ni scope

[aph323s]

Hello,

I'm having some difficulty with the acquisition of data with an NI-Scope.  When acquiring a waveform (which for my experiment comes from a laser), I need not only information concerning the amplitude of the wave, but the wavelength over time as well.  I've been through the manual for my NI-Scope and I'm not seeing an option to record waveform data involving its wavelength.  Any advice you could give me on this topic would be much appreciated.  Thanks.

[Benjamin38]

Hi Aph, 

I think what you are looking to work with the horizontal attributes of the NI-Scope driver which will allow you to configure the number of samples to acquire, samples per waveform etc.  I have a few questions on your set up, as soon as I have a better understanding of what you are working with I can point you to the appropriate information.  

Are you working with NI-Scope in LabVIEW?  C?  

What digitizer(s) are you working with? 

What version of the NI-Scope driver do you currently have installed? 

When you say you need information on the wavelength over time, can you describe exactly what you are trying to accomplish with your programming?  

[aph323s]

Hi Ben N.

Thanks for getting back to me.  I'm using LABVIEW 10/sp1 and using the NI-Scope PCI 5114 Digitizer.  I believe that the driver which is currently installed on the computer is version 488.2.

So..what I need to do involves a QCL Laser with varying wavelength connected to the scope.  The final program will need to trigger both the beginning of a wavelength variation scan and an oscilloscope scan at the same time so that as wavelength is varying the oscilloscope is gathering data.  This data will then be send to a spreadsheet for analysis.

This leads to the main problem I'm having with the programming.  For instance, say I want to vary my wavelength over a 10nm range within three seconds.  Then I need the scope to gather data for three seconds (after being triggered) then end the record.  I think I'm getting confused as to the operation of the NI Scope itself.  I'm trying to think about it like a normal oscilloscope and I'm visualizing the signal on a traditional oscilloscope scanning across the screen for three seconds when the digitizer doesn't do that.  Any advice you could give me would be great on how to use the digitizers features to accomplish this data colection process.  Thanks.