Digilent Waveforms devices and their configurations
This section introduces device configurations and lists all Digilent Waveforms devices (past and present) and the device configurations they support.
Todo
This section is currently incomplete.
We need to gather data on more devices.
About device configurations
For some Digilent Waveforms devices, multiple firmware configurations are available that make different tradeoffs for certain hard-coded parameters. For example, one configuration may support a lot of buffering memory for the AnalogIn instrument, while another configuration may support a lot of buffering memory for the DigitalOut instrument. Several examples of different devices and their configurations are shown below.
Devices have a default configuration that represent a balanced tradeoff in functionality that works well for most applications. However, for some user programs, it may be useful to select a different device configuration, that is better suited to the task at hand. The device enumeration API provides a way to enumerate the relevant properties of all available device configurations. A user application can use this information to select the best device configuration, and activate it while opening the device.
Handling device enumeration and device configurations involves quite a bit of bookkeeping. For many applications, this complexity can be avoided by using the pydwf.utilities.openDwfDevice() convenience function. It provides an easy-to-use alternative to dealing with device enumeration and device configurations directly.
An overview of Digilent Waveforms devices
We collected the information given below by executing the following command:
$ python3 -m pydwf list -c
Electronics Explorer (legacy)
An older device. This is the predecessor of the Analog Discovery Studio.
(no data)
Analog Discovery (legacy)
An older device, coming in a black enclosure. This is the predecessor of the Analog Discovery 2.
(no data)
Analog Discovery 2
A low-cost multi-function device; the successor to the original Analog Discovery and the predecessor of the Analog Discovery 3.
device ........... : 3
version .......... : 3
user_name ........ : 'Discovery2'
device_name ...... : 'Analog Discovery 2'
Configuration: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
---------------------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
AnalogInChannelCount 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
AnalogOutChannelCount 2 2 2 2 2 4 2 2
AnalogIOChannelCount 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
DigitalInChannelCount 16 16 0 16 16 16 16 16
DigitalOutChannelCount 16 0 0 16 16 8 16 16
DigitalIOChannelCount 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16
AnalogInBufferSize 8192 16384 2048 512 8192 8192 512 8192
AnalogOutBufferSize 4096 1024 16384 256 4096 4096 256 1024
DigitalInBufferSize 4096 1024 0 16384 4096 2048 16384 16384
DigitalOutBufferSize 1024 0 0 16384 1024 256 16384 256
Note that we only show the parameters with integer values here. This makes it look as if device configurations 0 and 4 are identical, as well as configurations 3 and 6.
However, if we also consider the OtherInfoText information, we’d see that this is single period (‘.’) character in configurations 0 and 3, and ‘1V8_Digital_Input’ in configurations 4 and 6. So those configurations that look identical are indeed distinct.
Analog Discovery 3
A current, low-cost multi-function device; the successor to the Analog Discovery 2.
device ........... : 10
version .......... : 3
user_name ........ : 'Discovery3'
device_name ...... : 'Analog Discovery 3'
Configuration: 0 1 2 3 4 5
---------------------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
TooltipText (length) (413) (404) (404) (412) (412) (411)
OtherInfoText _ _ _ _ _ _
AnalogInChannelCount 2 2 2 2 2 2
AnalogOutChannelCount 4 4 4 4 4 4
AnalogIOChannelCount 2 2 2 2 2 2
DigitalInChannelCount 16 16 16 16 16 16
DigitalOutChannelCount 16 16 16 16 16 16
DigitalIOChannelCount 16 16 16 16 16 16
AnalogInBufferSize 16384 32768 8192 16384 4096 8192
AnalogOutBufferSize 16384 4096 32768 4096 4096 16384
DigitalInBufferSize 16384 4096 2048 32768 32768 2048
DigitalOutBufferSize 2048 2048 2048 2048 32768 2048
Digital Discovery
A current, low-cost device, similar to the Analog Discovery 2, but omitting analog inputs and outputs. On the plus side, it provides high-speed differential digital inputs, and more memory for pattern generation and capture.
device .......... : 4
version ......... : 2
username ........ : 'DDiscovery'
devicename ...... : 'Digital Discovery'
Configuration: 0
---------------------- --------
AnalogInChannelCount 0
AnalogOutChannelCount 0
AnalogIOChannelCount 1
DigitalInChannelCount 24
DigitalOutChannelCount 16
DigitalIOChannelCount 16
AnalogInBufferSize 0
AnalogOutBufferSize 0
DigitalInBufferSize 67108864
DigitalOutBufferSize 32768
Analog Discovery Studio
This is the spiritual successor to the earlier Electronics Explorer device.
(no data)
DPS3340 Discovery USB power supply
(no data)
Analog Discovery Pro 3x50
This device is feature-wise comparable to the Analog Discovery 2, sold since 2020. Hardware-wise, it is more high-end; it provides BNC connectors for its analog inputs and outputs.
This class of devices includes two models: the Analog Discovery Pro 3250 and the Analog Discovery Pro 3450.
The data below is for an Analog Discovery Pro 3450:
device ........... : 6
version .......... : 4
username ......... : 'ADP3450'
devicename ....... : 'Analog Discovery Pro 3450'
Configuration: 0 1
---------------------- -------- --------
AnalogInChannelCount 4 4
AnalogOutChannelCount 2 2
AnalogIOChannelCount 1 1
DigitalInChannelCount 16 16
DigitalOutChannelCount 16 16
DigitalIOChannelCount 16 16
AnalogInBufferSize 32768 65536
AnalogOutBufferSize 32768 4096
DigitalInBufferSize 32768 8192
DigitalOutBufferSize 16384 1024
Analog Discovery Pro 5250
A clone of the National Instruments VB-8012 device. Works only in Windows.
(no data)