[BUG] Digital outputs are temporarily high at startup

[schote]

Sometimes, the digital outputs of the transmit spectrum-card is high for a time of a few ms (verification needed).
In particular this issue appears, when an experiment has been carried out, the connection to the cards has been closed and reestablished again to conduct a new experiment. However, a concrete scenario to reproduce the issue is missing.

One of the digital outputs enables the RF power amplifier. If the output is high for too long, the RFPA might be disabled.
The problem is not too critical, as no RF is transmitted during this unexpected gate window.
However, it must be ensured that the RFPA is enabled, before conducting an experiment.

ToDo's

• Simple scenario to reproduce the issue
• Analyse spectrum card setup (when connecting to cards), when exactly is the output set to high
• Study the manual to check whether the connection is closed properly

[schote]

From the manual (p. 115):

Please note that a change to the SPCM_X0_MODE, SPCM_X1_MODE, SPCM_X2_MODE or SPCM_X3_MODE will only be updated with the next call to either the M2CMD_CARD_START or M2CMD_CARD_WRITESETUP register.

Do the configuration of the digital output separately and write it with M2CMD_CARD_WRITESETUP?

[schote]

Isse was traced down to the following line of code in the abstract device class:

self.card = sp.spcm_hOpen(create_string_buffer(str.encode(self.path)))