scope for hobbyist who hopes to eventually design circuits

Some cheap (like, $10) FPGA have seriously sub-ns rise and fall times, but that doesn't really matter much in most situations.

My bench scope was the 60 MHz Rigol for a while, and it was fine. Well, sitting next to my 50 GHz 11802.

Bandwidth ratio ~~ 1000:1

Weight ratio ~~ 30:1

Intel maybe? They are going sub 10nm. I'm sure they are gearing up or already have for their next 'tick' or die shrink to 10nm. Then 7nm is next and so on.

Cheers

I beg to differ (as usual). Do you give a beginning student driver a fast expensive car, or a rolling wreck? It's much easier and cheaper to make the initial mistakes with a cheap or free PC based scope, than a $1,400 (list) 200 MHz Rigol DS1204B. Perhaps we've all forgotten what happened when we were first introduced to test equipment[1].

The OP is apparently a student or hobbyist that has probably never used an oscilloscope. At this point, he wouldn't know what to look for in a scope except price. What's nice about PC sound card based scopes is that they have all the features of the a real scope or DSO, except for the bandwidth. The upper frequency limits are typically:

- Cheap 44 KHz sound card 22 KHz

- 192 KHz sound card 96 KHz

- External digitizer 2 MHz

- PicoScope and such Limited by your budget. Other than bandwidth, the typical PC based scope has dual trace/beam, screen capture, waveform capture, waveform/pulse/sweep/tracking generator, FFT spectrum analyzer, color, digital screen measurements, filtering, saved setups, etc. In other words, all the cool stuff found a far more expensive scopes, but at a lower frequency range and lower cost. If the OP wants to learn, methinks it makes more sense to learn on a free or cheap device, so that at least he knows what to look for when he goes shopping for the real thing.

My favorites: More:

USB Scope (2MHz BW):

PicoScope:

Also, if the OP has an Android or IOS based tablet or smartphone, there are various oscilloscope and generator apps available. I use various SPL meters and audio spectrum analyzers on my various phones and tablets fairly often, mostly because they're quick and convenient.

Probably. They did invest a couple of gigabucks in ASML, probably to help develop EUV. And Intel had a couple of dev machines, as the piece notes.

They are going sub 10nm. I'm sure they are gearing up

Apparently they can get to 7 nm with 193 nm DUV light and immersion and multi-patterning, but that's really expensive. So at least some process steps may make sense with EUV.

My biggest "bitch" with the low end Rigol, is I'd like two more knobs, gain and offset for each channel. As it is now you have to select which channel gets the one set of vertical control knobs. I'd certainly pay $50 more. (Just in case Rigol is listening. :^)

George H.

I paid $400 for my 50 MHz Rigol ~2-3(?) years ago. I set up a micro-phone amp for my kids.. The simultaneous display of Time and FFT is awesome. (IMHO)

George H.

Jeff, Do you know what the input protection (voltage limits) are on sound cards? Just thinking my 'scope w/ x10 probe is good for almost everything.

George H.

Input protection for a $1.50 dongle? Probably the most cost effective protection is a supply of spare dongles.

To the best of my knowledge, the commodity C-Media CM-108 chip found in most bottom of the line sound cards has no obvious input protection of any kind. The data sheet is little help showing only that the max input is 2.88v p-p: There might be something inside but I can't be sure. At best, a 1K external resistor in series with the mic input.

It's common practice to add diode protection to the mic input on repurposed USB sound dongles. For example, see Fig 4:

However, of all the various computers I've seen over the years, none have ever had a blown mic input on the sound card. I've had blown cards, but the problem is usually elsewhere. So, if there is something inside for protection, it's working.

The devil is in the details. If you have specific requirements, you can determine what scope specs you need. "As much as possible" is not a spec. Specs have numbers.

Electronics is a BIG range of hobbies. If you're looking at analog signals or the analog characteristics of digital signals, your major concern is having enough bandwidth. If you want to look at multiple signals or debug digital stuff, you need a lot more than just enough bandwidth.

Digital storage is very good for low rep-rate stuff. I messed around with a spot welder design on and off for years. Two days after I got my first digital storage scope, I had it working right. It's all about what you're trying to do.

For debugging microprocessor stuff, I don't bother with logic analyzers. Stick an analog scope on the pin to see if the signal is approximately right and debug the software by inspection.

So, find yourself an engineer or a ham radio operator or go to a ham club meeting. Most of us have stuff in the attic we'd be glad to give away if you ask nice. Ham radio swapmeets have cheap scopes too. I don't trust ebay for complicated stuff like scopes.

You can always buy a better, much more expensive, scope AFTER you learn what you really need.

Give and free are 4 letter words that are not mentionable in polite company. After paying my income taxes a few weeks ago, asking nice will not get you anything for free.

Here's my "to be repaired" scope pile. The pile is now over twice as big. I don't think there's anything that's newer than 20 years old or faster than 100 MHz. Most are easily repaired by replacing all the electrolytics. It's not a difficult fix, but does take more time than the scope is worth. So, they sit until I need one.

I've got a Picoscope 2203 which did the job I bought it for. It looks as if Picoscope have stopped making it, but Picoscope been around for a while, a nd I bought the 2203 because we'd bought something similar at my last job t o lend to an academic collaborator, and it too had worked well.

It would probably be more sensible to go to the Newark/Element 14 web-site to see what they are stocking at the moment. The Australian web-site lists

Only reason to pay a lot of taxes is cause you made so much money. Get over it!

Yet, you'd not give one away to help someone...

I don't have anything newer than 20 years old and I do just fine. Most newbie hobbyists don't need anything faster than 100MHz. to get started.

For basic audio PC based things like Daquarta are not at all bad if you don't mind feeding signals into your PCs sound card. You can try it for free and the signal generator still works if you decide not to buy.

(no connection with them other than as a satisfied user it is good for live presentations where you want realtime spectrum analysis display)

There is a completely free PC oscilloscope program whose name escapes me. You can't beat the price even if it isn't perfect.

To be fair, the TRS connector is a good protection against both ESD and cable charge.

Tim

I had to equip myself a new lab at work. Had a very modest budget. TEK's l ow end model was $1100 with no added options and 60 Mhz. Rigol's 100 DS110

The 700$ difference went into a better soldering and de-soldering setup.

I'd readily suggest it for a beginner, but it does need more knobs as has b een suggested.

If budget is tight, the 30 Mhz OWON SDS5032E-V is not that bad. A friend who does small production line manufacturing of HV power supplies bought t wo of the previous OWON model as bench scopes. When he first unpacked one and used it, he called and cursed me for suggesting it. After all, he'd sp ent 40 years using CRTS.

The next day he called back and said his staff had the screen capture going into every unit's QC report. He played with it some and ordered four more. The ladies who do his bench assembly and soldering, had found the "AU TOSET" button on the "TOY" and found taking measurements easy!

So while one should always consider buying the best scope one can afford, t here is something to be said for suggesting a modest scope for a true begin ner.

Steve R.

Figuring out how to get decent measurements out of it is also educational.

I have one of the $400 Owon scopes, and my son has used it very successfully for things like debugging SPI issues and using counter/timer outputs to make quadrature square waves over wide frequency ranges. I occasionally take it with me on customer trips.

It does have some firmware peculiarities.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

True. This year, I paid too much because I totally screwed up on my tax planning. The good news is that next year my taxes will probably be near zero. Anyway, give me a few weeks to recover and I'll be back to my normal philanthropic self and possibly sell a broken scope to the OP at a discount.

I have customers and I have friends. The only difference is that the customers pay me. Yeah, I'm evil.

There doesn't seem to be much demand for oscilloscopes these days. DSO's and PC based scopes have taken over. I dragged a pile of mostly working scopes to a ham radio flea market a few years ago. I sold one scope below cost, and bought a pile of TEK 5110 rack mount scopes for about $10/ea and for no obvious reason. I installed them in various racks mostly so I don't have to haul a big heavy scope around. Those would probably make a good beginners scope with only 2 MHz bandwidth. Yeah, the OP can have one of those (for the price of shipping).

You should join me in opening a museum: (Notice the nixie tube counter above the spectrum analyzer). Of course, I plan to charge for admission.

I spent my first 50 years collecting all this junk. I'm going to spend my next 50 years getting rid of it.

Actually, they could do with a lot less bandwidth. My teenage neighbor recently expressed an interest in test equipment while building an eBike. I traded him a DVM and a Tek T922 (15 MHz) for some shop cleaning (which he hasn't done). I also showed him how to use his laptop as an oscilloscope. He's planning to give back the scope and just use a sound card scope. His eBike runs at about 30 KHz, so he'll soon learn about rise time and the frequency limitation of sound card scopes. When he gets to that point, I expect him to ask for one of my better 100 MHz scopes, which he either will fix, or help me fix. As I previously mumbled, the main thing is to get him used to the features, functions, and controls. Speed can come later.

low end Rigol 1 GHz sample rate 60 MHz bw

And it has probes, BNC input connectors, overload protection, DC coupling, multiple triggering modes, wide range calibrated X and Y, all the stuff a real scope needs. If a beginner wants to learn electronics, he/she needs a scope, a DVM, a power supply, a soldering iron, and some parts kits. Recommending a sound card is a disservice.

$329.

A GFI protector, function generator, test leads, and some books would also be nice. I'm wondering a little about the original posting. A hobbyist without a scope is not really much of a hobbyist. We can't see electrons moving around a circuit. In effect, we're working blind and an oscilloscope is the principal way we compensate for that blindness.

I beg to differ and I do recognize that this is against the consensus in this thread.

We tend to forget what we went through learning electronics and test equipment when we knew zero. My guess(tm) is that most of us had some experience in skool, using whatever equipment was available. Reading between the lines, this beginner/hobbyist had none of that. So, we start from scratch.

One does not start by buying test equipment. One starts with vocabulary expansion, buzzword collecting, and maybe some reading on oscilloscopes. Give a beginner even a minimal oscilloscope, and they will soon be asking "What's a delayed trigger" and other basic questions. Such questions can be answered using either a basic scope or a PC scope, but methinks that the PC scope has better help, more features, is easier to see what's happening, and has far more information on the screen. It's also cheaper. The beginner can also try different oscilloscope emulation programs, on a variety of platforms, until they find something they like.

Once they have a suitable collection of buzzwords accumulated, they at least have a clue what to look for in a scope. It might very well be a minimal 60 MHz Rigol, or if they're into RF, something with more bandwidth. Much depends on what they plan to do with the scope. For all I know, they might really need a logic analyzer or spectrum analyzer, which to a total beginner looks very much like an oscilloscope.

I suspect that the hobbyist has no idea what he's getting into and what's needed to "design circuits". A tour of a proper lab full of test equipment, in the area of interest, might be useful. If they want to do design as a hobby, visiting someone's home lab/shop might be illuminating.

How to setup an electronics lab (Dave Jones): (27:09) $1550 total. He hates USB scopes. Oh well.