The Open Instrumentation Project (OIP) has been formed to support open-source software and low cost hardware for electronic instrumentation. Currently available instruments include an oscilloscope, waveform generator and network analyser. Source code is available at sourceforge/oip. Information on the hardware is available at
Recent developments in the project:
- The Mac OS-X port appears to be operational, thanks to a contribution by Seneca Cunningham. We hope to have the beta test version up on Sourceforge shortly. (If you'd like to push that along, send me email and we'll move it up in the queue.) This means that the oscilloscope and waveform generator are now available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS-X operating systems.
There are three new papers on the Syscomp web page:
- An illustration of oscilloscope single-shot capture operation, documenting contact bounce in an electromechanical relay.
- Notes on BNC adaptors and cables, including a pointer to building cables using RG-174U (small diameter coax).
- Instructions on Downloading and Executing code from Sourceforge. (This is specific to OIP software, but may be useful for other downloads using the Tcl/Tk language.)
The vector network analyser which uses the oscilloscope and waveform generator plus GPLed software, is described in the September issue of Circuit Cellar magazine.
The oscilloscope software has the following new features:
- Software Zoom (aka Waveform Browser) captures 32k samples and allows a zoom into any portion of that data record
- Vertical Calibration allows the vertical sensitivity to be calibrated, to yeild improved accuracy over the raw hardware
- X-Y Plot displays in the foreground while displaying X vs time and Y vs time in the background. Allows the display of Lissajous figures.
The waveform generator software now supports 0.1Hz resolution. (The hardware always supported that resolution, now the software takes advantage of that.)
Peter Hiscocks Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto