JColvin

Hi @KatharinaSt, I'm not readily able to produce the scenario you are wanting to create; I get the same single biphasic "pulse" on the trigger, but can't readily get it to repeat itself with the same delay between pulses during the trigger condition. The creator of the WaveForms software @attila might have some additional ideas on how get this style of waveform output to work, but it may be awhile before we get a response from him depending on his scheduled vacation over the holiday timeframe. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @analog123, I don't think there is a way to get a better visualization while recording data, partially because recorded data is intended for post-processing rather than live viewing. As far as I am aware, you are not able to adjust the time parameters in the middle of an acquisition. Are you looking for a particular condition to appear during the recording session (as opposed to just collecting the data for later analysis)? Depending on what you are looking for, you could likely set up an acquisition to collect data before and/or after a defined trigger condition (rising edge, pulse timeout, if it exceeds a voltage window, etc). Thanks, JColvin

Hi @DaniS, I'm not too familiar with the nuances of changing and playing back frequencies at a different pitch without it sounding distorted. Based on what you described, I'm guessing that the intended role of the AD3 in this scenario is to collect the incoming audio data from an external source and then either process or send the data to be processed. While the AD3 does have the ability to internally loop analog data between the Scope and Wavegen instrument, when 'forwarding' data from the Scope to the Wavegen you only have the ability to adjust the amplitude and offset of the signal; the time base is not able to be adjusted (as the acquired data getting transferred to different portions of the FPGA needs to stay consistent in size). If the audio data is already recorded and stored on the computer, you could use the Play functionality of the Wavegen instrument to import and then play an audio file of your choice (although now with the ability to change the frequency of the imported file) but of course this would not be a continuous audio signal. Realistically though, if you are wanting to dynamically and continuously change the frequency of an incoming audio signal or adjust the frequency "properly" you would likely be better served using different software than what Digilent offers. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @analog123, To have more control over the sampling rate of the analog inputs, I would recommend that you use the Record mode feature of the Scope instrument. You can either choose to Record to File (via the "Rec." option next to the Export button and below the Welcome tab), which will let you record data up to 1 to 2 MHz. Or you can change the sampling mode from Repeated to Record to record data at a faster rate, but you will be limited to the buffer size of the Scope channel (8 Ki samples with the default configuration for the AD2) to use those higher sample rates, otherwise you'll need to drop the sampling rate to the 1 to 2 MHz for larger amounts of data. This thread has some more information about recording with the AD2: Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin

Hello, The reset operation you described in 2-1 ("Device manager" -> "Calibrate" -> "Reset" -> "Load Factory") is the correct method to change the calibration values to what the ADP3250 was loaded with during the manufacturing process. If the factory calibration results are not satisfactory, then the first half that you described in 2-3 ("Device manager" -> "Calibrate" -> "Wizard") is the correct method to adjust the calibration values as needed for your particular unit. Choosing the different Boot options is not needed for changing calibration values. As per the Help Tab documentation for the ADP3450/ADP3250 in the Boot Mode section, whenever the device is powered on from the off state, the Standard Recovery is started by default and then automatically transitions to either the Standard or U-Boot (Linux Mode) applications, depending on what has last been selected by the user. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin

Hello, It was pointed out to me that the XAPP894 mentions that if external termination is used (which the Zybo Z7 uses the style shown in Figure 11), the common mode voltage can drop to 100 mV, which is what you are measuring. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @Fra, Digilent does not offer any repair services for our products unfortunately. If you want I can try to help you identify what components might have been damaged on the Nexys 4 DDR, but the catch of course that more than one thing could be damaged. Hopefully it is just the fuse (0603SFV350F/32-2) that is at the beginning of the voltage entry point that has burned out. Otherwise, I would also also be looking at the J11, J14, and J15 test points (top of the board near the Xilinx silkscreen label) with a multimeter when you are attempting to power the board with a 5 V supply to see what voltages, if any, are being registered on the different derived supplies. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin

While it could be argued that this violates the rules as written, I'll allow it. 😋

Hi @zorgoban, We don't have formal guide for doing performing probe compensation as of yet (I'll see if I can get that created before I am out of office for the holiday timeframe), but in general the process would be as follows: - Connect a BNC probe to the Scope channel you want to compensate it for. - Connect a BNC cable with some sort of minigrabbers or alligator clips to one of the Wavegen out channels (i.e. not a BNC probe with circuitry to interfere with the signal). - Connect the positive ends of the two BNC cables and the ground clips of them together. - Set the attenuation switch on the BNC probe to 10x. - Open the WaveForms software and open the Scope and Wavegen instruments. - Set the Scope channel you are compensating for to 10x (available through the Gear options dropdown on the right hand side) and the range to 1 V/div - Set the Wavegen channel to square wave with some higher amplitude to "force" any over/undershoot to happen and some frequency rate between 1 kHz and 5 kHz. Set your Scope timescale to account for the square wave frequency that you chose. - Run both the Wavegen and Scope instrument. - If you see non-square square waves on the Scope, use a screwdriver to adjust the trimmer till you get the square waves to be square. I usually also zoom in on my timebase to get a better view of my signal, sometimes also adjusting the offset to see how clean of a square wave I can get with minimal overshoot. How "perfect" it needs to be will depend on your application of course, but if you zoom so far in that you start seeing the effect of the rise time of the square wave, you've almost certainly gone too far. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @thirtyy, My understanding is that as per the Zybo Z7 Reference Manual, https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/zybo-z7/reference-manual#pcam_port, Digilent implemented the MIPI connector based the guidelines described in this Xilinx Application note: https://docs.xilinx.com/v/u/en-US/xapp894-d-phy-solutions. I have reached out to some engineers a bit more familiar with the hardware implementation for their insight into your query (though with the holiday timeframe, it may be awhile till I hear back). Thanks, JColvin

Yes, you can see the Script equivalent in the lower left of the GUI when you hover over a setting with your mouse:

Hi @Jaye, Do you get any error message with the no USB connection? The LED within the Analog Discovery 2 only illuminates when the WaveForms software connects to it. I would also try connecting to it with a different USB cable and/or different computer to help eliminate those sources of error (I've had both USB cables and USB ports fail on me before). These two threads also have some good information as well: Let me know what you find out. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @Dante, Yes, you can do this by clicking on the gear dropdown icon in the upper right corner of the plot and changing the Scale option off of Auto to either Full or Manual, so that the timescale option becomes editable. You'll have to manually adjust the scaling to get just the one period, but at least that is easily calculated with something like 100 kHz. There is a bit more detail in the Help tab -> Wavegen -> Section 3 Preview. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @KatharinaSt, To make sure I understand correctly, you say there is no signal showing up, even if you only connect one of the oscilloscope channels of the Analog Discovery 2 to the external trigger signal source? I would try to check this setting up a Normal trigger on oscilloscope Channel 1 that looks for a Rising Edge trigger that exceeds 500 mV, and then push the Single button on the upper left to have the Oscilloscope arm itself and wait for that first rising edge condition to confirm that the external system is producing the trigger. Other things that I would do to debug this is if the Analog Discovery and the external system share the same ground and what voltage level your external trigger is producing. By default, the Analog Discovery 2 runs at 3.3 V CMOS logic so it would not trigger on a 1 V pulse for example. I've attached a workspace of my example setup testing this (made for the Analog Discovery 3, but it will also run on the Analog Discovery 2 as is) where I have a one second long pulse after 4 seconds of waiting be generated twice on one of the Wavegen channels; that signal is connected to both Trigger 1 and Scope 1 on a breadboard. I then have the Logic Analyzer (connected to nothing) only run with Trigger 1 being active/detected. Wavegen Channel 2 is only triggered when the Logic Analyzer is active and creates a 10 Hz sine wave that runs for 1.5 seconds. This channel is externally connected to the Scope 2 wire. With the Oscilloscope continually running in Shift/Scan mode and both the Logic and Wavegen channel 2 armed, I got the following screenshot after having Wavegen channel 1 run a couple of different times. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin delayed-trigger-multi-instrument-example.dwf3work

Hi @KatharinaSt, You can only start the Wavegen with a trigger condition; it is not possible (at least as far as I am aware) to stop the generation based on separate trigger. If you set up your desired waveform to only run for a set amount of time before repeating, if the trigger condition, such as the Logic Analyzer instrument running, is no longer present, the Wavegen Instrument will stop once it reaches the end of the run time for that particular 'cycle'. With regards to getting the Wavegen generation to start on a trigger, I suspect the issue is that you did not start the Wavegen instrument so that it could arm itself and properly wait for the trigger condition. If this is not the issue you are running into, please let me know with some more detail what is not working for you. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @xthunderheartx, I would likely recommend looking into the WaveForms SDK examples (there are a couple of DigitalOut_Custom examples) Otherwise, there are a number of threads that you might find helpful here: Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @BMiller, I received confirmation that the 2023.1 OOB material, both hardware and sw branches, is not yet ready; once it is completed (I do not know the timeframe on this) it will move out of the /next branch and into /master. You are also correct that the patch isn't needed in 2022.x onwards; Digilent will remove that note from the appropriate readme file. However, regardless of the version of the tool suite used, the OOB demo uses the HDMI IP which needs its own license, as noted in the Reference Manual, https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/genesys-zu/reference-manual#software_support. I verified that the exact same error comes up on my license free machine for 2020.1 which the OOB material is based on: Unfortunately, there is not a real workaround to this outside of removing the licensed IPs from the design and then regenerating the bitstream. It might be possible (I have not tried nor investigated the following) to use some sort of DVI implementation instead, but you would not be able to get the 'full' HDMI 1.4b/2.0. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @KatharinaSt, Once you set up a triggered waveform by changing to Independent or synchronized as @jruff indicated, you can then create the biphasic square wave by setting the run time to be equal to the period of your square wave. The length in-between each 'pulse' can then be adjusted by changing the Wait time. If you only want it to occur a set number of times, change the Repeat option off of Infinite to whatever value you need. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @nics17, You are right that only one COM port should be associated with the Arty Z7-20. I believe you should be able to fix it (presuming you are on Windows) by going into the Windows Device Manager, opening the Universal Serial Bus controllers dropdown, and going down to USB Serial Converter A. Go into its Properties, go to the Advanced tab, and uncheck Load VCP. This should remove the virtual COM port association with that particular sector (I don't know what the actual vernacular is offhand) from the FTDI chip, and leave you with just one working COM port (on USB Serial Converter B), and the ability to configure the board over the PROG/UART micro USB port. Let me know if this doesn't resolve the issue and we can troubleshoot some more. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @BMiller, I tried building the 5EV OOB for 2023.1 as well on my machine (I don't have any licenses) and got the same error as well. Admittedly, I had forgotten to apply the patch that was mentioned at the bottom of the readme (https://github.com/Digilent/Genesys-ZU-HW/tree/5ev/oob/next) before generating any IPs, but regardless I've reached out for some additional insight into this. Thanks, JColvin

Hello, I don't have LabVIEW installed, but by default the Analog Discovery 3 works on repeated acquisitions, which will result in a gap in the data; you can reduce between repeated triggered acquisitions in the WaveForms application or SDK by enabling Device Buffering, but I don't think this is directly supported within the LabVIEW VI set. You would likely be wanting to use one of the Record mode examples; there are some additional threads on this topic here and here. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @venkateshj, Digilent doesn't have a device with a Zynq 7030 on it, so I don't know how your particular board is set up in terms of its connections, but generically speaking you can follow something like Digilent's guide here, https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/guides/getting-started-with-ipi, which sets up some simple GPIO access from the PL side and also prints via one of the UART ports, which in the case of Digilent's boards, is accessible over a generic serial monitor on the host computer. Otherwise, if you are using some sort of external UART through generically available IO pins (you'll still need some sort of USB controller to receive the signals and interface with the computer for you), these two posts (link1, link2) may be of interest to you. Thanks, JColvin Edit Dec 15th 2023: For clarity, the initial guide linked really only works if you have a Zynq board with the PS USBUART routed to a USB controller (along with heavily benefiting from having a Zynq IP preset to work with). I do not know what resources your particular Zynq 7030 comes with or how it is laid out. The external UART bits could still work through MIO or EMIO depending on the layout and Zynq block configuration.

Hi @nakajii, I have moved your question to a more appropriate section of the Forum. I don't know your exact setup, but the Logger instrument by default uses the Low gain / full range of the Analog inputs, so for more accurate measurements you would need to make sure you using the 5 V range (adjustable through the "Gear More" dropdown next to the update rate). I presume you already connected the grounds between the devices for good measure. Other potential sources of error that I could think of would be that the BNC probes are not set to 1x attenuation, or that you are using a BNC probe on the Wavegen output rather than just a BNC passthrough cable that has no additional circuitry. Let me know if I have misunderstood your setup. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @fepc3, Where do you see that the JTAG-SMT2-NC is discontinued? As far as I am aware, it is in production and available: https://digilent.com/shop/jtag-smt2-nc-surface-mount-programming-module/. The only alternates I am aware of for the JTAG-SMT2 would be 410-251 (https://digilent.com/shop/jtag-smt2-surface-mount-programming-module/) which already has the USB connector on it, or maybe you are thinking of the MSL3 level packaging option? Regardless, no 'variant' of the JTAG-SMT2-NC has any differences in the boards that they support, https://digilent.com/reference/programmers/jtag-smt2-nc/reference-manual#supported_target_devices. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin

Hi @Matty333, I've moved your question to a more appropriate section of the Forum. This would not be very feasible to do with the Analog Discovery 2/3 with the BNC Adapter, mostly because the Impedance Analyzer instrument within WaveForms relies on using the differential analog inputs of the Analog Discovery device, but BNC cables are single-ended, ultimately resulting in you not having enough analog inputs while using the BNC adapter to correctly set up the needed topology. You 'could' forgo the BNC adapter and potentially create a setup with the MTE cables; it will be a "little" janky and not getting to use the higher bandwidth of the BNC, but it would work (depending on how accurate of an impedance measurement you are wanting to get from the coaxial cable; impedance measurements work best when your reference resistance is highly accurate and already close to the unknown impedance value). The Analog Discovery Pro ADP3450, https://digilent.com/reference/test-and-measurement/analog-discovery-pro-3x50/start, does have enough analog inputs to correctly support the topology needed for the Impedance Analyzer (though you might need various t-adapters for the BNC connections presuming I understand your setup), but that costs more than the AD2 already on your desk. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, JColvin