and MSO8000

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

A reference signal can be created and stored on the scope to compare against later on.  It can either be save and recalled later or shown on the display. To save a reference press “Ref” and then press “SaveToRef” this will save a reference of your signal and display it behind the signal.  If you would like to save multiple references you r will need to change the current reference from Ref1 to Ref#.  Additionally the scaling and position of the reference signal can be changed using the touch screen or the intensity knob and labels, change the color and add details can be changed in the more section of the menu. 

Below I have taken a reference signal of the scopes compensation port and moved it up vertically to show the reference signal.  

Search and Navigation capability on the MSO5000, DS7000 and MSO8000

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

Search and Navigation is a great feature to easily move around on long complex signals with multiple trigger events.  The Search and Navigation feature can be used when either an edge, pulse, runt, slop, RS232, I2C or SPI signal is being trigger on and can allow you to select a desired trigger point.

For this example I have channel one on the oscilloscope connected to a SPI data line to show the search and navigation features capabilities.

  • Once the probe is connected press the “Auto” button, this will cause the instrument to trigger on the edge of the signal.  It will not be using a serial trigger at this time.
  • Change the horizontal scaling so that it reads 50 ms.
  • Press “Search” then set the “Threshold” with the “Intensity Knob” so that the orange dotted line is in the middle of the signal.
  • Press “Back” and then turn the “Search” ON.
  • Notice at the top of the display there are now a large number of white triangles and one red triangle these indicate all of the trigger events that the search and navigation function is recognizing.
  • Press the “Stop/Run” button and then turn ON the “MarkTable”.  This will cause the Marker Table to appear on the screen.
  • You are able to both scroll and then tap on any of the marked events and then the scope will automatically jump to them and they will then be marked in a red arrow.
  • For instance, press on the 11th event and then change your horizontal scaling to be zoom in on the signal.


Saving csv data on the DS/MSO1000Z series scopes

Posted on: December 16th, 2020 by Doug Lovell

DS/MSO1000Z series scopes utilize USB for saving csv files to an external USB memory stick. 12 meg of csv data can be saved in approximately 30 minutes. Once an acquisition is made you can save the csv file using these steps:

Press the Storage key on the keypad and then select CSV on the right side of the display. Select DataSrc as Screen or Memory and select channel to be saved: