usb oscilloscope

3 Articles

A Physical Front Panel For Oscilloscope Software

January 28, 2021 by 19 Comments

For hackers on a tight budget or with limited bench space, a USB oscilloscope can be a compelling alternative to a dedicated piece of hardware. For plenty of hobbyists, it’s a perfectly valid option. But while the larger discussion about the pros and cons of these devices is better left for another day, there’s one thing you’ll definitely miss when the interface for your scope is a piece of software: the feel of physical buttons and knobs.

But what if it doesn’t have to be that way? The ScopeKeypad by [Paul Withers] looks to recreate the feel of a nice bench oscilloscope when using a virtual interface. Is such a device actually necessary? No, of course not. Although one could argue that there’s a certain advantage to the feedback you get when spinning through the detents on a rotary encoder versus dragging a slider on the screen. Think of it like a button box for a flight simulator: sure you can fly the plane with just the keyboard and mouse, but you’re going to have a better time with a more elaborate interface.

The comparison with a flight simulator panel actually goes a bit deeper, since that’s essentially what the ScopeKeypad is. With an STM32 “Blue Pill” microcontroller doing its best impression of a USB Human Interface Device, the panel bangs out the prescribed virtual key presses when the appropriate encoder is spun or button pressed. The project is designed with PicoScope in mind, and even includes a handy key map file you can load right into the program, but it can certainly be used with other software packages. Should you feel so inclined, it could even double as a controller for your virtual spaceship in Kerbal Space Program.

Affordable USB oscilloscopes have come a long way over the years, and these days, using one is hardly the mark of shame it once was. But the look and feel of the classic bench scope is about as timeless as it gets, so we can certainly see the appeal of a project that tries to combine the best of both worlds.

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How To Design A Low Cost Probe-Oscilloscope

December 16, 2019 by 22 Comments

[Mark Omo] sends in his write up on the design of what should hopefully be a sub-$100 oscilloscope in a probe. 

Many problems in engineering can be solved simply by throwing money at the them. It’s really when you start to apply constraints that the real innovation happens. The Probe-Scope Team’s vision is of a USB oscilloscope with 60MHz bandwidth and 25Msps. The cool twist is that by adding another probe to a free USB port on your computer you’re essentially adding a channel. By the time you get to four you’re at the same price as a normal oscilloscope but with an arguably more flexible set-up.

The project is also open source. When compared to popular oscilloscopes such as a Rigol it has pretty comparable performance considering how many components each channel on a discount scope usually share due to clever switching circuitry.

The probe is based around an Analog Devices ADC whose data is handled by a tag team of a Lattice FPGA and a 32bit PIC micro controller. You can see all the code and design files on their github. Their write-up contains a very thorough explanation of the circuitry. We hope they keep the project momentum going!

Review: Digilent Analog Discovery 2

December 28, 2016 by 57 Comments

I recently opened the mailbox to find a little device about the size of White Castle burger. It was an “Analog Discovery 2” from Digilent. It is hard to categorize exactly what it is. On the face of it, it is a USB scope and logic analyzer. But it is also a waveform generator, a DC power supply, a pattern generator, and a network analyzer.

I’ve looked at devices like this before. Some are better than others, but usually all the pieces don’t work well at the same time. That is, you can use the scope or you can use the signal generator. The ones based on microcontrollers often get worse as you add channels even. The Analog Discovery 2 is built around an FPGA which, if done right, should get around many of the problems associated with other small instrumentation devices.

I’d read good things about the Discovery 2, so I was anxious to put it through its paces. I will say it is an impressive piece of gear. There are a few things that I was less happy with, though, and I’ll try to give you a fair read on what I found both good and bad.

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