How to use pulse width qualifiers to detect latching trigger

bloer · Post by **bloer** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:29 pm

I have a Picoscope 5444B. In my application, the trigger is a digital latch (several seconds long) on EXT. In early testing, it worked fine to use a simple rising edge trigger. However I'm now in an environment where I am getting occasional bursts of noise pickup on that line that are causing spurious triggers. The noise bursts last for a few microseconds. So I would like to trigger on a pulse that rises above threshold and remains above threshold for ~1 ms, but NOT on the falling edge of such a pulse.

I can't quite figure out how to do this with the ps5000a API. Do I need to set both a trigger threshold (SetTriggerChannel*) and pulse width qualifier? Or just the latter?

Thanks!

Post by **Martyn** » Mon Feb 11, 2019 11:18 am

Advanced trigger setup using the API commands is a bit of a dark art.

The easiest way to go about this is to first try setting up the trigger using the PicoScope 6 software, and if you are able to trigger on the event exactly as you require we can then work out the settings required for the advanced trigger commands.

bloer · Post by **bloer** » Thu Apr 04, 2019 8:54 pm

Hello Martyn,

I have two issues:

1) In the current picoscope GUI on linux, I cannot get a dropout trigger to work on EXT. If I put my signal into e.g. channel A with all the same settings, the trigger works as expected, but when I move back to EXT, I get no triggers. Is this a bug?

2) Is there an example for how to set a dropout trigger using the API? The programmer's manual mentions it in the Trigger introduction, but never again.

Thanks!
Ben

bloer · Post by **bloer** » Fri Apr 05, 2019 7:05 pm

I am not a big fan of the API right now. I am using the code below (C++11) to try to make a "dropout" trigger on EXT:

Code: Select all

      PS5000A_CHANNEL ch = PS5000A_EXTERNAL;
      PS5000A_THRESHOLD_DIRECTION direction = PS5000A_RISING;
      PS5000A_CONDITIONS_INFO coninfo = (PS5000A_CONDITIONS_INFO)(PS5000A_CLEAR | PS5000A_ADD);
      PS5000A_CONDITION pwcon{ch, PS5000A_CONDITION_TRUE};
      status = ps5000aSetPulseWidthQualifierConditions(_handle,&pwcon,1,coninfo);
      if(ErrorCheck("SetPulseWidthQualifierConditions"))
         return status;
      
      PS5000A_DIRECTION pwdir{ ch, direction };
      status = ps5000aSetPulseWidthQualifierDirections(_handle,&pwdir,1);
      if(ErrorCheck("SetPulseWidthQualifierDirections"))
         return status;

      status = ps5000aSetPulseWidthQualifierProperties(_handle,
                                                       10,
                                                       10,
                                                       PS5000A_PW_TYPE_GREATER_THAN);
      if(ErrorCheck("SetPulseWidthQualifierProperties"))
         return status;

      PS5000A_CONDITION trigcon{ PS5000A_PULSE_WIDTH_SOURCE, PS5000A_CONDITION_TRUE };
      status = ps5000aSetTriggerChannelConditionsV2(_handle, &trigcon,1,coninfo);
      if(ErrorCheck("SetTriggerChannelConditionsV2"))
         return status;
      //status = ps5000aSetTriggerChannelConditionsV2(_handle, 0, 0, PS5000A_CLEAR);

      PS5000A_TRIGGER_CHANNEL_PROPERTIES_V2 trigprops{ trigger.threshold, 1, //upper, hysteresis
            trigger.threshold, 1, //lower, hysteresis
            PS5000A_PULSE_WIDTH_SOURCE}; //channel
      
   
      status = ps5000aSetTriggerChannelPropertiesV2(_handle, &trigprops,1,0);
      if(ErrorCheck("SetTriggerChannelPropertiesV2"))
         return status;

When I call ps5000aSetTriggerChannelPropertiesV2 with PS5000A_PULSE_WIDTH_SOURCE as the channel, I get error 0x10, invalid channel. But the documentation of PS5000A_CHANNEL enum in the programmer's guide has an asterisk by PS5000A_PULSE_WIDTH_SOURCE that says "For use as a trigger source by functions such as ps5000aSetTriggerChannelPropertiesV2".

Please provide some working examples of advanced trigger setup. The C examples on github do not meet this need as the pulse width qualifier settings are always disabled.

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How to use pulse width qualifiers to detect latching trigger

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