Recently Al Williams of Hackaday.com wrote up an extensive review of the Analog Discovery 2. Since we are always looking for customer feedback, it was really exciting to get a first person perspective from his thorough examination of the AD2 .
His review breaks down the board into things he found, both good and bad, and culminates in his overall verdict on the value of the device. While we always appreciate positive feedback, letting us also know what is not working so well provides a perfect opportunity for us to focus on improvements. So today we will attempt to address some of the concerns he raised in the post!
The first issues he experienced involved working with the WaveForms 2015 software. He had some trouble with the protocol decoding and had written a simple Arduino program to generate a test pattern. After some troubleshooting he discovered that the issue was related to the fact that he was using an earlier version of WaveForms. After updating the software, the issues were resolved.
Another problem he experienced was with the the manual trigger button not appearing to work, at least not while waiting for a serial trigger. He later discovered:
Turns out, I later figured out that unlike a manual trigger button on a conventional scope, this button only works if you have the trigger set to manual. You can’t override a normal trigger with the button. Seems like the button ought to be disabled if that is the case.
His observation of the button issue was excellent feedback, especially since it had not been pointed out to us before. We have now had a chance to send his suggestions to our developers and see if we can address this inconvenience!
If you are having issues at home and cannot find the appropriate solution on the wiki, make sure to speak out on the Forum.. Our developers closely monitor the threads, especially the Scopes and Instruments section. They use this information to add and improve the software upon updates- in fact, almost all revisions on WaveForms come directly from customer feedback!
Another resource for support is AnalogDiscovery.com, where we have all our AD2 resources in one place.
Despite a few hiccups, it sounds like overall he had a positive experience with the Analog Discovery 2. He sums ups his thoughts in the Verdict section:
Is it good? Yes. Is it perfect? No. Should you buy one? That’s going to be a personal decision. It is too pricey for an impulse buy. It is definitely useful but only you know if it is useful enough to part with a few hundred dollars. Maybe a hackerspace or other group could put together a group buy and negotiate a better bulk price–I don’t know, but it never hurts to ask.
We sincerely appreciate Mr. Williams taking the time to share his thoughts on the Analog Discovery 2. We love customer feedback., and are always listening to help address and enhance the user experience.
