Hey there well congrats on the internship. I’ll give you some advice. 1. don’t freak out. You can apply the concepts here and you will be able to do it. I don’t know the sim900 but I just googled and found the mainframe programmers manual. and there are examples in C language in there showing how to connect etc. You need to at least get your environment setup so you can run the code the. try some examples. And hopefully you have some lead there at your internship to also get you started. Just jump in and get the basic examples work g first so you are comfortable with handshaking with the mainframe. and also work on communicating with the modules. etc. There will be trial and error on your part. Experiment and learn from every error and mistake. There may also be users forums etc and possibly some code in github that can get you going. I have been in many situations where I had no clue what I was doing and no help. And I always got through it. You can too. Trial and observe and write down your observations. Ask questions. Research and also check out that companies documentation and app notes. These companies want you to succeed. If their product was ridiculously hard to use they wouldnt be around for long. To me all coding is the same. You are either reading something or writing something. It's that simple. And you have a basic idea of the flow. You can put those pieces together! Things may get a little tricky but don't give up. You'll get there.

Bitifeye has updated their offerings. If you own the Hdmi test app then you should also have these tools installed as part of the Hdmi Package. If you cannot locate it then you will need to contact their support team to assist in installing it. They are migrating to the new N5991 platform so I am thinking they will have to give you offline access to the older downloads. They also recently updated to HDMI 2. So check with them if you are a legacy customer through their support portal.

@@timfairfieldAETestandMeasure Thanks for the reply! I already found it, and after some modification, it works perfectly now on my DP2.1 N5991 platform.

Your question Makes sense. Which specific scope are you using? I am assuming you have used the mean measurement on the scope and are not doing it manually. There is a scpi command specifically for that , I’m not at my Pc right now but I can respond after I know which model you have. Once you be the scpi command you can actually call that from python. And I understand you just want the mean voltage value. So let me know and I can show you here in text or make a video short for you to assist. Also are you exporting to excel because you weren’t able to do it another way ? or as you mention you want a pythonic way to fetch just that value from the instrument from a python program ?

@@timfairfieldAETestandMeasure I've made progress on this project. I still can't export to Python. Instead, I am exporting it all to .csv, and then using Python to access and perform calculations on the data in that .csv file. It's been a very interesting process! I am using an SDS1204X-E, the verification procedure has some irritating math I've been brainstorming about.

once it is detected there is no issue? meaning you can write and read and no issue? Perhaps a latency issue. Maybe for the connection do a try except loop and have it keep trying until a connection is made. this assumes you are ok once connected. does it keep the same gpib address every time?

no we support 3.x. best to use 3.7 or 3.8. this is quite an old video and i’ll have to update it.

Thank you so much. I’m a little slow to put them out. If you link back to my main youtube there are many more. Is there anything particular you would like to see? I recently did a Linux automation video and a few others on other topics that come up. I probably should update this series. I did this originally for Seneca College as a supplemental material and put it up and I cannot believe how popular it is still. even though it is a bit outdated.

​@@timfairfieldAETestandMeasure Hello, Thank you for your reply: Yes, in terms of what I would like to see if possibe ; In the case of GPIB, It woukd be helpful to see a complete walkthrough of loading all the necessary modules, etc to comprehend what is needed for a basic setup ; So , for example , if using VB 6.0 ( getting a bit old now) setting up and installing what is needed to , for example , operate a dvm. Or if its easyer , with python! So from scatch- installing python, linking 488, etc. so that the very basics of what is needed to get an instrument aquiring data can be clearly seen. That would be good!

Is it a USB C type connector? try fliping the USB C 180 degrees. also if it is a cable that is not marked with the USB logo then it is not compliant and may not work. The logo cannot be used if it is non compliant. do any other devices work with that specific cable???

Command expert creates commands to instruct an instrument. (analogous to a client) it doesn’t create an instrument which is analogous to a server. Command expert puts in a facility to respond to commands if you do not have an instrument present. this functionality you are requesting is not built in to command expert. but keep in mind you are sending text strings to a listening client. So if you use socket protocol for the instrument and sniff the packets with a tool like wire-shark you can see how the strings move. From that you could create a listener in javascript and get what you want going.

Thanks for your question. the license scheme changed a bit from M8070A to B. The M8070A always needed a license to work on real hardware. That kind of didn’t make sense as you need the software to run the bert. however M8070B will now work in basic bert mode with hardware without a license. This allows basic pattern and error detection and jitter injection Anything like compliance needs the compliance software license for the standard you are testing. The compliance really is a test executive which commands the M8070B the specific settings for a system and evaluates against the standard. You could write your own test for Pcie of course but I personally think it would be a nightmare given the vast amount of tests. and remember most of the RX compliance is spent fine tuning the Compliance eye for the final test.

Command expert does this, we also have Benchvue. We also have extensive automation with Pathwave , What area are you located? We could have an engineer work with you directly to explore in detail take a look here www.keysight.com/us/en/products/software/pathwave-test-software.html

Thanks Mich. Command expert creates a plugin for Excel and it has been around for a long time. This is an older video but shows the basics for controlling an instrument from Excel directly kzbin.info/www/bejne/bF60ZIyqdseGjbM here also is an app note related to that www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/7018-03282/application-notes/5990-9639.pdf I do appreciate this comment , maybe I should do a live demo of my own using a scope and signal generator. Ill add it to my video topic candidates.

Hi Rafael. Which scope are you using? I assume you mean make a screen shot and then store it to a specific loacation?

@@timfairfieldAETestandMeasure It is the mso7104

It is the mso7104

@@elchino835 this is an older model and waveform and image storage is limited to an external USB stick. Programmatically you would use the 2 commands below. Storage type and format USB 1.1 host ports on the front and rear panels Image formats: BMP (8 -bit), BMP (24-bit), PNG (24-bit) Data formats: X and Y (time/voltage) values in CSV format, ASCII XY and binary format and .alb for offline viewing on a PC Trace/setup formats: Recalled :SAVE:IMAGe:FORMat - Command Syntax :SAVE:IMAGe:FORMat <format> <format> ::= {TIFF | {BMP | BMP24bit} | BMP8bit | PNG} ---------- :SAVE:IMAGe[:STARt] - Command Syntax :SAVE:IMAGe[:STARt] [<file_spec>] <file_spec> ::= {<internal_loc> | <file_name>} <internal_loc> ::= 0-9; an integer in NR1 format <file_name> ::= quoted ASCII string The :SAVE:IMAGe[:STARt] command saves an image. [Note] If a file extension is provided as part of a specified <file_name>, and it does not match the extension expected by the format specified in :SAVE:IMAGe:FORMat, the format will be changed if the extension is a valid image file extension. [Note] If the extension ".bmp" is used and the current :SAVE:IMAGe:FORMat is not BMP or BMP8, the format will be changed to BMP. [Note] When the <internal_loc> option is used, the :SAVE:IMAGe:FORMat will be changed to TIFF. Hope this helps you out a bit Other scopes Keysight use different methods and the file saving is usually series specific.

Is there a programming guide for that instrument? Most instruments with SCPI implement a standard SCPI library where you can "borrow" from another instrument's library and by looking at the programming guide you can deduce the instrument-specific calls as well. Also, a good place to look is code online. I will have a future video coming that will show how to reverse engineer SCPI code in that way "Clone and own" style to get an old piece of bench equipment working through automation. Would that be of interest to you?

check out this link in the keysight library edadocs.software.keysight.com/kkbopen/programming-example-how-to-perform-sequencer-function-using-python-programming-683775606.html I apologize ahead of time for the robovoice in that one but it gets you going.

I hope it is a good legend 😀

Yea you could select Scpi99 as your instrument and there will be generic commands. from there you could export etc. You would need the R&S programmers guide for instrument specific commands as the Keysight library wouldn’t have those. I may be putting out some instructions on 3rd party instruments using the same workflow in the near future.

The best would be to talk to Python directly for a Microcontroller. Unless that microcontroller can decode the scpi protocolwhich would be unusual. If you are debugging a bus on the microcontroller you will need to make sure you have a strategy for keeping the commands to the processor synched with the test instrument readiness after issuing commands to say the scope. you want the scopes armed and ready and waiting when you have the microcontroller send bus commands. You will need to do status queries to make sure the instruments are ready depending on what you are doing.

Hardware automation is not difficult. if you have a good handle on coding it’s just a matter of knowing how to set up the resources and access them. There are some universal scpi commands as well. would be a good idea if you are serious tomaybe get your hands on some old or used hardware that you can connect to and experiment like a power supply and dmm ok’d scope or something like in the project shown. I may soon do a generic scpi example to show how you can leverage anything you can find and use documentation to do the bulk of the coding. I am a big fan of not throwing things out. being able to make use of older equipment can bring a bit more life when funds just do not exist. I also may do a c# example. Just remember that a scpi controlled instrument is just another thing to read from and write to that has behaviours you want to access like stimulus, power or some form of measurement. meaning if you write something your screen with “print” words come on the screen. if you write to a power supply that is powering a device you turn something on. Sounds to me like you would do fine. a lot of the challenges come in with waiting for an instrument to complete a step in a multi instrument setup. It’s best to have a lot of write and read back checks to get past those. once you figure out those issues then you are well on your way.

If you are measuring clock and data timing you need to be focusing on Jitter measurements. You need to focus on time interval error measurements aka TIE. All Keysight scopes can do this measurement You should choose a scope with a bandwidth that represents what the receiver will “see”. some people make the mistake of choosing a very high bandwidth scope. that will most likely have higher bandwidth, reveal more noise and jitter but does no the mimic what the receiving side will see. in addition some standards like PCIE can have the clock extracted from the data and there is no need to transmit the ref clock at all. in such case you have to recover the clock in the receiver with a CDR and there are requirements for pll filter settings which you must emulate with the scope. so I hope this gives you some direction to get started. Possibly I can do a detailed presentation and video demo on that topic. I wouldn’t say it falls into the strictly automated category. It is a measurement that is quite common. Automation is more about automating repeated measurements that you would start out doing manually.

yes you can Andrew. the automation side can sit anywhere. the gui or instrument you are controlling scan be on your local station. for one of these tests I was controlling an Instrument for a company in Mexico You need to be able to talk to that instrument address and have it accept commands and respond with queries.

Yes if you use scpi 99 with command expert you can set up a generic instrument. you will have to have the programming guide for your device for its specific commands tho.

@@timfairfieldAETestandMeasure Thanks Tim.

Yeah, there are a couple of good ones out there, I've not used them as I just do it this way but I agree way more user-friendly. which freeware tool are you using for that?

are you looking for the actual scope screen or the plotted python data? If the scope screen is required you could call the command to save screenshot and then make sure you have a folder link mapped to what we the scope saves the data and then have access to it. Python would have other ways to do screen shots as well.

yes these details are often overlooked and can be costly if you aren’t careful.

you probably can. I haven’t tried Jenkins and I just took a quick overview. if it has python extensions it should work. I may take a look at it in the future. The scope of this series was just to help people get started and show it isn’t so daunting. I probably will refresh this series in a few months to update the install and the minor issues with Python 3.7 and 3.8.

@@timfairfieldAETestandMeasure Okay, thanks. But can i create a program sequence for non kesight devices on Keysight command expert?

a lot of the Big name companies have gone the Python route. Labview works well but has costs and a learning curve for new users. I come from the C world and was surprised the adoption rate on Python which is a pretty loose way to code. but. it gets things done quicker. I think anyone working with instruments should be versed in Python.

yeah new video setup, Ive since fixed that in later videos , thanks for pointing it out. It was second audio channel duplicating the first.

This is based clocely on one of the examples controlling Val remote application from Bitifeye for HDMI. from www.bitifeye.com

yes you can reach me [email protected]

Good idea. Right now this equipment is in heavy use. I’ll put it in my list of things to video. I’ll most likely not get to it for a few weeks. Specifically what would you like to see on the video? I could envision showing a closed eye and what the effect is in opening the Pam 4 eye using these methods.

@@timfairfieldAETestandMeasure Thanks for your reply. I'm working on 56G PAM4 channel validation, and would like to see how to use the CTLE, FFE/DFE equalization to open up a closed eye... Also, how to deembed loss of cables and probes on the channel..

I don’t have a Keithley SMU. Command expert allows you to put generic scpi commands in the list. In addition you can use pyvisa to attach in a similar way to the Keithley. I am not sure how connection expert would do seeing other vendor’s instruments. I do seem to recall seeing it discovering other vendor instruments. But there is a generic entry (use the command set scpi99) when setting up in Command expert for scpi. You just need to know the commands you need. scpi has a generic command set that all instruments use like *idn and then there are instrument specific commands. You can need to know those and enter them as a “command” entry. And it will work.

Disregard Tim...found the download. But do I still want 32 bit of version 2.7?

@@daveedwards5951 You can go to v 3.6 or higher, This video series is a few years old so v3.x is now recommended. Also Python 2.7 is no longer being supported after Jan 2020 I hear and pip won't support it either. Many have migrated to 3.x now.

You may have to make minor changes to some code for 3.x. Ill have to do an update video soon to discuss that.

Tim...I'm an ex Agilent Test & Measurement CE. Does Keysight ever run seminars...perhaps a hotel gig...where instrument programming via Python is discussed? I'd love to attend!!

@@daveedwards5951 I do some occasionally, I'm in Toronto Canada. Usually at customer sites. Where are you located? It really depends on the local AE for the territory.