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Support Question of the Week: How do I use the Beagle Protocol Analyzers as a Single Data Logger for Multiple I2C buses?
Rena

I am trying to find a data logger solution that is capable of logging multiple I2C buses in parallel. The buses are separate; they are not eight slaves on a single I2C bus. Of course, we will need to store the data from all eight I2C buses to a single drive. Which product(s) do you recommend?

Thanks for your question! For your logging application, data can be captured from eight separate I2C buses with eight BeagleTM I2C/SPI Protocol Analyzers and eight Data CenterTM Software instances.  The Data Center Software is a graphical user interface that provides access to all the features of the Beagle protocol analyzers, including the capture, display, and filtering of USB, I2C, and SPI serial bus data. A Data Center transaction log can be saved as a Data Center *.tdc file and can also be exported as a *.csv file after the capture is stopped.  As the Beagle I2C/SPI analyzers do not have GPIOs, to correlate data across the eight different Data Center transaction logs, we recommend configuring the masters on your bus to send a specific data pattern at the same time. You can easily use the search and filtering functions to find the data used for synchronization and then start your analysis.

Using eight Beagle I2C protocol analyzers for logging eight separate I2C serial buses. Figure 1: Beagle I2C/SPI Protocol Analyzer

To connect and configure the Data Center Software to the Beagle protocol analyzers, please refer to the Beagle I2C/SPI Protocol Analyzer Quick Start Guide. The Quick Start Guide also provides information about capturing data, and then exporting the data as a CSV file.  For more information about exporting data,  please refer to section 3.2.4 of the Data Center Software User Manual. As you will be using eight Beagle analyzers and eight instances of Data Center Software, using the Beagle API Software may optimize your application.

The Beagle API Software can be used to control the Beagle analyzer, and to write a custom program for your specific setup. Our API comes with support for multiple OS (Windows, Linux, and Mac) and multiple languages (C, Python, Visual Basic, and C#), and includes examples. We recommend using the Python bindings as it is a simple language, and a good option for scripting. For more information, please refer to section 6 of the Beagle Protocol Analyzer User Manual.

Beagle I2C/SPI Protocol Analyzer Quick Start Guide

Beagle Protocol Analyzer User Manual

Data Center Software User Manual

Total Phase Products

Product Selector Guide

We hope this answers your question. If you have other questions about our protocol analyzers or other Total Phase products, feel free to email us at sales@totalphase.com or submit a request for technical support.