EEVblog 1552 - Digilent Analog Discovery 3

A first look at the new Digilent Analog Discovery 3, plus teardown.

00:00 - Unboxing the new Digilent Analog Discovery 3
02:23 - New features
05:00 - The price and comparison with a benchtop scope
06:19 - Teardown and comparison with Analog Discovery 2
10:18 - Nice design touches
12:01 - In operation using the Waveforms software
14:04 - Different product support and modes
16:25 - Highest resolution possible
18:12 - Lets feed it up it's own clacker...
21:30 - Check THIS out!
23:30 - The Help system
24:51 - The Power Supply
27:08 - I can't possibly demo all the features. Spectrograms, Persistence, Eye Diagrams, Histrogram, FFT's
28:04 - OMG you can ramp and modulate the Power Suppply! Let's try this...
32:24 - It's useful, but not universally useful.
32:22 - The timebase scale is kinda annoying
34:41 - Adding NOISE to the PSU!
36:47 - Let's SHORT this sucker...
38:49 - Have you tried turning it off and on again?
39:55 - Is this a bug?
40:49 - Dumb arse Dave
42:05 - Measurements
43:57 - Check this out!
44:40 - FFT
45:33 - 3D spectrogram
48:49 - Conclusion

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[EEVblog]

UPDATE: The older Analog Discovery 2 is now price reduced from US$399 to US$299 if you don't need the new features afforded by the upgraded FPGA.

[samfedorka]

We used the AD1 and AD2 in school and it was awesome. We had to do all our labwork with benchtop equipment and using the portable AD / handheld DMM. I got the student discount. If you live near a school you can get a used one from a student for cheap.
I still recommend it to any hobbyist starting out because it can do almost anything you would need to do for just beginning. Once you know what you like to do you can upgrade to a better scope, add another power supply, get a benchtop dmm, whatever. I use mine frequently even though I have a full lab downstairs because it's easy to use and very handy to set stuff up quickly and is more than enough to do the work that I do most often.

[VisualElectric_]

36:37: "You can feed it back up its own clacker" - Digilent should put this in its promo material

[rkayakr]

The breakout BNC board extends the oscilloscope from 9 MHz to 30 MHz and the waveform generator from 9 MHz to 12 MHz. As an amateur radio operator the extension to cover the whole HF band is a big gain for $20.

[njgriebel]

Update: I bought the analog discovery 3 and I freaking love it! Its really versatile, you can do QUITE a bit with it. A little bit later on, I reached out to digilent and told them that I needed some oscilloscopes for my colleges hackerspace, and they decided to donate 2 of them to me for the hackerspace at my college! Got em in the mail, one pro pack and one student pack. I'm in love with them!

[vincei]

Hi Dave, I got the AD3 last week. I'm really impressed with it. Was just about to plug it in the measure the output of a HP8011A pulse generator that was just delivered from eBay. A bit pricy buy recommended. Waveforms is the icing on the cake. Oh, and I also got the transistor curve tracer thingy that I was playing with over the 4th July weekend. The Waverforms tracer app takes some getting used to but does as advertised.

[kovacslattila]

@EEVblog
- Press F1 to switch to the Help tab and locate info about the currently focused control.
- The Filter channels can be configured after pressing the green arrow "more channels" under Channel 2 in Scope.
- With the default “USB Power” “Stop with AUX” option, removing AUX will reset the device. With the "Always ON" option, the device does not restart and indicates the USB voltage after disconnecting the AUX due to the minimal back-power of the AUX eFuse.
- Thank you for the review and noticing the "C4" typo in Wavegen/Type.

[mchanist]

A happy, excited Dave is an absolute joy to watch. Very cool bit of kit

[pbs]

I have an analog discovery 2, bought just after my first FPGA board thanks to a Digilent advertising. It changed my life. I showed it in my compagny, we bought one, then two, then 8 more (AD3 as it was released in between). Note that we have several 40k$ + benchtop scopes. It is INSANE !

[YouveBeenCabadged]

The Picoscope 2205A / 2205A MSO are also worth considering in this price range. Their new software is pretty schmick too. I won't touch NI these days because I have PTSD from using LabView, but loving the Picoscope 5000 series which uses the same software as to 2000 series.

[gabeeg]

I am not sure I have ever seen Dave so excited :)

[egonotto]

If you have two Analog Discovery 3, you can sync both and have 4 channels.

[MarcioToma]

It's an absolute must have for a "serious" hobby electronic lab. I'm definitely adding it to my wish list. Congratulations from Brazil!

[flubba]

I still have the original Digilent Analog Discovery v1 and I bought it after it was reviewed on this channel. Its a bit dated now, but still does the job. I'd be keen for a v3. Keep up the great work Digilent.

[pappaflammyboi]

Definitely an impressive piece of kit.

[jakeroorda]

While my school used all traditional lab equipment, I now have an AD2 sitting right next to all the "real" test equipment at work. It get's used all the time for tasks that it can just do better than equipment costing 25 times as much. I wouldn't want to use a PC scope as my daily driver, but in a world where the brand name scopes still charge you $1500 for a serial decode option this just puts them all to shame. The ability to tie the instruments together to make an integrated test or cross-trigger is invaluable. I've also found the scripting via the waveforms Python API is really useful.

[Neywiny]

14:27 the difference in memory is actually because you trade where it's allocated. You can see that the lower scope depths mean higher logic depths + pattern depths and whatnot

[cylosgarage]

I bought one of these on the spot after watching this. Excellent product showcase!

[BaconbuttywithCheese]

Nice review. I'm surprised no hardware knockoffs exist that work with the very comprehensive software.

[VLS-Why]

We used the discovery 2 in my college classes, it was a great kit when you weren't in the lab with the real gear. I think the saleae is still much better than this at protocol decoding though, although that one is digital