Hey folks,
I was reading my latest issue of Nuts & Volts
If it makes a difference, I have a LCD monitor. I'm not sure how well those computer add-ons work with non-crt displays?
Thanks!
Look around on e-bay for Tektronix scopes. You should find a good (100 mHz) for around $200 or less. Just make sure it works right before bidding on it and don't bid on a $50 unit that claims to work and is selling "as is". The tek 465 and 475 are popular scopes that were state of the art 20 years ago.
-Bill
If you have an old Win9x or earlier system that can run real-mode DOS, and you have a Sound Blaster card in it, you might want to look at my Daqarta for DOS shareware. You will then have an AC-coupled audio-frequency scope and spectrum analyzer, with all the bells and whistles, including signal generation and color spectrograms. Extensive Help tutorial is built in, and also available for browsing on the Daqarta Web site.
No, this won't replace a benchtop scope, but its good for lots of general testing, and the presence of spectrum analysis beats cheap benchtops for things like distortion measurements.
If you need DC response (which sound cards don't support) you can build a super-simple 8-bit ADC from a handful of resistors wired to a printer port and controlled by the LPTX driver. You might want to do this anyway, if you can't find a Sound Blaster.
Daqarta for Windows is on the way as well, but not for a few more months. The signal generator portion is called DaqGen and is available now as freeware.
Best regards,
Bob Masta dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom D A Q A R T A Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
These things are worse than useless, look around on ebay for a real scope.
You should get more than one opine. I have three of the Computer add on type 'scopes' and find them very useful and easy to use. They also do not take up as much bench space when not in use. The top of the line unit is a dual trace 100Mhz band width unit, and the software allows continuous recording.
The other two are single channel, with limited voltage inputs. (No gain controls) and they are limited to plus or minus 5 volts full scale, but that is
+/- 50 with a 10/1 probe so I have never needed a separate gain control. Those two have samples of 40KHZ (12 bit Resolution) and 200KHZ 8 bit resolution) and they get a lot of use.Never had a complaint except for the need to provide terminators for the two small single channel units.
Dual channel unit cost abt $700
12 Bit single channel $89 8 Bit single channel $49-- Clarence
Everybody that responded -- thanks for your advice.
Mike
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