Analog Devices ADALM2000

[KWKolb]

I am considering purchasing an ADALM2000 from Analog Devices.  I want to pair it with an inexpensive windows tablet for a general test equipment set up good from DC to 10 MHz.

 Link to the kit is:
 http://www.analog.com/en/design-center/evaluation-hardware-and-software/evaluation-boards-kits/adalm2000.html#eb-overview.

It uses the AD "Scopy" software.  The link for the wiki for the software is:
https://wiki.analog.com/university/tools/m2k/scopy.

Any thoughts or recommendations appreciated, especially with respect to the AD hardware and software.

VR,
Kevin

[alm]

I guess this might have been developed by/in collaboration with the guys at Nonolith labs (acquired by AD) who designed the CEE and later the ADALM1000. Sorry, no experience or other information. Looks like this is aimed more at the measuring and less at the sourcing/sinking. But it adds a much faster sampling rate and digital I/O.

It is cool that they open-sourced their software.

[ralphrmartin]

I bought an ADLM1000 on the promise of lots of tutorials and software.

Alas, no version 1.0 of the software ever appeared (nor the tutorials as far as I know).

It seems that Analog Devices made the hardware, and some hobbyists / guys in a garage (Nonolith?) were responsible for the unfinished software.

I'm afraid this was a typical case of beware of buying vaporware.

To be honest, I was rather shocked that a reputable company like Analog Devices would release an unfinished product like this - and not finish it. Surely we should expect a big company to develop a product first, then sell it?

So, I'm very wary of anything they produce now other than their chips - in fact even of their chips.

Of course, the ADALM2000 may be different - but the ADALM1000 has certainly been a disappointment.

[egonotto]

Hi,

is this a cheap version of the Analog Discovery?

12bit versus 14bit

It seems that one cannot buy it now

Best regards
egonotto

[pascal_sweden]

Why not buy the Analog Discovery instead then? Lots of tutorials on the net.

[MrW0lf]

Sooner or later some USB-style scope platform will explode due to open-source [expandable] software. Question is will this? I'm browsing thru documentation right now and all very raw. Some dates hint that it was sort of supposed to go on sale in may but seems actually only now!?
Software seems to have mostly same stuff that AD2 has but much less fine grained features and more touch-oriented.
AD2 has scripting (instead of open-source) but this has not "exploded" possibly due to quite crap documentation and no big easy-to-find library of ready made stuff.
So  ... So far no-one has ticked all the boxes to go nuclear.

[Franz Zinn]

The tutorials at https://wiki.analog.com/doku.php do refer to ADALM1000 and ADALM2000. In fact the tutorials for Analog Discovery seem to have been developed by Analog Devices Inc and they seem to be adapting them for ADALM2000 now.

[MrW0lf]

On the sad 13-th day of August I ordered one out of curiosity and have not yet seen it nor will anytime soon:

Mouser reports no stock, delivery estimate:
30 02.10.2017
124 02.10.2017

Factory Lead Time:
23 Weeks

Before that estimate was somewhere at the end of august... 

[CD4007UB]

I think the ADALM2000 is a Zync-based partner of the ADALM-PLUTO SDR unit. Both very new, powerful and low priced, but in short supply at the moment.

Concerning tutorials for both ADALM1000 and ADALM2000, they are at https://wiki.analog.com/university/courses/alm1k/alm-labs-list and

https://wiki.analog.com/university/courses/electronics/labs . Also, useful info and links to the latest software on the Wiki pages

https://wiki.analog.com/university/tools/m1k and https://wiki.analog.com/university/tools/m2k.

Note that these devices are designed for students (and others) to learn electronics. They're very good for that (and excellent value for money) but are not intended to

be used as a substitute for benchtop test equipment.

[ralphrmartin]

I stand corrected in that the tutorials have appeared. No final version of the Pixelpulse software has appeared however: github still shows a 0.90 release, and that's it.

[CD4007UB]

I daresay PixelPulse could be improved, but it works OK, as does the Python-based Alice software. I haven't used either of them very much. More recently, I installed the MATLAB support package for the ADALM1000, as MATLAB is a good way to acquire and analyse data. The pic below* shows the I-V characteristic of a LED (based on an example). These are basically point-by-point DC measurements, averaged 1000x to reduce noise.

The 'SMU' capability of the ADALM1000 is quite impressive for such a low-cost device, and it opens up a lot of possibilities for looking at diodes, transistors, etc, as described in the ADI lab tutorials. I can't fault it for value for money, particularly for electronics learners who don't want to spend a lot of money to get started. I would not regard it as 'test equipment', but it's a great learning tool.

*Sorry, can't upload a file at the moment - connection keeps resetting

[ralphrmartin]

The ALICE software claims it works with MacOS X - but there are no instructions for how to compile or run it. Trying to build the needed libsmu on my Mac following the github instructions just results in build failure. I've pointed this out to the chap who looks after the ALICE pages, so perhaps things will improve.

[ralphrmartin]

Is there anyone out there who has actually got ALICE to run on a Mac?

If so, I'd like to hear how you did it.

[CD4007UB]

Not sure if this will help you, as I'm using a Windows PC.

It's a while ago, but I think I installed libsmu first using a file called libsmu-setup.exe. For Alice 1.0, I then unzipped alice-1.0.zip into a folder - it's just a collection of Python files. So, I suppose the key thing on a Mac is to install libsmu (somehow), and the rest should be easy.

[ralphrmartin]

Thanks for trying to help. The problem is, I have no idea where to put the built libsmu on a Mac. make install needs superuser privileges and puts it in /usr/lib, which is not appropriate...

[CD4007UB]

On my Windows PC, it looks like the installer created a folder C:\Python27\DLLs which contains a single binary file, libpysmu.pyd.

Can you put your compiled libsmu into an equivalent place on your Mac? It may help to google something like 'Mac Python library' to find the required location. Various suggestions here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2741496/location-of-global-libraries-for-python-on-mac .

[Franz Zinn]

Running Alice is quite easy on a Mac. All you need to do is compile libsmu (including python module) and install it any where on your Mac (even to the Applications directory in your home directory). To compile you will need the developer files for libusb 1.0 which you can get from Macports or Homebrew. Once you have libsmu library and python module installed, you need to ensure they are in your python path and dynamic library load path. You can do this, if necessary, by setting the environment variables PYTHONPATH and DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH. Now you can just use the hash bang mechanism to run Alice (single python file) software from anywhere.

[MrW0lf]

Device that I ordered on 13th of august from Mouser currently said to be dispatched on 2018/01/16. New +1 month deadline has been set each month
They better get software just right by the time it finally arrives around 2030 because its will be compared to direct competitor in quite harsh manner.

[exe]

AD2 has scripting (instead of open-source) but this has not "exploded" possibly due to quite crap documentation and no big easy-to-find library of ready made stuff.

It's simply expensive, imho. AD1 for $99 for American students it was a bargain. But I couldn't justify 300+euro. So I decided to buy "real" instruments instead (SDG2042+SDS1202X-E), even though I paid ~€1k.

[MrW0lf]

I agree AD2 is relatively expensive when compare to conventional Chinese scope. However if investigate it as "swiss knife" type device possibilities as rapid prototyping helper are quite overwhelming.  So cannot judge it as simply MSO + signal gen, must take account all extra I/O that could (be programmed to) do quite complex stuff. Since there are little to no devices with such toolset it is not immediately obvious how to use it to full potential. So many times I have defaulted to Arduino (Due) for this type of activity because for almost every task can instantly find example somewhere. Not the case with AD2. Similar with STM32 vs Arduino. Technically STM32 wins but one has to be quite good with MCUs or have lots of time at hand.
Anyway, when and if ADALM2000 finally arrives - comparing it to AD2 will be good opportunity to take closer look at advanced usage scenarios vs common MSO + signal gen.

[exe]

However if investigate it as "swiss knife" type device possibilities as rapid prototyping helper are quite overwhelming.

This is true. I really miss network analyzer, LCR meter and a "proper" FFT in my setup. I also considered Red Pitaya, but initial version of software was crap (according to eevblog's review). And it costs even more, like 600euro for all features enabled.

May be one day I buy one of these devices, 14bit ADC sounds very attractive.

Similar with STM32 vs Arduino. Technically STM32 wins but one has to be quite good with MCUs or have lots of time at hand.

I agree. With STM32 I had a lot of pain (although mostly because I'm on Linux).

So, looking forward to your review.

[caseyboardman]

Is there anyone out there who has actually got ALICE to run on a Mac?

If so, I'd like to hear how you did it.

Did you ever get this sorted?

I think I have it working on a mac.

With Alice 1.1, I had to:

• Run `cmake -DBUILD_PYTHON=ON -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/ .`, for the documented `cmake` step for libsmu on github.
• Run dos2unix on the alice-desktop-1.1.pyw script.
• Edit alice-desktop-1.1pyw for the #! to point at my homebrew python and not /usr/bin/python.

That last step was the key to getting rid of "Pysmu not found".   I updated my PATH so my homebrew python would be found first as well, and set PYTHONPATH, but I'm not convinced I needed to do that.

[KWKolb]

The end may be near.  AD showed the ALADM2000 at their booth at embedded world:

http://www.cieonline.co.uk/mouser-celebrates-innovation-at-embedded-world-2018-with-product-demos-dev-kit-giveaway-free-coffee-and-more/

That said, I've an order into Digi-Key and Mouser both with odd or undefined delivery times.  Also the "scopy" software hasn't seen an update in six months as far as I can tell.

Mr. WOlf, hang in there with me. sir.

VR,
Kevin

[Franz Zinn]

Finally received shipment notification after almost a year of waiting. Wow!.

[tsman]

Still says backordered for me