Inquiry Regarding Digilent Boards and Product Features

[Rachel]

Dear Digilent Team,

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to inquire about your boards and their capabilities. I have a few questions and would greatly appreciate your assistance in providing me with the relevant information.

Regarding the pydwf library, I understand that it currently does not support the Analog Discovery 3. Could you please let me know if there are plans to include support for the Analog Discovery 3 in the near future?

I would like to know the memory depth specifications for both the Analog Discovery 2 and Analog Discovery 3. Could you kindly provide me with the memory depth details for each of these devices?

I am interested in understanding whether the Analog Discovery 2 and Analog Discovery 3 support triggering functionality. Specifically, I would like to know if it is possible to trigger multiple devices and achieve 2N channels by combining N such devices.

Additionally, if you have any other products that offer high oscilloscope resolution, substantial memory depth, external trigger capabilities, and other advanced features similar to the Analog Discovery 2 and 3, I would appreciate it if you could introduce them to me.

Thank you very much for your attention to these inquiries. I am eager to learn more about your products and their capabilities. Please feel free to provide any additional information or suggestions that you think would be helpful for my specific requirements.

Looking forward to your response.

Kind regards,

Raheleh Eslampanah (University of Antwerp)

[attila]

Hi @Rachel

The ADP3450 and EclypseZ7 (can) have 4 Scope channels and 128/256M sample buffer.
See the device comparison at the following link or the WaveForms application Help tab.
https://digilent.com/reference/test-and-measurement/start
https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/eclypse-z7/start

The newer WaveForms versions support Dual device control. 
I recommend using the WF app and the latest beta version for such purpose, and for automation use the Script tool of the application.

 

The pydwf is a 3rd party support from @reddish 
I'm not too familiar with it but it should support all T&M devices.

About the API/SDK see the manual and examples in the installation:

 

[JColvin]

Hi @Rachel,

Edit: Looks like Attila beat me to it, but I'll post my response anyways.

Quote

Regarding the pydwf library, I understand that it currently does not support the Analog Discovery 3. Could you please let me know if there are plans to include support for the Analog Discovery 3 in the near future?

pydwf was developed by @reddish, so I will leave it to them for commentary on the compatibility.

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I would like to know the memory depth specifications for both the Analog Discovery 2 and Analog Discovery 3. Could you kindly provide me with the memory depth details for each of these devices?

The Analog Discovery 2 could have up to 16 KiS (16384 samples) per channel depending on the device configuration selected within the WaveForms Device Manager. The Analog Discovery 3 on the other hand doubles this with up to 32 KiS (32768 samples) per channel, again depending on the selection within the WaveForms Device Manager (The oscilloscope in particular on the Analog Discovery 3 can have up to 64 KiS if you select the 32 KiS configuration within the WaveForms Device Manager and then disable/uncheck one of the channels so that it's buffer is instead allocated to the remaining, enabled channel).
You can learn more about the specific buffer sizes for the devices in the Analog Discovery 3 Specifications document: https://digilent.com/reference/test-and-measurement/analog-discovery-3/specifications.

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I am interested in understanding whether the Analog Discovery 2 and Analog Discovery 3 support triggering functionality. Specifically, I would like to know if it is possible to trigger multiple devices and achieve 2N channels by combining N such devices.

Yes, both the AD2 and AD3 are compatible with WaveForms new Select+Dual mode where two identical devices (two AD2s or two AD3s for example) can have their two trigger lines connected and then have a unified view within WaveForms (for 4 analog inputs, 4 analog outputs, and 32 digital channels). The Analog Discovery 2 will only be software timed and will experience some drift in synchronization, but the Analog Discovery 3 with it's larger FPGA supports hardware timing for much tighter synchronization between the two devices.
As both trigger lines are used in this feature, it is only possible to concatenate two devices together. You could open up a second instance of WaveForms to control additional devices, but there is no way to neatly synchronize that instance with the Select+Dual at this point in time.

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Additionally, if you have any other products that offer high oscilloscope resolution, substantial memory depth, external trigger capabilities, and other advanced features similar to the Analog Discovery 2 and 3, I would appreciate it if you could introduce them to me.

You would most likely be interested in learning about the Analog Discovery Pro 3450 then: https://digilent.com/reference/test-and-measurement/analog-discovery-pro-3x50/start. It has 4 analog inputs and 2 analog outputs at 14-bit resolution and 16 digital channels with 1.2 V to 3.3 V CMOS logic (5 V input tolerant), two external triggers, as well as on-board DDR memory for a much larger buffer for the analog and digital inputs (128 MiS total for the analog inputs and 64 MiS for the digital inputs). It also offers an embedded Linux mode so it can be used as a standalone device without needing to be tethered to a host computer running WaveForms in order to operate.

Digilent also has a slightly different Analog Discovery 5250 (which is based on NI's VB8012), https://digilent.com/reference/test-and-measurement/analog-discovery-pro-5250/start, which offers higher bandwidth and sample rates (up to 1 GS/s and 100 MHz bandwidth on the oscilloscope channels and 1 GS/s Logic Analyzer) and has a DMM, but does not have other features such as a Pattern Generator.

Let us know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
JColvin

[Guest]

Hi @Rachel,

 

Quote

Regarding the pydwf library, I understand that it currently does not support the Analog Discovery 3. Could you please let me know if there are plans to include support for the Analog Discovery 3 in the near future?

I am the developer of pydwf. Glad you consider using it for your research; just so you know, we've been using Digilent devices quite a bit for doing quantum research at Delft University of Technology and TNO in the Netherlands, and we're happy with them, overall. Of course, it's possible to get much higher-end devices, but wherever you don't need cutting-edge performance they have served us well, especially given their modest price.

I'm quite sure that the Analog Discovery 3 will work with pydwf, but I don't currently have this device at my disposal for testing.

The pydwf package and its documentation need to be updated to cover the latest developments and newest functionality in the latest release of the underlying DWF library (as provided by Digilent), but everything except some rather exotic new functions should just work. The update will come in a few weeks, but currently, things are a bit hectic at my day job, hence the delay.

Cheers,

  Sidney

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by reddish