Re: Are low/lower cost USB Oscilloscope's any good?

news.valornet.com wrote:
Hi,

I am just trying to mess around with electronics stuff, and I don't know too much, but I've put a circuit or two together with help from this forum and others. I've got a fluke DMM and clampmeter, but I'd really like to be able to scope some stuff sometimes. I just don't know if I could part with the money for a portable scope like a fluke 123 however just for playing around. I have some questions and appreciate any suggestions for what might be good:

1. Do most scopes have decent voltage input on them? For example, can you hook most of them up to line power (120vac or 240vac)? I am assuming the fluke can do this no sweat, but I don't know.

2. I also see a bunch of references to X10 probes. Are these used to reduce the voltage to something a scope can use, for example 240VAC --> 24VAC ?

3. Do you have any recommendations for a scope that works on a notebook that is relatively low cost that has decent features (keep in mind I have no idea what features you would want in a scope).

I would even consider some of these scopes that are free based ones that work with a sound card, but my question is, what type of voltage input can you get with a microphone jack???

Thanks!


You're quite welcome.

I'm surprized no one has yet mentioned Picoscope:

http://www.picotech.com/

Then these folks seem to include some scope functionality:

http://www.usbee.com

I have poor impressions about these folks, but possibly unjustified:

http://www.linkinstruments.com/


Note that there are benchtop (not PC based) digital scopes coming from various Chinese makers these days for ridiculously low prices. Also, Agilent and Tek are continuously extending the lower end of prices for brand name stuff. So you might prefer and be able to afford a benchtop unit, which can be more convenient. Then again, a PC based unit like the Picoscope can do some things that a bench scope can't. Higher resolution is one, long time period datalogging another.




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Good day!

________________________________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser&Electronics Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
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