I am very excited about this new equipment. I have worked with the scope and the function generator earlier this week, and both look pretty nice for the low price paid for them. I also had the chance to use the LCR meter to measure a capacitor that was poorly marked, and it was very quick and clear about what the capacitance value was.
I also have an interest in controlling/acquiring data to/from the scope and function generator. Basically the function generator has an arbitrary waveform generation mode, and how cool would it be to be able to control it from the PC? So I made an effort on Monday and Tuesday to write a driver to control the Gratten function generator. I found an appropriate cable, but was unable to get any response from the device yet. There is no driver available online, but I have found many references to software that may have shipped with earlier revisions of the device. There is a command set in the manual for the device. There are also emails/blogs online evidencing the fact that other engineers have tried and failed communicating the this function generator. I am trying to see if I can get in contact with (Gr)Atten to see if I can get in contact with an engineer. I’ll let everyone know how this goes.
I’d like to control the scope as well. Unsure how this will go, as I cannot find a driver for it either. My instinct says that control of both devices is possible, but will require fashioning custom drivers for each. I am up for the challenge since it would be way cool to be able to acquire waveform with scope, then turn around and generate that very waveform from the function generator. Also, we could do a lot characterizing filters by exciting with impulse, then capturing impulse response with scope, processing data in PC. The possibilities are limitless.
All in all, I am glad electronics is getting some up-to-date, extremely useful equipment for the lab. Nice work, Lampy!