How to set up a demo card

This page is valid for all products based on SPCM platform driver.   Read More

With the help of the card control center one can install demo cards in the system. A demo card is simulated by the Spectrum driver including data production for acquisition cards. As the demo card is simulated on the lowest driver level all software can be tested including SBench 6, own applications and drivers for third-party products like LabVIEW. The driver supports up to 64 demo cards at the same time and runs fine under Windows and Linux. The simulated memory as well as the simulated software options can be defined when adding a demo card to the system.

A few features that are too hardware related are not supported by the demo cards. That include ABA mode, FPGA options and real trigger and data timing.

Please keep in mind that these demo cards are only meant to test software and to show certain abilities of the software. They do not simulate the complete behavior of a card, especially not any timing concerning trigger, recording length or FIFO mode notification. The demo card will calculate data every time directly after been called and give it to the user application without any more delay. As the calculation routine isn?t speed optimized, generating demo data may take more time than acquiring real data and transferring them to the host PC.

Needed Software Packages

For installation one needs the latest card control center installer which also includes the driver API and one of the software packages that should be tested:

• Spectrum Control Center Installer
• Optional: SBench 6
• Optional: LabVIEW Driver
• Optional: IVI Driver
• Optional: MATLAB Driver
• Optional: Examples Package to write own code with C/C++, Delphi, .NET, Python, ...
• Optional: Hardware Manual

All software packages are found in the download section of this homepage. Please select the card that you want to simulate and download the needed software packages. See how to use the download section

Using a demo card

A demo card installation in the system is done following these steps. Please see the screenshot on the right (click the picture to get a full size picture)

• Download and install the Spectrum Control Center for your operating system. Please note that you need administrator rights for this under Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10 and 11.
• Start the Spectrum Control Center (should show empty card list on your system)
• Press the Add Democard button
• Select the card series (M4i-x8 in our example), family (44xx in our example) and finally the card to be installed (M4i.4451-x8 in our example)
• The card will show as demo card with a serial number starting at 10000
• Close the Control Center
• Install one of the above mentioned software packages. SBench 6 is recommended for a first test
• The demo card is programmed exactly like described in the manual. Please see more details on programming there. The manuals are also found in our download section