Easiest way to implement HOLD button?

[sstepane]

Hi,

Sometimes it is really needed to use HOLD function - is there any way or hidden key-combo? Pressing and holding trigger key and then selecting other triggering model is a bit long.

[Brad O]

You can start a trigger model from the Home screen (and a couple other screens) by pressing the CONT/MAN label in the top right of the screen. That does the same thing as holding down the trigger key so that you can select to initiate a trigger model. It sounds like you already have a trigger model, so is that something like what you were looking for?

[sstepane]

You can start a trigger model from the Home screen (and a couple other screens) by pressing the CONT/MAN label in the top right of the screen. That does the same thing as holding down the trigger key so that you can select to initiate a trigger model. It sounds like you already have a trigger model, so is that something like what you were looking for?

Hi,

I have even written some small script for single button press hold function, but there are no exact command, so it is a bit awkward, but somewhat works. The idea is that at some point during work I need to simply stop (hold) the device to look closer at what's going on with the graph (for example) and it is a bit cumbersome that I need to run a script and repeat that measurement to use hold function of some sort. Some signals are so quick that they disappear from the graph before you can stop the meter (long press trigger-etc-etc), and you have to repeat the whole situation to catch it again.

I would suggest make trigger button in continuous mode to act as hold on short press - it does nothing in this mode anyway - only a long press. Or even as a trigger (which is a hold) - which is even more logicical. That would awesome!

[Brad O]

So you'd like the instrument to continuously make measurements, but when you press the trigger button you want the instrument to stop/pause/hold so you have time to review what's just been captured. Then, I'm assuming, be able to press trigger again to go back to making continuous measurements? That seems reasonable, I'll pass it along to our Engineering team! Thank you for your feedback!

If you want, could you reply with or private message me your script? I'd be happy to offer some feedback or help you find a more elegant way to get the behavior you want. Like, if you know the voltage/current level of the signal you want, you can set a trigger level and have the instrument automatically stop when it sees that signal. But maybe that won't work for your situation...

[sstepane]

So you'd like the instrument to continuously make measurements, but when you press the trigger button you want the instrument to stop/pause/hold so you have time to review what's just been captured. Then, I'm assuming, be able to press trigger again to go back to making continuous measurements? That seems reasonable, I'll pass it along to our Engineering team! Thank you for your feedback!

If you want, could you reply with or private message me your script? I'd be happy to offer some feedback or help you find a more elegant way to get the behavior you want. Like, if you know the voltage/current level of the signal you want, you can set a trigger level and have the instrument automatically stop when it sees that signal. But maybe that won't work for your situation...

Hi Brad,

Thank You very much for help and I hope this feature will get into new firmware.

The best way I have found is a script like below

Code: Select all

reset()
trigger.model.load("LoopUntilEvent", trigger.EVENT_DISPLAY, 0)
display.prompt(display.BUTTONS_YESNO, "Start measurement?")
promptID, result = display.waitevent()
if result == display.BUTTON_YES then
 trigger.model.initiate()
end
display.prompt(display.BUTTONS_OK, "Stop?")
promptID, result = display.waitevent()
 if result == display.BUTTON_OK then
 display.changescreen(display.SCREEN_GRAPH)
 trigger.model.abort()
end

LoopUntilEvent does not operate as I have expected, but anyway, last if/then is displaying small prompt and gives me an ability to hold with on screen button at the moment I need. A bit awkward, but works.
I've found no other way to wire or subscribe to a button event to stop - there's too few possibilities for that.

[Brad O]

Ah okay, yes I think we can make this easier for you. Try using the script I'm attaching here. It won't actually run as a script but will import a trigger model.

Once it's initiated, you can press the TRIGGER key on the front of the instrument to switch between Continuous measurement and pausing (a hold). It's set up right now to clear the buffer every time you start taking another measurement, but you can remove that line. This also won't change screens for you like your script does, but you can manually go to the graph view and it will stay there.

This was made with the DMM's on-board Trigger model editor, you can look at it once you run the script by going to the menu and selecting Configure in the Trigger column. You can also easily remove the "Buffer Clear" block there if you want to use a continuous buffer.

Let me know if this helps.

[sstepane]

Thanks for the script Brad!

It does work as You've said. I did not dig too much into these blocks for triggers as in the unit their descriptions sound a bit ambiguous.

[Brad O]

My pleasure!

Yes, the names of the trigger model blocks are a bit vague, and the builder doesn’t offer too much help, that’s something we’re looking to address in the future. It has much fuller documentation in the Reference Manual (https://www.tek.com/tektronix-and-keith ... h-system-0), it starts talking about the trigger model builder on page 317 or section 9-28. You can read full descriptions of all the different blocks there if you want to learn more about them.

[sstepane]

Thanks again for the help Brad,

Off-topic, I like Keithley DMM6500 and really think it is the most capable bench DMM for the moment (and even more capable, when combined via tsp-link) and hope it will be a big seller to move tek/keithley up the road. And would suggest to come to another forum full of potential customers - that is eevblog (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/). I see Rohde&Schwarz, Siglent representatives there helping with tech and marketing questions. I doubt there's any other group that accumulates so much people, both, newbie and experienced that would be glad to hear some advice on their choices on what to buy for their lab.

[Brad O]

Thank you! For both the feedback and the advice, it helps us make better products in the future.

Some of our engineers have posted a few times on EEVBlog, but we don't want to make it seem like we're there to sell stuff, so we'll mostly only chime in if someone misquotes one of our specs or asks a question no one else can answer (or I will sometimes direct message someone with an answer if the thread has moved on). We do read all the posts about Tek/Keithley that we find there though!

[Mike P]

Hello Brad.

I tried to use the HOLD - script and got this message.
The HOLD button is really need.

Thank you.
Mike.

[Brad O]

Hi Mike,

Those messages are expected and don't interfere with the functionality written. You can safely ignore both of them.

Warning 2728 shows up if you manually abort the script while a measurement is taking place. It shouldn't appear if you abort the trigger model while the measurement is paused (press TRIGGER one more time). The DMM6500 doesn't know how important that measurement is to you so it warns you when something that's not in the trigger model stops the measurement.

Informational 2753 is just unhappy that the script uses two wait blocks that listen for trigger button. Technically it's right, the script is not optimized for speed, but speed isn't necessary in this application.