Suggestions of good tools for simple spoofing, like i2c, USART, CAN, SPI, etc
Gabriel D'Espindula wrote 10/02/2020 at 13:53 • 1 pointHi folks
I'm looking for some tool to see the traffic information in a simple way (for some simple protocols as mentioned in the title), versatile and with a simple setup, not in the logic level, but one layer up. Lets say spoof USART for instance, I can set \n as last character, select the IOs I want to use, set the communication speed, power level (like RS232, TTL5V or TTL3.3V) and hook up both lines to see in the screen some sort of log showing what is going on, with timestamps (like burp websockets history).
For i2c, same idea, select IO pins for clock and data, select voltage, hook up and get a log of time and who said what.
I hope same tool has actually programmable IOs that I can select to use and multiple protocols, not high speed required, more like this common protocols of cheap electronics.
I know there are some logic analyzer compatible with different software out there, but I don't know if this functionality is available, does someone knows? I usually use a dev board to read data and send by serial, but I'm a bit over it, every time I need to do a setup depending on the protocol and voltage level and so on, I want a more versatile tool.
Anyone has something cool to share here?
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Dslogic is nice and not expensive. You can buy a basic version on aliexpress and upgrade to plus only installing ram and upgrading the firmware.
https://www.dreamsourcelab.com/shop/logic-analyzer/dslogic-plus/
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I'll go with Dawid's suggestion of a Saleae clone, but if you have a bit of money to spare, the original Saleae Logic 8 is pretty damn good.
It does 100MHz digital with ease, and also includes a fairly good analog bandwidth of around 10MHz with one channel, 10bit for 5V signals.
The warranty is very good too, and their software is perfect and quite beautiful.
Also, note that if you're a student you can get a nice student discounted version.
However, it does not feature a custom protocol output, it's a purely read-only device.
Hope you find what you need!
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Adafruit sells an FT232H breakout, may be exactly what you need -- it does TTL serial (add a MAX232 for proper RS232 voltages) plus I2C SPI SMBus and other acronyms (lol) plus it has GPIO capability.
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I am using a commercial tool for the I2C, and SPI stuff, the Total Phase Systems Beagle. I used one at work enough to be really like their software tools and buy one. The Beagle is good for monitoring traffic. The Aardvark is good for providing the host end of traffic.
For UART. I have a home brew board with a 2 channel FTDI UART to USB adapter and I run 2 copies (one for each port) of minicom under linux. The board has flying leads that I put clips on to hook to the rx and tx path of the system under test.
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I use this one for my developments :
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Logic-Analyzer-Device-USB-Saleae-24M-8CH-ARM-FPGA-For-3C-Digital-Support-1-1-16/133471685789?hash=item1f13884c9d:g:BrgAAOSwvIlfGBNy
It works great and it's cheap... For sure not the best, but allow to debug efficiently (software free as well). Saleae is a great brand for this kind of device.
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Use cheap Saleae clone, you can get it for like 13$. It will work nicely with Sigrok PulseView application which has all the possible protocol decoders. I have used it a lot for UART troubleshooting and it's absolutely awesome.
Speed is limited to like 2-4 MHz, but it's perfectly sufficient for most hobbyist applications.
I have purchased more expensive (100$ range) Kingst LA2016 analyzer, and it's better technically, but it doesn't work with PulseView, and original software has pretty limited choice of decoders. So: more expensive doesn't mean it's better. The cheap clone has much better support...
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