Oscilloscope

From Open Circuits

An oscilloscope (often abbreviated o'scope or scope) displays signal voltages as a 2-D graph, usually as voltage (vertical axis) as a function of time (horizontal axis).

The probe of a o'scope is held against, or is clipped to, the metal wire carrying the signal of interest.

A dual-trace o'scope has 2 probes, so 2 different signals can be seen -- so not only the shape of the signal can be seen, but also the exact time from events on one signal to events on the other signal.

1 techniques
2 some low-cost oscilloscopes
3 further reading
4 external links

[edit] techniques

Sometimes one wants to look at a 8-bit data bus -- typically one uses a "logic analyzer" to look at lots of time-aligned digital signals. For a given number of signals to look at, oscilloscopes (which show the true analog waveform) are much more expensive than logic analyzers (which only show if a digital waveform is hi or low, above or below the logic threshold). Many people buy both a (dual-trace) o'scope and a 16-trace logic analyzer, which together have a total cost less than one true 8-trace o'scope.

... more techniques ...

[edit] some low-cost oscilloscopes

some low-cost oscilloscopes, in no particular order. ... it would be nice to mention # of analog input channels, # of digital input channels, whether it can be used under Linux, does it have output channels ... price should (?) include 2 analog probes, ... is it open hardware? ... anything else?

price name comments
$150 Poscope basic 2 from PoLabs PoLabs, 2 analog channels, 16/8 digital channels, PC USB oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, chart recorder, pattern generator, logic analyzer, PWM/ square generator
$420 PicoScope 2202 from Pico Technology([1])([2])([3])
$200 Hantek DSO-2090 USB PC Oscilloscope [4]
$380.00 DSO2250 100MHz PC-SCOPE 250MS/s [5]
CAN 219.99 Syscomp Electronic Design DSO-101 [6] (Syscomp supports the "The Open Instrumentation Project" [7])
EUR 427 ETC s.r.o. M520 Oscilloscope [8]
$222 ANT8 : 8 Channel Logic Analyzer (EasySync)[9]
$200 PS40M10 : Swordfish Hand-Held Instrument (1 channel) USB (EasySync)
$220 DS1M12 : Stingray Multi-Function Instrument (2 channel) USB (EasySync)
under $600 : Jameco has some actual stand-alone oscilloscopes for under $600.
under $200 : Carl's Electronics has some stand-alone and PC-hosted (parallel port?) oscilloscopes for under $200.[10]
$170 HobbyLab USB oscilloscope [11]
$550 BS100U: 2 analog inputs + 8 digital inputs, optically isolated, from BitScope Designs (MetaChip Pty. Ltd.) [12]. ("Scopal" third-party software is available[13]). (open hardware).
$500 DS1022C : 2 Channel, 25 MHz Rigol Technologies Inc.[14]
$999 CS320A Cleverscope [15] (has a discussion forum[16])
$167 DrDAQ "data logger" (parallel port) from Pico Technology [17]
$970 NI USB-5132 : USB digitizer from National Instruments [18]
$139 Parallax USB Oscilloscope 2 analog inputs + trigger; 1 MS/s [19]
$170 PC USB Oscilloscope DiSco (HobbyLab, LLC). 2 analog inputs ( 200 KHz ) + 16 digital inputs (or 8 digital inputs + 8 digital outputs). [20]
$150 ST16B 10 MHz stand-alone oscilloscope, 2 analog inputs [21]
$190 VEPCS100 ( PCS100 ) - PC Based Oscilloscope; 1 analog input ( 12 MHz ); optically isolated from PC [22]
$950 DSO-8502 USB Oscilloscope, 2 analog inputs (250MSa/s) + external trigger; 1 digital output (trigger out); buffer: 512K points/ch.[23]
$799 DSO-8202 USB Oscilloscope, 2 analog inputs (200MSa/s) + external trigger; 1 digital output (trigger out); buffer: 128K points/ch.[24]