Last weekend I received a nice little package from the UK. It was the BugLogic logic analyzer from Robomotic.
I quickly unpacked it and found this logic analyzer inside:
On the bottom you see the aluminum enclosure, on top you see the sensor cables/clips. You can use those to easily clamp onto anywhere in an electronics circuit.
There’s not a lot more to tell about the enclosure itself, there’s a micro USB connector to connect the device to your computer.. and that’s it. Here’s a picture of the PCB:
Some specifications of this logic analyzer (taken from manufacturers website):
- open source hardware and software
- low cost
- supports existing softwares like the Salae, USBee and Sigrok
- small
- easy to customize
Let’s hook it up!
I am testing the Saleae logic analyzer software, because it looks like the nicest analyzer software of the three supported software products.
You can’t use the Saleae software from the Saleae website because they prevented the use of cloned logic analyzers. Robomotic provides a local copy of the software.
Saleae claims the cloned logic analyzers are counterfeit, I totally disagree. It’s just a hardware design based on a certain micro controller.
There’s no way Saleae has the exclusive right to this hardware. I do agree that they have the right to protect their software though, and that’s what they are doing right now.
The software installation is pretty easy, it’s basically a next->next->finish job. Please note that .NET framework 3.5 is required.
After the you start the software the logic analyzer is immediately recognized by the Saleae software. Now I had to hook it up to something, I choose the serial console port from the Belkin home base.. remember that one from previous posts ? 🙂
A logic analyzer is a very nice device to analyze asynchronous serial communication. I hooked up these three pins: RX (input 2), TX (input 1) and ground (input 3).
Here’s a picture of my setup:
Do you notice the little analyzer clips on the board?
In the Saleae software you have to pick a sample rate and sample frequency. I chose the following, which are more then enough for the boot log of the Belkin home base:
And here’s the result:
Input 1 shows the TX pin of the Belkin home base, the boot messages. Works like a charm!
Conclusion
The BugLogic is a very good value for money (around €40,- including shipping!) logic analyzer. It utilizes a lot of existing logic analyzing software around.
Furthermore it’s very compact in size. There’s just two minor points of improvement if you ask me:
- The cable clips are a bit cheap quality, some were actually broken on arrival. There’s 10 clips so more then enough anyway.
- Pin 1 is not clearly marked on the enclosure so I had to open it to figure out.
This concludes this product review. Would you like a professional review of your product as well? Please contact me using my contact form.
