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a PC Based Oscilloscope?

T

Talal Itani

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello,

My company wants to buy an oscilloscope. The scope that meets our needs is
around $7,000. I am sure we can save much money if we buy a PC-based unit,
like Picoscope. Do you have experience with PC based scopes? Do you
recommend them for serious work?

Thanks
 
T

TheM

Jan 1, 1970
0
Talal Itani said:
Hello,

My company wants to buy an oscilloscope. The scope that meets our needs is around $7,000. I am sure we can save much money if we
buy a PC-based unit, like Picoscope. Do you have experience with PC based scopes? Do you recommend them for serious work?

Thanks

You left out a vital part of information, what do you need the scope for?
What kind of requirements do you have?

M
 
Hello,

My company wants to buy an oscilloscope. �The scope that meets our needs is
around $7,000. �I am sure we can save much money if we buy a PC-based unit,
like Picoscope. �Do you have experience with PC based scopes? �Do you
recommend them for serious work?

Thanks

No, more so if you need a $7000 scope. Look on ebay if your that short
of cash.
 
D

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax

Jan 1, 1970
0
Talal said:
Hello,

My company wants to buy an oscilloscope. The scope that meets our needs is
around $7,000. I am sure we can save much money if we buy a PC-based unit,
like Picoscope. Do you have experience with PC based scopes? Do you
recommend them for serious work?

I don't really like them, no matter what the spec.
It ties up a PC, for one thing. It makes it super non-portable.
Just too many 'bits' floating about.
 
T

Talal Itani

Jan 1, 1970
0
We are developing a board with a DSP, some logic, and some analog circuitry.
The scope will be used to debug the circuit, make sure signals are clean,
make sure timing is correct. We should get a 4-channel 350 MHz scope, yet
these start at $7,000. So, I thought maybe a PC-based scope would do the
job for less money. I do not know, I never used PC-based scopes.
 
T

Talal Itani

Jan 1, 1970
0
I am sorry, I did not understand what you are telling me.
 
N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
Talal Itani said:
Hello,

My company wants to buy an oscilloscope. The scope that meets our needs is
around $7,000. I am sure we can save much money if we buy a PC-based unit,
like Picoscope. Do you have experience with PC based scopes? Do you
recommend them for serious work?

I've used Picoscope but I think they are crappy. There is no
peak-detection which makes high frequency signals dissapear at low
sweep rates. The number of sweeps (screen updates) is around 3 or 4
per second. Way too slow. And their software crashes every now and
then.
 
We are developing a board with a DSP, some logic, and some analog circuitry.
The scope will be used to debug the circuit, make sure signals are clean,
make sure timing is correct. We should get a 4-channel 350 MHz scope, yet

Those are things you need to think about before you even commit to
making a board. The scope won't help you if you do major mistakes in
the design from the start.
You need to simulate stuff before, never mind the scope.
 
S

steve

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello,

My company wants to buy an oscilloscope.  The scope that meets our needsis
around $7,000.  I am sure we can save much money if we buy a PC-based unit,
like Picoscope.  Do you have experience with PC based scopes?  Do you
recommend them for serious work?

Thanks

They just aren't convenient, ideally, you want something small so it
can easily be moved from lab to lab to thermal chamber etc. battery
powered is even better.
 
T

Tom

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello,

My company wants to buy an oscilloscope. The scope that meets our needs is
around $7,000. I am sure we can save much money if we buy a PC-based unit,
like Picoscope. Do you have experience with PC based scopes? Do you
recommend them for serious work?

I've used a few different PC based scopes and some regular Tektronix
standalone scopes as well. The PC based scopes are fine as long as you
understand their limitations and are prepared to work around them.

Advantages of PC based scopes:
- Low cost
- Smaller box
- Much larger screen
- Longer recording length (on some models)
- Easy saving & exporting of the captured waveforms

Disadvantages:
- Slow screen updates
- No peak detection on the cheaper models
- Might limit your choice of PC operating system
- Not very portable

One model that I have used is this one:
http://www.dynoninstruments.com/products_elab080.php
It's a DSO, logic analyzer, and waveform generator all in one.
It's only 80 MS/s but for $500 you can't expect much more. I've actually found
myself using the digital waveform generators on this thing quite often.
 
T

Talal Itani

Jan 1, 1970
0
One model that I have used is this one:
http://www.dynoninstruments.com/products_elab080.php
It's a DSO, logic analyzer, and waveform generator all in one.
It's only 80 MS/s but for $500 you can't expect much more. I've actually
found
myself using the digital waveform generators on this thing quite often.

Thanks, this is nice, yet I wished it had a higher sampling rate. Are you
aware of any others?
 
D

David L. Jones

Jan 1, 1970
0
Talal Itani said:
Thanks, this is nice, yet I wished it had a higher sampling rate. Are you
aware of any others?

Most low to medium end PC based DSO's are all a similar sample rate, i.e. a
few hundred MHz.
Because they all use off-the-shelf FPGA's and memories in their design, and
that's about as high as you can go cheaply.
When you start talking 1GS/s+ you are into the high end domain of the big
manufacturers of professional oscolloscopes.

Agilent make a PC based DSO that might suit you if you *really* want a PC
based scope:
http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/product.jspx?nid=-536902447.774929.00&cc=US&lc=eng
200MHz, 1GS/s, 32Mpoint memory, $1600

Stop being cheap, you *need* at least one real bench scope for your lab,
even if it's a lower end mixed signal scope like a Rigol:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/RIGOL-DIGITA...ryZ45008QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem

Dave.
 

neon

Oct 21, 2006
1,325
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
1,325
there different kind of scopes, digital,analog and memory scope and digital analizers. each has its benefit and down falls. you must buy a scope intended for your application not for other reasons.
 
B

Bob Monsen

Jan 1, 1970
0
Talal Itani said:
Thanks, this is nice, yet I wished it had a higher sampling rate. Are you
aware of any others?


I have a SDS 200A from softDSP. The windows software is crap. The FFT
feature is basically unusable. The triggering is unreliable. The claim of a
200MHz bandwidth is blather, they do 'statistical sampling', which is
basically adding in some random jitter to the sample clock and correlating
it somehow.

OTOH, the unit is small enough to go with your laptop in the same case, and
is useful therefore as an onsite scope. It can store a fairly large buffer,
and allows the possibility of doing things like line monitoring with a very
slow signal (like 1s per division).

It was also very cheap, less than $1k.

I'm not sure I'd buy it again. It does have an SDK (for $200 extra) that
allows the possibility of doing special kinds of monitoring with a custom
display.

$0.02

Regards,
Bob Monsen
 
T

Talal Itani

Jan 1, 1970
0
I have a SDS 200A from softDSP. The windows software is crap. The FFT
feature is basically unusable. The triggering is unreliable. The claim of
a 200MHz bandwidth is blather, they do 'statistical sampling', which is
basically adding in some random jitter to the sample clock and correlating
it somehow.

OTOH, the unit is small enough to go with your laptop in the same case,
and is useful therefore as an onsite scope. It can store a fairly large
buffer, and allows the possibility of doing things like line monitoring
with a very slow signal (like 1s per division).

It was also very cheap, less than $1k.

I'm not sure I'd buy it again. It does have an SDK (for $200 extra) that
allows the possibility of doing special kinds of monitoring with a custom
display.

$0.02

Thanks Bob. I will stay away from that unit.
 
J

Jamie

Jan 1, 1970
0
Bob said:
I have a SDS 200A from softDSP. The windows software is crap. The FFT
feature is basically unusable. The triggering is unreliable. The claim
of a 200MHz bandwidth is blather, they do 'statistical sampling', which
is basically adding in some random jitter to the sample clock and
correlating it somehow.

OTOH, the unit is small enough to go with your laptop in the same case,
and is useful therefore as an onsite scope. It can store a fairly large
buffer, and allows the possibility of doing things like line monitoring
with a very slow signal (like 1s per division).

It was also very cheap, less than $1k.

I'm not sure I'd buy it again. It does have an SDK (for $200 extra) that
allows the possibility of doing special kinds of monitoring with a
custom display.

$0.02

Regards,
Bob Monsen
In other words, it's a paper weight to be used at the site as things are
blowing around!


http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5"
 
K

Klaus Kragelund

Jan 1, 1970
0
I've used Picoscope but I think they are crappy. There is no
peak-detection which makes high frequency signals dissapear at low
sweep rates. The number of sweeps (screen updates) is around 3 or 4
per second. Way too slow. And their software crashes every now and
then.

I have also used the PicoScopes. The update is not as the other poster
says, I think I have like at least 50 times per second.( on a USB 1.0
connection)

That being said, some of the SW is buggy. But I live with that. The
great thing is that my 12bit scope can be programmed and I can then
use it for a test system also and even better when it is connected to
the PC the documentation of measurements are a charm.

Also the FFT is quite good

Regards

Klaus
 
T

TheM

Jan 1, 1970
0
Klaus Kragelund said:
I have also used the PicoScopes. The update is not as the other poster
says, I think I have like at least 50 times per second.( on a USB 1.0
connection)
That being said, some of the SW is buggy. But I live with that. The
great thing is that my 12bit scope can be programmed and I can then
use it for a test system also and even better when it is connected to
the PC the documentation of measurements are a charm.

Also the FFT is quite good

I have cought a 16-bit picoscope, I believe those were cancelled later.
The cool thing is I can do FFT with good dynamic range and this has been
very usefull a few times. Where does the noise come from? Fire up the
FFT and you clearly see where it sits at.

Also check poScope, this is incredibly cheap and does some usefull stuff
as well, such as serial protocol analysis (I2C etc). Also a logic analyzer,
signal generator etc. I'm just not sure how fast as this is probably AVR based.

If you ask me I'd get a nice analog standalone scope, 200-300MHz and a PC based
for those rare protocol debugging issues. Sometimes a brain fart prevents
you from seeing a very obvious bug and they help save long hours.

M
 
A

Alex.Louie

Jan 1, 1970
0
Please do not remove attributions. Those are the initial lines
that say "Whozit wrote". In addition avoid losing all quotations
from previous messages by top-posting. Your answer belongs after
(or intermixed with) the quoted material to which you reply, after
snipping all irrelevant material. See the following links:

<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
<http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html>
<http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/> (taming google)
<http://members.fortunecity.com/nnqweb/> (newusers)

Yet another "content free" post. Ugh.
 
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