Target hardware:

• VOLTCRAFT VC-870 Multimeter
• UNI-T UT-D04 USB Cable

Software repository location:

• https://github.com/jsyk/VC870_USB_Datalog

The issue this software solves: Although the Voltcraft multimeter and the UNI-T USB cable are  hardware compatible (the USB cable adapter fits into the multimeter connector perfectly), the software requirements are different. Original Voltcraft USB cable, which costs tripple the UNI-T cable by the way, mimics RS232 adapter when plugged in USB host PC. The UNI-T cable uses different chip internally and behaves like a HID device. On the other hand, UNI-T multimeters use different communication protocol over the serial line than the VC870 does.

I got myself an old Philips PM3310 Digital Storage Oscilloscope (DSO). The scope has a classic CRT screen, but otherwise it is a fully digital device. The scope has two channels. Analogue bandwidth of the input attenuator/amplifier is 60MHz, which is not bad at all. Sampling frequency in real-time mode, however, is only 50 Mega samples per second. Each sampling ‘run’ after a trigger stores 256 samples into a RAM. The sample RAM has capacity for 4 independent waveforms. The 50M sampling speed allows single-shot time base up to 500ns/div, and a recurrent time base up to 5ns/div (sampling of repetitive signals in equivalent time). The internal CPU switches between the modes as needed.

Running Xilinx Vivado 2013.3 (webpack license) on Fedora 18 may fail with the following error message:

$ vivado

****** Vivado v2013.3 (64-bit)
  **** SW Build 329390 on Wed Oct 16 18:26:55 MDT 2013
  **** IP Build 192953 on Wed Oct 16 08:44:02 MDT 2013
    ** Copyright 1986-1999, 2001-2013 Xilinx, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

INFO: [Common 17-78] Attempting to get a license: Implementation
process 17688: arguments to dbus_move_error() were incorrect, assertion "(dest) == NULL || !dbus_error_is_set ((dest))" failed in file dbus-errors.c line 282.
This is normally a bug in some application using the D-Bus library.
  D-Bus not built with -rdynamic so unable to print a backtrace
Abnormal program termination (6)
Please check '/home/jara/hdl/hs_err_pid17688.log' for details

The workaround is to make the D-Bus communication socket file /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket unavailable when the Xilinx tools run.