I was in the market for an oscilloscope, but I didn't want to spend much. I found out about Rigol and their line of $300-400 scopes, and was getting ready to buy one. Then I found a post on how to make your DS1052E, which costs about $400 into a DS1102E, which costs about $700 with a simple firmware modification! I bought the scope right after, and I received it in the mail today. It's pretty nice by default, but doubling the bandwidth is always a plus. The DS1052E has a 50Mhz maximum frequency, but it has exactly the same hardware (as far as the reverse-engineering folks can tell) as the DS1102E, which has a 100Mhz maximum. This guide will show you how to make the switch very easily using Linux.

You can do it in Windows too, but it's a bit more involved, and Linux makes it really really easy. I've attached the Rigol user guide for both units, in case you don't have one. WARNING: It's entirely likely that this completely voids your warranty. Make sure you know what you're doing - you can brick your scope if you screw anything up.

Internet Download Manager - the fastest download accelerator. Internet Download Manager has been registered with a fake Serial Number. Be aware that the cracked product may work incorrectly and download files with errors. Also your computer can be used to conduct an illegal activity. Please NEVER. Prog-Studio 9. Prog-Studio is a modern, comprehensive, and very productive micro-controller development environment for industry standard 8051 (MCS-51. The light and fan can be switched on or off via a single character command sent over the serial connection. Likewise, the temperature can be queried and sent to the PC via the serial connection. The shack PC ties everything together via a Python script. My Rigol DSA815-TG spectrum analyzer is used as the frequency.

I used this as a guide for the process. As more firmware versions come out, the post will be updated, and this instructable might not. Therefore, in this step, you need to click the link above, and find something resembling the following: DS1052_to_DS1102.zip This file contains a collection of different firmwares. At this point, for my original firmware, I needed the following parts: 02.02.SP2_patched_to_02.05.01.02 02.04.SP1_original The first one has a hex-edited version of firmware 02.02.SP2 that makes a 02.05 Rigol think it's an upgrade when it's really a downgrade.

You need to downgrade to 02.02.SP2 to enable the modifications we're going to make. Refer to the forum post for more instructions if you have a different firmware than I have. I simply put the first firmware on a USB key (02.02.SP2_patched_to_02. P38 Serial Numbers Spreewerke P38. 05.01.02) in the root. The key was formatted with FAT16. Then, I safely ejected the key, put it back in the computer, mounted it, and ran the following: md5sum DS1000EUpdate.RGL I compared this to the.md5 file that was also in the directory from the zip file. They matched. If they don't match, DO NOT CONTINUE.

YOU WILL PROBABLY BRICK YOUR SCOPE. Step 6: Load the 02.02 Firmware Onto the Scope.

Now that we're running the old firmware, we can do the traditional hack to change this scope. I found really handy for this step. Hook up the USB cable to the back of the unit. Any generic USB cable will do - there's nothing special about it.

I used one from my Arduino:). Once you have the device connected, make sure using dmesg: [170] usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 11 [147] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbtmc If you don't see that, try a different Linux (a newer kernel perhaps?) or check your connections a few times. I'm using Ubuntu 10.10, and it worked perfectly the first time. Now, we just need to get our commands straight. The first command sets the model number. Scm Xilog 3 Download here.

You should probably leave this line as-is: echo ':INFO:MODEL DS1102E' sudo tee /dev/usbtmc0 This second line is where you have some wiggle room. Apparently, the firmware cares what your serial number is, so you have to make it a valid DS1102E serial number. The following was taken from the cited blog post above, and he states it was found in an eBay auction.

Your original serial number is on the back sticker on the case in case you ever want to change it back. Echo ':INFO:SERIAL DS1EB11305432' sudo tee /dev/usbtmc0 There. That's all you need to do with your computer. At this point, the scope had locked up on me, so I just unplugged it from the USB and rebooted it.