philipg

Thank you, Attila. The beta s/w certainly changes the oscilloscope results. The rise time now measures ~21 ns, regardless of the trigger level. Also, and the rise time plot is much more linear. The calculated bandwidth is now ~17 MHz. Note that I'm getting similar bandwidth results when I sweep thru frequencies from 10 MHz and 20 MHz. Bandwidth appears to be somewhere in the teens. Thanks again for your help with this.

Since i'm using a Schmitt trigger to produce a fast rising (2 ns) pulse, noise is minimal and the initial voltage rise/slope from zero is very steep. The oscilloscope capture above shows the near vertical rise from 0 volts. I have found that this makes the trigger stable, even when it is set at a very low voltage. I'm wondering if such a low level trigger setting is better for just this specific test -- to estimate the bandwidth using a fast pulse generator. Depending on the trigger setting, the resulting rise times are quite different, yielding very different bandwidth results. The low level trigger yields a bandwidth estimate pretty close to the published 70 MHz value, while the higher trigger is ~5 times lower. Note that the rise time and bandwidth results would be identical (i.e., ~21 ns and ~16 MHz), if the measurement was taken from 0 volts to the5 volts, rather than from 10% to 90% of the voltage range (as recommended for bandwidth measurements). By setting the trigger level low, the oscilloscope's initial slow response (below 10%) is excluded from the rise time, yielding a much shorter rise time and much higher bandwidth. Note that I don't pretend to understand the nuances of this and recognize that you are much more knowledgeable. I'm just commenting on what I'm observing and hoping to learn in the process. Thank you for being so responsive and helpful.

Thank you for responding. Understood that this is a old/retired product, sorry. Here is the oscilloscope result after increasing the trigger level. The resulting rise time is ~21 ns, yielding a calculated bandwidth of ~16 MHz. I'm not sure why increasing the trigger level is better for this type of test.

Hi, I ran a test to measure the bandwidth of the Electronics Explorer's oscilloscope using a fast pulse generator that produces square wave pulses with a rise time of ~2 ns. The attached image shows the rise time measured by the Electronics Explorer. Note that the oscilloscope was set to oversample and average, as the image also shows. Surprisingly, the oscilloscope yielded a rise time of ~4 ns. Using the formula 0.35/(rise time), the calculated bandwidth of the Electronics Explorer's oscilloscope is ~88 MHz. Although oversampling and averaging was required to get this result, this is a surprisingly excellent bandwidth. Does this result seem reasonable or am I doing something wrong? Thank you. Phil

Excellent, thank you.

Is Waveforms 3.21.2 compatible with the Electronics Explorer? It isn't mentioned on the website. I'm running Waveforms 3.20.1 with the Electronics Explorer and it works fine. Thank you.

FYI. This problem has been resolved. I recently started using a third party power adapter for the Macbook Pro. It appears to have interfered with usb connectivity. Running the Macbook on its battery or using Apple's power adapter resolved the problem.

The Electronics Explorer board isn't being recognized by Waveforms. I've been using it successfully for many months. But it started failing yesterday, after experimenting with the Digital inputs and a Arduino Nano. Launching Waveforms reports the following errors: 1) On every launch: "No Device Detected" 2) Rarely: JtscProgramDvc failed SERC: 1004 FPGA programming failed. I've gone thru all of the suggested troubleshooting steps for the Electronics Explorer (several times) with no luck. Listing the Macbook Pro's connected USB devices from the command line yields the 2 identical error messages shown below. Also, the list of USB devices does NOT included the Electronics Explorer. > system_profiler SPUSBDataType 2022-10-18 02:05:57.644 system_profiler[3115:35332] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be 2022-10-18 02:05:57.645 system_profiler[3115:35332] SPUSBDevice: IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService failed 0xe00002be The Macbook Pro is running Montery 12.6 Waveforms is running 3.18.1 64 bit Qt5.12.9 Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

Question moved to the correct forum

Ok, great. Nice idea, thank you.

Is there a way to setup Waveforms with a list of default measurements? It would be a convenient time saver to be able to quickly bring up a set of commonly desired scope measurements. Thank you.

Just to add to this post, in case someone else reads this later and has similar questions. Many USB cables are wired to deliver power only. This explains my initial "No device detected" problem, since the Electronics Explorer requires data communication via the USB cable. Also, the "Ready" light on the Electronics Explorer only turns on if the WaveForms software application is running on the computer the board is connected to.

I'm happy to report that the problem has been resolved. I simply changed to a new USB cable and now the Electronics Explorer board is recognized and connecting to the Waveforms software. Sorry for the false alarm.

Hi, I have a new Electronics Explorer board (rev H) that is not being recognized by the Waveforms software. I get the "No device detected" message when Waveforms starts. I'm using a Macbook running Catalina 10.15.7. The Electronics Explorer board is connected to 12v power and the red Power LED is on. Also, the board is connected via USB to my Macbook and the yellow USB LED is on. The board's On/Off switch is ON but the Ready LED is off. Should the Ready LED be off when the switch is on? I just installed Waveforms for the Mac by downloading it from the digilent website so it is running the latest version (3.18.1 64 bit Qt5.12.9 macOS 10.15). Thank you in advance for helping to resolve this problem. Phil