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Acquiring data directly to memory from Agilent 3458A

Hi all,
 
I have an Agilent 3458A DMM which can capture data at very high speeds and high resolution.  Does anyone have an example of saving the data from such a device (or similar) directly to a PC's memory?  I have a situation where I need to capture data at a rate of 10 kHz for a period of 2 minutes.  The DMM doesn't have enough on-board memory to save the entire observation (5000 to 65000 samples)...and I imagine that if I just simply capture the data from the DMM's internal memory and dump it to disk there will be a period of dead time while the data is being written out.  Any suggestions?
 
Thanks.
 
Bob
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If you simply write data to an indicator, you are writing to the pc's memory. You could allocate an array at the beginning of your acquisition and then with each read, do a Replace Array Element.

I'm wondering though whether the instrument is capable of doing this. Since the internal buffer is too small, you might have to do an acquisition to it's max buffer size, do the transfer, and then initiate another acquisition. The instrument may not be able to start another acquisition until the transfer is complete and you would have a gap in your data. If you did single point acquisition where you did a number of write/reads, the bus communication is likely to take much longer than the .1 msec you want. I don't have the instrument or manual so you might want to contact Agilent to see whether what you want to do is even technically feasible. If it's not, one easy solution would be an NI data acquisition board. People do this sort of thing all of the time with them.

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The DMM is a pretty slick one, it can capture at a rate of 100,000 samples/s and the docs claim that it can push the data out that fast over the GPIB I/F using DMA.  I assume that I won't have any problems at a leisurely 6 or 10 kHz.  Thanks for the input!
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hi
 
i need to do some similar!  i need samples to 10kB/s  but a have problems with the memory of hp3458a.
 
Can you help me?  could you send me your last program for can see it?
 
 
thanks
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