The Analog Discovery 2 is an all-in-on pocket instrument for electronics containing a 2-channel oscilloscope, power supplies, waveform generators, logic analyzers, and more. Along with being factory calibrated, the Analog Discovery 2 can be calibrated once you recieve it so that you can ensure that you are making the most accurate measurements possible.

• A Mac, Windows, or Linux computer with WaveForms 2015 installed
  • If you haven't already installed WaveForms 2015, you can follow the video installation guides.
• Analog Discovery 2
• A reliable digital multimeter (DMM)
• DMM probes with grabber ends
• A breadboard
• Male pin headers

In the Settings menu under the menu bar, click on Device Manager to open the device manager window.

Once the Device manager window opens, you can explore all of the features of the device manager.

In the top half of the window, there are the devices listed that you can use with WaveForms 2015. If you have a device plugged in, it will appear here.

Along with the devices that are plugged in, you can also see two demo modes: Analog Discovery demo mode and EExplorer demo mode.

The Analog Discovery demo mode allows you to see all of the features of WaveForms 2015 as if you had one plugged in. For example, if you open the oscilloscope tool, you can see channel 1 and 2 scoping a square and sine wave.

The EExplorer demo mode allows you to do the same thing, but as if you had an Electronics Explorer Board plugged in.

Plug in you Analog Discovery 2 so that is shows up in the device manager. It should show up as “Discovery2”.

The first tool to explore is the rename tool. In the device manager, click on “Rename” at the top left of the screen. Here you can type in a new name for your Analog Discovery 2. You can use uppercase or lowercase alphanumeric characters. For example, we named ours “Kaitlyn”.

This can be useful if you have more than one device or are collaborating in a large group where there will be multiple devices present.

Next, we are going to explore the calibration feature to ensure the best possible accuracy of the Analog Discovery 2.

In the Device Manager window, click “Calibrate”. This will open the Device Calibration window.

The first tab you will see in the calibration window is the “Calibrate” tab. Here you can see all of the tools that can be calibrated.

There is also the “File” menu where you can save or load an existing calibration file, and the “Reset” menu, which we will talk about later.

Along with the Calibrate tab, there is also the Parameters and References tabs. There are the values that define the existing calibration.

It is highly recommended that you do not manually change those values. Instead, we will do a full calibration using the Calibration Wizard.

To open the Device Calibration Wizard, click “Wizard” at the top of the Device Calibration Window.

When the wizard opens, you should see the screen like in the figure below, which tells you what you will need in order to calibrate your device. Click Next.

The first thing you'll need to do is calibrate the first waveform generator. To do this, you'll need to connect the waveform generator to your digital multimeter.

Connect the yellow wire (positive end of the waveform generator 1) from the flywire assembly to the positive side of your multimeter. Connect the negative side of the multimeter to a black wire (ground) from the flywire assembly.

The complete setup should look like the figure below. With the other end of the USB cable connected to the Analog Discovery 2 attached to your computer.

Read the value on the multimeter. As indicated by the Calibration Wizard, it should be around 0.

Enter the value you read off of the multimeter into the Calibration Wizard, and click Next.

Repeat until the Calibration Wizard indicates to move on to waveform generator 2.

Create the same setup as before, but for waveform generator 2. To do this, swap out the waveform generator 1 cable (yellow) with the waveform generator 2 cable (yellow cable with white stripe).

Your entire setup should look like the image below.

Read the value on the DMM, it should be around 0. Enter this value into the Calibration Wizard and hit Next.

Repeat this procedure until the Calibration Wizard indicates to move on to Oscilloscope Calibration.

The next step in the calibration process is to zero the oscilloscope.

The next step will guide you through setting up the circuit.

As indicated by the Calibration window, connect all of the oscilloscope probes to ground.

To do this, connect the orange wire (positive end of channel 1), blue wire (positive end of channel 2), orange wire with the white stripe (negative end of channel 1), blue wire with the white stripe (negative end of channel 2), and the black wire (ground).

Click Next to start the calibration.

The oscilloscope zero calibration is automatic, so all you have to do is wait for it to finish.

The calibration we will do next will be for the oscilloscope. The first step is to set up the circuit.

Connect the positive ends of the 2 channels of the oscilloscope to waveform generator 1, and the negative ends of the 2 channels of the oscilloscope to ground.

Click Next to start the oscilloscope calibration. This is another automatic calibration, so you'll just need to wait for it to finish.

The next thing we'll need to calibrate are the power supplies, starting with the positive one.

Connect the red wire (positive supply) to the positive probe of the DMM. Connect a ground wire to the negative probe of the DMM.

The circuit setup should look like the figure below.

Read the value off of the DMM. As indicated by the Calibration Wizard, it should be around 1.

Enter the value into the Calibration Wizard and hit Next.

Repeat that procedure until the Calibration Wizard indicates to move on to the negative power supply.

Replace the red wire (positive supply) with the white wire (negative supply).

Repeat the same procedure used on the positive supply until the calibration window indicated that you are finished.

To complete the calibration, press Finish.

In the Device Calibration window, click Apply to confirm the changes.

We've hooked up the Analog Discovery 2 so that the waveform generator 1 is connected to channel 1 of the oscilloscope.

In the image above you can see captures of the datalogger reading the 0 value with and without calibration. You can see that with calibration, the zero is more accurate.

If you are ever dissatisfied with the calibration of your Analog Discovery 2, you can reset the calibration to factory settings, or reset all values to zero by using the Reset menu in the Device Calibration window.

Now that you've gone through the calibration process, you can begin taking advantage of the many features of the Analog Discovery 2.

To read more about those features, you can view the the reference manual here. There is also an extensive collection of projects on the Digilent Learn Site, as well as an entire curriculum called Real Analog written for the original Analog Discovery, but adaptable to the Analog Discovery 2.