IF2C: G(XN)-Hosted Continuous Acquisition

What about using the DL0102G/XN (the “G” and “GXN”) with or without the IF2C in Continuous Acquisition mode in your UT software? In Brief: Yes.

Continuous Acquisition (CA) is different from fast channel-switching round-robbin rapid-scan because it keeps the channels fixed and acquires pulse and receive waveforms on the same channel or channels (two channels, if cross-channel CA is enabled) continuously and fairly rapidly.

Continuous Acquisition (CA) Controls

The DLITE-Family Host boards, including the DL0100A1, DL0102G, and DL0102GXN, are all capable of sustained pulse and received speeds of up to 60Hz.

However the limitation in continuous acquisition speed is typically or has been: (1) Serial communications bandwidth (typically maxing out at somewhere around 1Mbps using a capable USB-Serial cable) and related flow control and (2) UT software PC processing rate.

As of this writing, circa Mar 2019, the limitation in activating and testing CA with a G/XN board has been that the UT software verifies the Host board’s firmware revision before continuing (which is a very useful thing to do). However, the G/XN boards ship with demo firmware that uses a different firmware revision format. This is by design to indicate that the firmware as shipped, although built from the same base code as your custom in-house firmware, is a different branch and may or may not include your latest additions, and has been updated to demo the latest stock hardware features and APIs.

Since CA is included in the firmware base, that function should be functional as shipped, and if you modify your UT software, say an R&D release of it, you may see the usual CA functionality.

However, if your UT software and in-house custom firmware implementations of CA have changed, then you may need to simply integrate the latest stock hardware features and API into your firmware code base and re-release the firmware to match your system implementation. It’s reasonably fast, and since all the demo code is here for the IF2C API, you can drop it in and play from there. Maybe a day.

Any questions or something doesn’t match what’s written here, just get in touch.