Other topics about Making Measurement
The trigger system is responsible for such tasks as detecting the start of a measurement cycle (triggering) and enabling/disabling measurement on each channel. As shown the following figure, the trigger system has two types of states: system-wide and channel-wide. The system-wide state can be "Hold", "Waiting for Trigger", or "Measurement", while the channel-wide state can be "Idle" or "Initiate".
Trigger system
The following subsections describe each state and explains how the trigger system switches among the states.
The trigger system switches to "Hold" state when one of the following commands has been executed (arrow "e" in the above figure). Also, turning on the power to the instrument puts the trigger system into "Hold" state. When the power is turned on, however, continuous initiation mode is on for channel 1 and the trigger source is set to "Internal"; accordingly, the trigger system immediately switches to "Waiting for Trigger" state and subsequently repeats transitions between "Measurement" and "Waiting for Trigger" states.
:ABOR
*RST
When the trigger system is in "Hold" state and one of the channels switches to "Initiate" state (arrow "f" in the above figure), the trigger system switches to "Waiting for Trigger" state (arrow "a" in the above figure).
When the trigger system is in "Waiting for Trigger" state and either the instrument is triggered (i.e., a trigger is detected) or one of the following commands is executed, the trigger system switches to "Measurement" state (arrow "b" in the above figure)
:TRIG
:TRIG:SING
As shown in the table below, the instrument is triggered differently depending on which trigger source is specified. To specify the trigger source, use the :TRIG:SOUR command.
|
Trigger Source |
How instrument is triggered |
|
Internal trigger |
The instrument is automatically triggered within itself. |
|
External trigger |
The instrument is triggered when a trigger signal is input through the Ext Trig terminal or the handler interface |
|
Bus trigger |
The instrument is triggered when the *TRG command is issued. |
|
Manual trigger |
The instrument is triggered when you press Trigger > Trigger on the front panel. |
In "Measurement" state, the instrument waits for the elapse of the sweep delay time (set by the :SENS{1-36}:SWE:DEL) and then starts a measurement cycle; this process is performed sequentially on each of those channels that were in "Initiate" state immediately before the transition to this state, in ascending order of channel number.
When the instrument has finished measuring all of the active channels, the trigger system behaves in one of the following ways depending on the setting of the continuous initiation mode.
If continuous initiation mode is off for all channels:
The trigger system switches to "Hold" state (arrow "c" in the above figure).
If continuous initiation mode is on for one of the channels:
The trigger system switches to "Waiting for Trigger" state (arrow "d" in the above figure).
A channel switches to "Initiate" state when one of the following commands has been executed (arrow "f" in the above figure).
A channel in this state is measured just before the entire system switches to "Measurement" state.
When the instrument has finished measuring a channel, the channel behaves in one of the following ways depending on the setting of the continuous initiation mode (set by the :INIT{1-36}:CONT).
The channel switches to "Idle" state (arrow "g" in the above figure).
The channel remains in "Initiate" state (arrow "h" in the above figure).