First capture

First capture

Connect the analyzer, pick it in the device list of the toolbar and press Connect. The list only offers boards that actually run the analyzer firmware, plus Network device… for a Pico W and Multiple devices… for a cascaded set.

Then Capture → New capture (F5) opens the capture dialog.

Channels

Tick the channels you want to record. Fewer channels mean more samples: the firmware packs the data into 8, 16 or 24 bit per sample, so a capture with 8 channels is four times as long as one with 24. The dialog shows the resulting maximum under the sample boxes.

Give the channels names right away (SCL, A0 (Y), …) — protocol decoders assign their inputs automatically by name, and the names end up in the capture file.

Timing

• Sampling rate: pick at least four times the fastest signal you want to see. The Jitter chip warns when the rate cannot be derived exactly from the 100 MHz (or 200 MHz) base clock; 20 MHz, 25 MHz and 50 MHz are exact.
• Pre-trigger samples: what is kept before the trigger — the interesting part is usually just before the event.
• Post-trigger samples: what is recorded after it.

Triggers

Trigger	Use it for
Edge on a channel	A single line changes level: reset, chip select, an interrupt
Edge on the external trigger input	A signal wired to the trigger pin of the board
Pattern (up to 16 channels)	A bus value: an address, an opcode, a command byte
Fast pattern (up to 5 channels)	The same, at the full sampling rate, with less delay

A pattern trigger compares levels, not edges: it fires as soon as the channels match. The channels of a pattern have to be consecutive trigger inputs — the dialog names the usable channels (on a Pico: 1–21 or 22–24) and refuses anything else.

Burst mode re-arms the trigger and records several bursts in a row, optionally measuring the delays between them. Blast mode captures at the maximum rate of the board without pre-trigger samples.

Reading the waveform

Action	Input
Zoom	Mouse wheel (Shift: bigger steps), + / -, Ctrl 0 fits the whole capture
Scroll	Ctrl + wheel, horizontal wheel, arrow keys, drag in the preview at the bottom
Channel height	Alt + wheel, Ctrl Shift ↑ / ↓, or the Channel height slider
Jump to the trigger	Ctrl T
Set a marker	Click into the ruler
Select samples	Drag in the ruler (Shift + click extends)
Sample menu	Right-click in the ruler: copy, paste, delete, measure, create a region
Show/hide, pin, rename a channel	Dot, pin and name field left of the waveform

Hovering a sample shows its time, the time from the trigger and the length of the current pulse with its frequency.