Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Benjamin Franksen <[email protected]> · Fri, 4 Feb 2011 13:36:50 +0100

First, thanks to all who replied. We are also persuing network connected
scopes, but when I wrote the original message I was not aware of any, thus
my question for USB scopes.

We evaluated the ZTec a while ago and found it usuitable for our demands
(mostly regarding stability/usability).

Our standard (and fallback) solution is to use Tektronix scopes, controlled
over vxi-11/asyn/streamDevice. This is very easy to set up and program. It
just seemed a waste to mount a regular scope with front panel and display in
a rack and hide it behind a door.

Cheers
Ben

On Friday, February 04, 2011, Bruce Hill wrote:
> We've had some success with ZTec scopes.  They run EPICS
> on the boxes, allowing you to run a linux flash utility to update the
> startup file which sets the PV names, and they provide a minimal EDM gui.
> We didn't have to use any windows software to configure them.
>
> For us, they serve a niche that needs digitized signals captured in
> EPICS with
> more flexible triggering and sampling options than our dedicated
> digitizers, but where the setup doesn't change often.   The gui is
> adequate for
> this use, but while you could use it with a laptop for portable
> diagnostics, a small test scope is much more user friendly.
>
> Regards,
> - Bruce
>
> On 02/03/2011 04:32 AM, Benjamin Franksen wrote:
> > We are interested in evaluating USB-scopes (rack-mounted, no front
> > panel) for continuous signal measurements, as these are a lot cheaper
> > than regular scopes (with display and front panel controls). However,
> > it is unclear whether remote access to such scopes necessarily means
> > using proprietary (vendor supplied) software under Windows. Ideally,
> > we would like to have an asyn driver for USB (or some more specific
> > protocol over USB), and then use stream device support on top of that.
> > Failing that, we would have to explore other possibilities, like
> > running an IOC on a Windows machine with a special device support that
> > talks with some (proprietary) vendor library.
> >
> > Has anyone already done something like that? If yes, which
> > manufacturers/devices are you using? Has anyone experience with
> > programming USB? Could the protocol be reverse engineered?
> >
> > Cheers
> > Ben
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH
> >
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> > Dr. Anke Rita Kaysser-Pyzalla, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Eberhardt,
> > Dr. Ulrich Breuer
> >
> > Sitz Berlin, AG Charlottenburg, 89 HRB 5583
> >
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________________________________

Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH

Mitglied der Hermann von Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren e.V

Aufsichtsrat: Vorsitzender Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Joachim Treusch, stv. Vorsitzende Dr. Beatrix Vierkorn- Rudolph
Geschäftsführer: Prof. Dr. Anke Rita Kaysser-Pyzalla, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Eberhardt, Dr. Ulrich Breuer

Sitz Berlin, AG Charlottenburg, 89 HRB 5583

Postadresse:
Hahn-Meitner-Platz 1
D-14109 Berlin

http://www.helmholtz-berlin.de

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System