Option Gated Sampling | Recording modes |
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Option Gated Sampling
The option Gated Sampling allows the data acquisition controlled by an external gate signal. Data will only be recorded, if the programmed gate condition is true.
Recording modes
Standard Mode
Data will be recorded as long as the gate signal fulfills the gate condition that has had to be programmed before. At the end of the gate interval the recording will be stopped and the board will pause until another gates signal appears. If the total amount of data to acquire has been reached the board stops immediately (see figure). The total amount of samples to be recorded can be defined by the memsize register.
The table below shows the register for enabling Gated Sam- pling. For detailed information on how to setup and start the standard acquisition mode please refer to the according chapter earlier in this manual.
When using Gated Sampling pretrigger is not available and postcounter has no function.
Register | Value | Direction | Description |
SPC_GATE | 220400 | r/w | Enables Gated Sampling mode. |
SPC_MEMSIZE | 10000 | r/w | Defines the total amount of samples to record. |
FIFO Mode
The Gated Sampling in FIFO Mode is similar to the Gated Sam- pling in Standard Mode. In contrast to the Standard mode you cannot programm a certain total amount of samples to be record- ed. The acquisition is running until the user stops it. The data is read FIFO block by FIFO block by the driver. These blocks are online available for further data processing by the user program. The advantage of Gated Sampling in FIFO mode is that you can stream data online to the hostsystem with a lower average data rate than in conventional FIFO mode without gated sampling. You can make realtime data processing or store a huge amount of data to the hard disk. The table below shows the dedicated
register for enabling Gated Sampling. For detailed information how to setup and start the board in FIFO mode please refer to the according chapter earlier in this manual.
Register
SPC_GATE
Value | Direction | Description |
220400 | r/w | Enables Gated Sampling mode. |
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Trigger modes
General information and trigger delay
Not all of the board’s trigger modes can be used in combi- nation with Gated Sampling. All possible trigger modes are listed below. Depending on the different trigger modes, the chosen sample rate, the used channels and activated board synchronisation (see according chapter for details about synchronizing multiple boards) there are different delay times between the trigger event and the first sampled data (see figure). This start delay is necessary as the board is equipped with dynamic RAM, which needs refresh cycles to keep the data in memory when the board is not recording. It is fix for a certain board setup. All possible delays in sam- ples between the trigger event and the first recorded sample are listed in the table below. A negative amount of samples indicates that the trigger will be visible. Due to this delay a part of the gate signal will not be used for acquisition and
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