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PC based oscilloscope

D

Dummy

Jan 1, 1970
0
I see that there are some softwares that enable us to emulate spectrum
analyzer and oscilloscope on PC? How accurate would it be compare to
the real equipment? What are the PC limitations to emulate the
equipments. If the signal is going through PC sound card, the bandwith
and signal level would be limited. Unless an external PC interface
circuit is designed.

There is a good source of PC based oscilloscope design project at
www.bitscope.com. I was quite surprise to see USB oscilloscope exist.
I wonder whether the PC will take over all functions of the equipments
and there will be no more bulky spectrum analyzer or oscilloscope one
day!
 
M

Malcolm Reeves

Jan 1, 1970
0
I see that there are some softwares that enable us to emulate spectrum
analyzer and oscilloscope on PC? How accurate would it be compare to
the real equipment? What are the PC limitations to emulate the
equipments. If the signal is going through PC sound card, the bandwith
and signal level would be limited. Unless an external PC interface
circuit is designed.

There is a good source of PC based oscilloscope design project at
www.bitscope.com. I was quite surprise to see USB oscilloscope exist.
I wonder whether the PC will take over all functions of the equipments
and there will be no more bulky spectrum analyzer or oscilloscope one
day!

You might want to have a look at Velleman http://www.velleman.be/ .
They have a 50MHz sampling dual channel scope (about GBP 250) and a
function generator (about GBP 100). The scope can do 1G/s, FFT, etc.
The function generator can do arbitrary waveforms as well as
sine/square/etc. Together the two can function as an analyser to give
bode plots of filters. The run from a PC parallel port and are opto
isolated. For the money they are hard to beat.

Malcolm


--

....malcolm

Malcolm Reeves BSc CEng MIEE MIRSE, Full Circuit Ltd, Chippenham, UK
([email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]).
Design Service for Analogue/Digital H/W & S/W Railway Signalling and Power
electronics. More details plus freeware, Win95/98 DUN and Pspice tips, see:

http://www.fullcircuit.com or http://www.fullcircuit.co.uk

NEW - Desktop ToDo/Reminder program (free)
 
G

George Patrick

Jan 1, 1970
0
Dummy said:
I see that there are some softwares that enable us to emulate spectrum
analyzer and oscilloscope on PC? How accurate would it be compare to
the real equipment? What are the PC limitations to emulate the
equipments. If the signal is going through PC sound card, the bandwith
and signal level would be limited. Unless an external PC interface
circuit is designed.

There is a good source of PC based oscilloscope design project at
www.bitscope.com. I was quite surprise to see USB oscilloscope exist.
I wonder whether the PC will take over all functions of the equipments
and there will be no more bulky spectrum analyzer or oscilloscope one
day!

Most high-end O'scopes have a PC (not always running Windoze) built-in to them
(up to 6 - 7 GHz bandwidth for now), and there are mid-range PCI ADC cards that
fitin a PC and use software to display the signals(up to around 500MHz). I
don't think you get much above 10-15K using the soundcard, though :)

--
+--------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| George H. Patrick, III | Resources for PCB Designers on |
| [email protected] | the Web - The Designer's Den |
| [email protected] | http://www.pcb-designer.com |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| Take what you like and leave the rest... My opinion ONLY. |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
P

payam

Jan 1, 1970
0
where can i find practical PCI ADC cards for high frequancy signals ,
that can i work on it ,no only a card for sell!
any idea?
[email protected]
 
G

George Patrick

Jan 1, 1970
0
payam said:
where can i find practical PCI ADC cards for high frequancy signals ,
that can i work on it ,no only a card for sell!
any idea?
[email protected]

http://www.gage-applied.com

--
+--------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| George H. Patrick, III | Resources for PCB Designers on |
| [email protected] | the Web - The Designer's Den |
| [email protected] | http://www.pcb-designer.com |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| Take what you like and leave the rest... My opinion ONLY. |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
T

Todd

Jan 1, 1970
0
I see that there are some softwares that enable us to emulate spectrum
analyzer and oscilloscope on PC? How accurate would it be compare to
the real equipment? What are the PC limitations to emulate the
equipments. If the signal is going through PC sound card, the bandwith
and signal level would be limited. Unless an external PC interface
circuit is designed.

It all depends on what you are looking for. PC based DSO's can be
better, worse, the same, or just different than standalone
instruments. It's hard to make generalities.

My company makes USB Oscilloscopes. They use external hardware
connected via the USB or Parallel port of your computer. They start
at $525 for a Dual channel unit with 100M sampling and 32K data
buffers. You can get more information at www.Linkinstruments.com
 
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