Monday, March 22, 2010

HP16500C Logic Analyzer ftp connections

So these days you can get a logic analyzer pretty cheap (on eBay) - especially if you keep looking and wait for something listed at auction - I paid $232 (incl. tax and shipping) for mine with 3x16555D LA modules and one 16522A vector generator, but no pods.

There are various versions on the HP16500 series (A/B/C) but no reason to not go for the top of the line - 16500C - it has an HDD, PS2 ports for keyboard and mouse, and Twisted Pair (CAT5) ethernet interface.

The network interface allows connection to the analyzer using ftp or NFS, and a connection to your PC X-server to use as a display.  Of course setting any of these up is non-trivial, so here is how I Fixed It...

First - ftp - there are many ftp clients that will connect - but some are more difficult to get to work than others. I wanted to back up the HDD and replace it with a more reliable CompactFlash card, so I needed to transfer the entire file structure. The FileZilla client was my choice, and connecting to control@192.168.0.165 (the IP address I had assigned to the analyzer) gave me a directory listing of the HDD. I set up a folder on the PC called 16500C and dragged the four folders (slot_c, slot_e, status and system) to the 16500C folder on the PC.

Didn't work very well - timeouts and aborted transfer in the queue galore. Google hinted that the 16500C only supports one connection at a time - and with the directory listing open there were no more connections available to do the transfer, hence the timeouts...

Simple fix - disconnect (using the red X in the button bar) from the currently visible server, the queued transfers will complete nicely (except for the one user config file that had a bad block on the HDD).

Once you find a CompactFlash that works restoring the files you want is just as easy - drag, drop and disconnect!

Finding a suitable CompactFlash may not be easy so far I know that 1GB SanDisk Ultra fails, and so do 1GB, 4GB and 8GB Lexar cards and 4GB Kingston. I have a 32MB Smart Modular card working, and looking at some 256MB cards from STEC. Please comment on what you get to work if you do this!

3 comments:

Maurice said...

I used an actual 512MB 2.5" Flash drive, and it worked immediately...
There used to be some of those on eBay, so keep an eye on that...
I did try also earlier to get CFs working - but never was successfull...

saint said...

I don't know how often you get this message but Your Blog was Tremendously HELPFUL and SAVED ME A LOT OF TIME. Loads of Thanks for your effort.

Antonino said...

"Simple fix - disconnect (using the red X in the button bar) from the currently visible server, the queued transfers will complete nicely...."
I wanna kiss you! Really!
Thanks man!
Antonino