USB oscilloscope for troublshooting?

bob prohaska

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Apr 20, 2021, 9:05:31 PM4/20/21

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From time to time it'd be really handy to have an oscilloscope. Something
like a Tektronix TDS2010 would be very nice. Too nice, and expensive,
for as often as I'd use it. And, much too good for the sorts of things
I'm likely to measure. An example would be watching for power supply
sags during computer boot-up, or maybe disk spin-up. Basically audio
bandwidth, but with the ability to capture transients by stop trigger.

What about "oscilloscopes" based on USB sound cards? The one that's
handy is xoscope, available via apt on RasPiOS. It's installed, but
the man page gives no hint what sort of sound device, or general purpose
A/D converters, are supported.

I don't have a hard-and-fast performance requirement, nor one for price.
It'd need to work from below 60Hz upwards, and cost around $10/kHz or
less at higher bandwidths with a cap in the $200-500 range. DC response
would be nice but not essential, calibrated amplitudes aren't really
necessary but would be convenient. Possibly the biggest constraint is
that I do not own a Windows license and have no modern Windows-compatible
hardware, so the choices are MacOS 10.7.5, RasPiOS or FreeBSD only.

If anybody has experiences or suggestions for devices and software to
consider please post.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

Ralph Mowery

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Apr 20, 2021, 11:31:08 PM4/20/21

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In article <s5nton$nrq$1...@dont-email.me>, b...@www.zefox.net says...

>
> I don't have a hard-and-fast performance requirement, nor one for price.
> It'd need to work from below 60Hz upwards, and cost around $10/kHz or
> less at higher bandwidths with a cap in the $200-500 range. DC response
> would be nice but not essential, calibrated amplitudes aren't really
> necessary but would be convenient. Possibly the biggest constraint is
>
>

If you are going to spend 200 to 500 look at the Hantek scopes for
around $ 350.

https://www.circuitspecialists.com/hantek-oscilloscope

Kerry Imming

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Apr 21, 2021, 8:22:23 AM4/21/21

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I have a Rigol DS1100 and have been very happy with it. The auto signal
find option makes it MUCH easier to use than the old scopes.

https://www.tequipment.net/Rigol/DS1102Z-E/Digital-Oscilloscopes/?b=y&v=7906

- Kerry

HW

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Apr 22, 2021, 8:53:38 AM4/22/21

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On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 01:05:27 -0000 (UTC), bob prohaska
<b...@www.zefox.net> wrote:

>What about "oscilloscopes" based on USB sound cards?

From what I understand, most people who have tried both, prefer a
standalone scope over a PC based one.

>in the $200-500 range.

You can get a very nice, brand new, hobby scope for that kind of
money. The Rigol DS1054Z seems to be available for around $450. That
is a four-channel, 50 MHz scope. It can easily be hacked for 100 MHz
bandwidth.

mjmcl

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Apr 22, 2021, 10:50:55 PM4/22/21

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On 4/20/21 4:05 PM, bob prohaska wrote:

> What about "oscilloscopes" based on USB sound cards? The one that's
> handy is xoscope, available via apt on RasPiOS. It's installed, but
> the man page gives no hint what sort of sound device, or general purpose
> A/D converters, are supported.

visual analyser works on FreeBSD with WINE, but you're limited to
soundcard/chip bandwidth and line level input voltages.

bob prohaska

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Apr 22, 2021, 10:51:11 PM4/22/21

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HW <no...@no.no> wrote:
>
> From what I understand, most people who have tried both, prefer a
> standalone scope over a PC based one.
>

Understood completely, if this were for routine use I'd agree. But,
mine is a once-in-a-blue-moon use case.

>
> You can get a very nice, brand new, hobby scope for that kind of
> money. The Rigol DS1054Z seems to be available for around $450. That
> is a four-channel, 50 MHz scope. It can easily be hacked for 100 MHz
> bandwidth.

That's better than I need by a wide margin, but it's tempting 8-)

Thanks for writing,

bob prohaska