Discovery 3 vs Discovery Pro

[Zebryk]

Can the Discovery 3 do everything the Discovery Pro does?

If not, why spend the extra $900?

[Guest]

The 5250 is essentially a National Instruments VB-8012 in a differently-colored box, and the VB-8012 doesn't support Linux. It is really very much an outlier device among the set of devices supported by the DWF library. My guess is that the DWF driver doesn't directly talk to the device, but rather talks to the (Windows-only) DLL that NI made for it. It's quite an achievement really, in much the same way that this is an achievement.

The ADP5250 cannot be controlled via Ethernet; its hardware interface is USB-only. The computer it connects to is the only computer that can talk to it, so there is no way to control the device from Linux.

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by reddish

[JColvin]

Hi @Zebryk,

I suppose it depends on what functionality you are thinking of as both devices have analog inputs, analog outputs, and digital I/O with access to the same instruments within the WaveForms software.

You'll be the only one that is able to decide if the price difference is worth it to you, but here is the primary list of things that the Analog Discovery Pro (I'm presuming you're referring to the ADP3450, ,) has that the Analog Discovery 3 does not.

• Two additional oscilloscope channels
• DDR memory for larger captures -- up to 128Mi samples (134217728 samples) rather than 32 Ki samples like on the AD3
• Ethernet port for connectivity
• Embedded Linux mode so the device can run autonomously and be set up with custom applications so you can have it trigger and capture data to be stored on an attached flash drive without needing to be constantly tethered to a host PC.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
JColvin

[DKluger]

On a related note, I see a disclaimer in the Analog Discovery Pro ADP5250 product page saying "The ADP5250 is Windows only." This disclaimer does not appear on the Analog Discovery 3 page.

Does this mean that just the WaveForms GUI/application only works with the ADP5250 on Windows? Or does this mean that the C/Python APIs for this product based off the WaveForms SDK also only work on Windows?

In other words, can I use Python scripts calling the WaveForms SDK using a Linux PC to communicate with an ADP5250? The capabilities and limitations of the drivers utilized by WaveForms isn't immediately clear to me.