Section 6: Reading buffers
2470 High Voltage SourceMeter Instrument Reference Manual
6-18
2470-901-01 Rev. A /
May
2019
Viewing and saving buffer content
You can view the content of buffers from the front panel.
You can also save the contents of the reading buffer to a USB flash drive. The stored file can be
loaded directly into Microsoft
®
Excel
®
or another tool. The file contains all the information the
instrument records about each data point in the reading buffer. When you save the buffer data, you
may indicate a starting or ending point to save only a portion of the data. If you do not specify a
starting and ending point, the entire buffer data is saved. You may also specify how you want the time
saved with the time format parameter.
Using remote commands, you can append the contents of a reading buffer to a file that is already on
the USB flash drive. When you append data, you can specify the starting and ending point in the
buffer to save only a portion of the data.
All readings are saved in the comma-separated value (
.csv
) file format. This format stores tabular
data (numbers and text) in plain-text form. You can import the CSV file into a spreadsheet.
The 2470 does not check for existing files when you save. Verify that you are using a unique name to
avoid overwriting any existing CSV files on the flash drive.
The header rows in the CSV file are not fixed. They may change as buffers are enhanced or when
additional information is needed.
See the following figures for an example of a buffer CSV file imported into a spreadsheet.
