FY6600 - how to load an arbitrary wave form from a CSV file ??? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: softfoot
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2019, 10:22:13 pm
content: Has any kind soul figured out how to do thisI'm tearing my hair out!There seems to be a way of drawing a waveform and then saving it but even that is difficult to do.Is this feature "vapour-ware" ??TIADave

author: Zenith
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2019, 01:49:15 pm
content: Not quite. I've done it with an FY6800, but I'd assume it's the same as the FY6600 and it's the same rubbishy, barely usable PC software. You can draw waveforms and download them to the FY6800 easily enough, but you can't draw with any sort of precision, so you end up with a very crude representation of what you intended.I needed a step waveform, but the feature for selecting a stock waveform and setting the number of steps, didn't do what I wanted. So I wrote a C program to produce 8192 lines with the voltage values from -2.5 to +2.5 in the steps I needed. It wasn't CSV, each value was in text and the line terminated with CR/LF, which is standard for Microsoft, but I'd created the file on a Linux machine and transferred it. Then the PC software for the FY6800 be could got to load the file and IIRC the drawing facility displayed it and it looked right. Then it could be downloaded to one of the Arb slots and it did what I wanted. It worked, but it was a PITA discovering how to do it.The program wouldn't have to be written in C, any programming language should do it. It was only about 30 lines of code, much of it repetitive. I suppose you could do it with a text editor, or maybe some other software such as a spreadsheet. Now it's possible it isn't the same with the FY6600, and that does indeed use a CSV file. Anyway, I hope you find this helpful. I looked at the format of the arb files I created by just using the software to create any old arb function and looking at the saved file in a hex editor.I wouldn't describe the PC software as vapourware, but it's definitely a bit thin. Almostware. For instance, if you alter values in certain fields in the wrong way, the program crashes. But with some experimenting and messing about I got it to do what I wanted.

author: softfoot
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2019, 02:17:47 pm
content: Many thanks - a good starting pointDave

author: JohnCompter
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 16, 2019, 01:02:09 pm
content: The FY6800 software for arbitrary waves is not fitted for users asking accurate values and timing. Indeed manually drawn waves can be transferred to the generator, but attempts to do it in a more accurate way are leading to error messages and program failures, as known in the 80th, with as final result that the program shuts down.But inspite of that I found a good way to transfer a wave as I wanted.Make a file consisting the 8192 data points, seperated by a single space using a programming language between QB45 and Mathematica 11/Matlab. Chose the language you want.Open this file in an editor. Select all values with the mouse to copy these values.Goto the TEXT-WINDOW in the FY6800 software, erase all values there and then "paste" the previous file content.The scaling is done automatically.The last step is "SEND DATA".Enjoy this feature,John

author: JohnCompter
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 17, 2019, 09:03:35 am
content: By the way, the test is done with integers in the file.Negative and positive integers to be more precise.John

author: AntonioRuocco
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 13, 2019, 10:49:36 pm
content: Hello.I wanted to create a triangle waveform always standing above the 0 voltage level (like the CMOS function embedded in the device), so by chance I've done exactly the same as JohnCompter did using the text-window. The values I inserted were integers between 0 to 4095, and then from 4095 back to 0. The values which appeared in the textbox on the right side were from 0 to 16383 and viceversa. The waveform drawing at the bottom of the GUI seemed to be correct, so I uploaded into a free slot, monitoring the output with my rigol. By changing the amplitude, the waveform seemed to behave as I wanted in terms of polarity, but the maximum voltage shown on my rigol was always the half of the amplitude value shown on the function generator (e.g. at 3 V amplitude I got a waveform from 0 to 1.5 V). Does anybody knows how this sw works and how to do that? (I agree, it's a real PITA).Thanks! Bye.