Tektronix TDS5104B: How to properly reset the waveforms?

[RiRINiNi]

Hello everyone,

I'm going to try and explain what I want to do and I hope it will be clear.

My experiment consists in moving a stage and taking the signal on the oscilloscope via a VI and repeating the process until the stage reached  a certain value.

What I take from my oscilloscope is the maximum value of the waveform that is averaged 512 times (ACQuire:MODe AVErage, ACQUIRE:NUMEAVGE 512 those are the visa instructions I use to set it). As my signal changes when the stages moves, what I want to do is to reset the waveform on the screen (this happens when I change any settings on the oscilloscope) so what I did is to use an other instruction before  (ACQuire:MODe SAMple) to reset the waveform. But this seems a bit sketchy to me. Is there a way to do this operation in a proper way?

I have an other question which is related to signal acquisition. If I want to acquire signals with "high" repetition rate (let's say 100kHz~1MHz), can I achieve it with an oscilloscope connected to my computer and labview or should I use a PCI card  and DAQ to do this?

Thank you.

[vardanium]

Regarding the 2nd question, no, high rates cannot achived via USB connected oscilloscopes. For that reasons you'll need strictly timed devices (such as devices with FPGA target included )

[RTSLVU]

Well number one would probably be better answered by Tecktronix as they wrote the SCPI commands and corresponding LabVIEW vi's.

Number two needs more information...

You say you want to acquire signals at a 100Khz-1MHs... What do you mean by "acquire"? 

Do you want a waveform updated at that rate or just the individual measurement points?

Because if you capture a waveform and pull it from the scope as data (rather than a screen capture) you will have the individual measurement points. (Y data)

Or are you trying to turn your scope into a chart recorder? 

Good luck with that, as an oscilloscope (versus a high speed DAQ) is designed to take a sweep when triggered then display/transfer the sweep and either stop or wait for another trigger not continuously stream data. 

BTW: Auto triggering makes it look like a scope can continuously stream data, but it's not really doing that. It's just triggering itself as soon as it's done with the previous sweep.