Analog discovery pro 30004/5/2023 ![]() ![]() The original Analog Discovery 2 was a smart design which democratised access to basic instruments which were just barely sufficient at a price which almost every student could afford. With the current situation of COVID-19 uncertainties and a real, practical need to move education and research into blended or remote-delivery, there is a market for instruments which are cost-effective and highly portable. In the review, I go into more depth about the instrument performance and look underneath the covers to learn what powers the unit. This means you can even do some measurements with just your phone, but RAM is rather short and performance is somewhat limited. The Linux Mode capability is almost like welding in a Raspberry Pi, which means that it is possible to run the Linux armhf build of WaveForms on the device itself, in a desktop environment running with a dummy screen, served through VNC on the network. It can even emulate a seven segment display … which I thought was rather cool. The waveform generator and oscilloscope can be combined to form an impedance analyser or frequency response analyser (with limitations, of course). WaveForms does a good job of multi-instrument integration, using the peripherals in smart ways – for example, the digital is not only an analyser, but it can also be used for hosting various types of buses or working as a pattern generator as an output. Performance is a little choppy when you have many windows open, with occasional stability issues especially with Record Mode. One downside is the visual clutter that comes with such flexibility but I feel they’ve balanced the tradeoffs quite well. ![]() If you’ve never used WaveForms before, it’s pretty cool as it is extremely flexible and reconfigurable to your needs. One downside is the need to power the unit from a laptop-style 19V power supply. Other than that, it does have standard USB 2.0 for connection to a host as well, if that is desired. With the USB ports, it’s possible to install supported Wi-Fi dongles and have it connect wirelessly to networks, or even talk to other SCPI-capable instruments too. This means that this instrument can be “self-hosting” enabling host-less data collection to USB mass storage devices or even to the cloud. It does, however, have an extra “ace” up its sleeve in the form of Linux Mode, with USB host ports on the rear and gigabit Ethernet. However, it does use the same powerful and widely compatible WaveForms software complete with SDK that powered the Analog Discovery 2 and it is still relatively compact and lightweight given the multiple instruments on offer. But it also has a “grown up” price tag as well, being less the cost of a textbook and more the cost of a mid-range USB oscilloscope. In some sense, it is a “grown up” Analog Discovery 2 (or Analog Discovery) with proper BNC connectors rather than header pins. It also has two arbitrary waveform generators, also 14-bit resolution up to 125MSPS sample rate, 16-digital I/O channels, two trigger I/O channels, an adjustable digital voltage supply and more. This is sold as a mixed-signal oscilloscope or mixed-domain oscilloscope with four channels at 14-bit resolution with up to 125MSPS sample rate. Thanks to element14 and Digilent, I was one of three lucky recipients to be able to review the Analog Discovery Pro ADP3450. Unfortunately, I hit a snag preventing me from delivering my review until I discovered a workaround, delaying the publication for a few days. Unfortunately, things didn’t go so smoothly, so my last RoadTest was delivered on the old platform, making this my first RoadTest under the new platform. It’s been a big year for the element14 Community as well, having recently migrated from a Jive-based platform to a Verint-based one. This has been a personal best, no less due to the additional time I have saved because of COVID-19 lockdowns and working from home. I applied to a staggering 14 RoadTest reviews and was awarded six of them, forfeiting one due to overlapping review time windows. The RoadTest program at element14 is the gift that keeps on giving and 2021 was a bumper year for me. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |