User manual

MAUI Oscilloscopes Remote Control and Automation Manual
Transferring High-Speed Waveforms
Several important factors must be considered to achieve maximum, continuous data transfer rates from
your instrument to the external controller.
The single most important of these is to limit the amount of work done by the computer, meaning:
l Avoid writing data to disk wherever possible
l Minimize operations such as per-data-point computations
l Reduce the number of calls to the I/O system
To do this, try the following:
l Reduce the number of points to be transferred and the number of data bytes per point. The pulse
parameter capability and the processing functions can save a great deal of computing and a lot of
data transfer time if employed creatively.
l Attempt to overlap waveform acquisition with waveform transfer. The oscilloscope is capable of
transferring an already acquired or processed waveform after a new acquisition has been started.
The total time the instrument takes to acquire events is considerably increased if it is set to wait for
triggers (live time).
l Minimize the number of waveform transfers by using Sequence mode to accumulate many
triggers for each transfer. This is preferable to using WAVEFORM_SETUP to reduce the number of
data points for transfer. It also significantly reduces oscilloscope transfer overhead. For example,
you could use ARM; WAIT;C1:WF? to wait for the event, transfer the data, and then start a new
acquisition. You could also loop this line in the program as soon as it has finished reading the
waveform.
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