WaveSurfer FAQ

  1. What board should I buy?

    Wavesurfer will work with any National Instruments X-series board. (These have model numbers of the form "63xx".) If you're interested in running real-time control loops, we recommend that you get a PCIe board (not USB). Which board you buy will depend on your specific needs, but if forced to give a recommendation with no more information, the PCIe-6341 is usually a good choice. When used with WaveSurfer, it supports up to 8 analog input channels, and up to 2 analog output channels. For a typical elecrophysiology rig, you probably want to get it with a rack-mountable BNC-2090A breakout box, instead of the default SCB-68A breakout boxes. An example "quote" is here, generated on June 9, 2016.

    If you need more than 8 analog input channels, or more than 2 analog output channels, or think you might in the future, then we recommend the PCIe-6353 card, which supports up to 16 analog input channels, and up to 4 analog output channels. This requires two BNC-2090A breakout boxes. An example "quote" for the 6353 is here, also generated on June 9, 2016.

  2. What do all the different triggering options do?

    See here.

  3. How do I get WaveSurfer to integrate with Vidrio ScanImage?

    See here.

updated February 18, 2020