ThunderScope

Low-Cost Four Channel 1GSPS Oscilloscope using Thunderbolt/USB4 to stream data to PC for processing and display.

Join our development discord server

We are now at #thunderscope:matrix.org on matrix or #thunderscope:libera.chat on IRC as well!

Some older long-form documentation is on the Hackaday.io project page

Get the hardware through our crowdsupply page

Catch up with these videos on the project:

TEARDOWN 2023 - Open Sourcing the Secrets of Oscilloscope Design

Hackaday Supercon 2023 - A Circuit to Measure Circuits: How do Oscilloscopes do it?

Teardown Session 39: ThunderScope

Quick Start Guide

LiteX

1. Follow the instructions in the LiteX Build and Setup Guide guide to build the gateware and software for running LiteX firmware on the Thunderscope.
2. Build TS.NET.Engine using the build scripts
   • Dependences for build scripts on Debian/Ubuntu Linux: sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-sdk-8.0 libgdiplus
   • On Windows, should just need Visual Studio with the C# plugins
   • Copy appsettings.json and [thunderscope.yaml]
3. Install ngscopeclient, following the instructions in their user manual
4. Run TS.NET.Engine and ngscopeclient
5. Add ThunderScope in ngscopeclient under Add -> Oscilloscope with "thunderscope" Driver, "Twinlan" Transport and "Localhost:5025:5026" for the Path

XDMA [DEPRECATED]

These instructions have moved to the ts_xdma_archive repo

Troubleshooting

If you are getting under ~1000MB/s throughput on Linux, try turning off VT-d (Intel) or IOMMU/AMD-Vi (AMD) in BIOS or using "intel_iommu=off" in GRUB (Intel)

Beta 2 Errata and Fixes

Follow the rework instructions to bring your Beta 2 to production level frequency response and noise performance

Baseboard Hardware

Revision	Label	Status	Location
Rev.1	N/A	DEPRECATED	Hardware/Altium/Thunderscope_E
Rev.2	N/A	DEPRECATED	Hardware/Altium/Thunderscope_Rev2
Rev.3	Alpha	DEPRECATED	Hardware/Altium/Thunderscope_Rev3
Rev.4	Beta 1	ACTIVE	Hardware/Altium/Thunderscope_Rev4
Rev.4.1	Beta 2	ACTIVE	Hardware/Altium/Thunderscope_Rev4.1

FPGA Module Hardware

Revision	Status	Location
TE0712	ACTIVE	Trenz Electronics TE0712 Module, 100T or 200T Varients
Rev.1	DEPRECATED	Hardware/Altium/FPGA_Module
Rev.2	ACTIVE	Hardware/Altium/FPGA_Module_Rev2 or Hardware/KiCad/FPGA_Module_Rev2

Beta Unit FPGA Module Type by Serial Number

Serial Numbers	Module Type
TS0004, TS0006, TS0015	TE0712 100T
TS0007, TS0008, TS0011-TS0014	TE0712 200T
TS0009, TS0010, TS0016-TS0018	Custom Rev.2