HP8903B Audio Analyzer Software

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Conrad Hoffman

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Joined 2007
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I've once again started fooling with my 8903 application. If you have an HP 8903B and a Prologix GPIB interface box, this software will automate scanning of response and THD, plus a couple other things. It will not work with any other interfaces like National. There are still a few bugs, but I use it regularly with good success. I'll try to add features and fix the bugs as time allows. No guarantee I'll take 'em, but any suggestions will certainly be considered. Program is on my software page.

The Messy Basement

Best,
Conrad
 
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Conrad Hoffman

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Joined 2007
conradhoffman.com
The application is written in PowerBASIC, somewhat similar to Visual Basic, but with features and an approach I like far better. I modded the FTDI include file slightly and it was off to the races. I do my graphics on the screen, but I wanted to take advantage of the resolution of modern printers, so I recreate everything for the printer, rather than just copying a bitmap. That's where most of my bugs are. There are things I can do with scaling on the screen that are more difficult to do for the printer, and I don't have the math quite perfect yet concerning the drawing of the log lines for every possible scan range. Everything is done through USB/GPIB, so no plotter emulator required. BTW, I think PowerBASIC is still running a sale on the previous version of the program and it's screen editor, which is nearly identical to the current version. I also fooled with communicating with my old HP3455, and it worked fine, ditto my frequency counter, but I haven't come up with a reason I'd want to. PB also works well with the Agilent IO Library Suite and I use that at work to do test programs for various LCR meters and the nice Agilent 6 1/2 digit voltmeters.

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tomchr

tomchr

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Joined 2009
neurochrome.com
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Sweet!! I've been mucking with some MATLAB scripts to do the same thing. Basically, I'd like to run sweeps of distortion vs frequency, amplitude vs frequency, and distortion vs output power for a couple of different frequencies. Currently, the version of MATLAB I'm using won't run on my PC because it isn't compatible with Windows 7 so I was looking at other options...

Does your software have the capability to store the raw data as a comma-separated file or similar?

Thanks,

Tom
 
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Conrad Hoffman

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Joined 2007
conradhoffman.com
Yes, there's a button to save a CSV file. I haven't messed with that lately, but it's trivial to change exactly what and how it saves. Someone gave me a great suggestion about setting things up to arbitrarily choose what gets assigned to the x and y axes of the graph. It will be some time before I can make that major of a change, but it would allow graphing say, thd against amplitude changes. Right now I only do frequency sweeps, no amplitude. There are a few quirks listed in the readme file, and I'm gradually fixing those, but there aren't very many people using this thing, so I don't get much feedback. Where this really shines is if you service equipment for people, you can print a really nice performance curve, or set of them. It also saves a huge amount of time during circuit development.

Best,
Conrad
 
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w9tr

Member
Joined 2010
I just bought an HP 8903B, so this thread is very timely. Earlier in the year, I picked up a Tek 2252 100 MHz scope, and I already have a MLSSA analyzer, so now I think I've got everything I need for a decent audio lab, at least for awhile. In a prior life, I was an audio design engineer, so this is kind of re-visting an enjoyable part of my past. I'll need to get grounded in HPIB before I engage in the discussion. Conrad - thanks for pulling this together!
 
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