Can You Recommend a PC Oscilloscope Program?

[bper]

Good day,

Please forgive me if this is the wrong forum or if this is an improper post, but I am not electronics literate however I need a program for a windows based pc to function as an oscilloscope. The program should be able to handle DC current.

Now, from what I was able to determine on the internet, there are options out there that use the sound card as input into some programs. I don't know whether or not the sound card would be able to handle DC, nor do I quite understand how the leads would be connected to the soundcard, or how I would obtain the leads.

Has anyone used something like this before? Can you recommend any commercial and non-commercial options?

Thanks very much for your time and assistance.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Sound cards don't handle DC, they are AC coupled.

 

[bper]

OK. Thanks for the information. Are there any other alternatives?

Thanks again.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Depends on exactly what you're trying to do?.

 

[Torben]

I have used VA (Visual Analyzer) from https://www.sillanumsoft.org/ with good results.


Torben

 

[bper]

My apologies.

The application is largely automotive. I'd like to attach leads to electrical/electronic components of a car to get readings displayed on the pc monitor.

 

[whiz115]

try this software oscilloscope

**broken link removed**

you'll never regret it...

 

[blueroomelectronics]

You might want to look at CAN bus auto analyzers.

 

[Torben]

try this software oscilloscope

**broken link removed**

you'll never regret it...

Whoa. That one recommends a 1GHz machine, at least Windows 2000/XP, and isn't freeware? It also doesn't say how high of an input frequency it will accept. I think I'll stick with VA.


Torben

 

[ericgibbs]

hi,
You could look here:
https://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope.html

They also publish car electronics waveforms.

 

[bper]

Thanks for the interesting suggestions.

VA appears to use the sound card and Nigel says that sound cards are AC coupled, so I don't think that would help me. Picotech looks interesting, but it's expensive.

 

[Torben]

Thanks for the interesting suggestions.

VA appears to use the sound card and Nigel says that sound cards are AC coupled, so I don't think that would help me.

Yeah, I figured you were already off the topic of PC soundcard scopes. I was just responding to another poster.

Does this have to be shown on a PC display inside the vehicle while driving, or just recorded for later?


Torben

 

[bper]

No, car does not have to be driving. Just in the garage.

 

[Torben]

No, car does not have to be driving. Just in the garage.

I think Nigel's got the ticket then. Can you buy or build something to interface to the ODB2 (assuming the car is fairly recent) connector and read the data from there? Or have you already discarded that idea?


Torben

 

[bper]

I haven't thought of that idea. That would limit the car that I could read, but what would the oscilloscope be able to recognize from that connector?

 

[Torben]

I haven't thought of that idea. That would limit the car that I could read, but what would the oscilloscope be able to recognize from that connector?

Ah, so this isn't for a specific car then? Perhaps you should provide more details about just what you are trying to do. Just reading an automotive voltage shouldn't require anything more than a voltmeter, so presumably that's not the end of the story. . .?

If you want to read up on OBD2, then http://www.obd2crazy.com/ is a good place to start and find out what it can do and what is available.


Torben

 

[bper]

Thanks Torben,

No this is not for a specific car per/se. Although I would use it for my car, I wouldn't like it to be for my car only. What if I change cars? What if I have an old car and a new car (which I do)? Then I wouldn't be able to use something that only functions with an ODBC port.

In short, I think it would be best to view this from the perspective of an automotive shop application. I would want to test just about every electrical component of a car (AC and DC) with, I would imagine, a pretty high range of voltage. What would you think, up to about 100 volts?

Can this be done? Is this possible? Am I asking too much?

 

[Torben]

Thanks Torben,

No this is not for a specific car per/se. Although I would use it for my car, I wouldn't like it to be for my car only. What if I change cars? What if I have an old car and a new car (which I do)? Then I wouldn't be able to use something that only functions with an ODBC port.

In short, I think it would be best to view this from the perspective of an automotive shop application. I would want to test just about every electrical component of a car (AC and DC) with, I would imagine, a pretty high range of voltage. What would you think, up to about 100 volts?

Can this be done? Is this possible? Am I asking too much?

Well, for something you could just plug into a car and read out the values, I think ODB2 is about as close as you're going to get without getting into vehicle-specific interfaces. Google Nissan Skyline for an example of a ridiculously tunable vehicle interface.

Without you having to run wires all over your car to all the different bits you want to test, then back to a central connector (essentially building in your own pseudo-ODB2 system), I'd say your best bet might be just to get your hands on a decent automotive voltmeter. Googling "fluke automotive meters" or such might lead you to some ideas. However, I suspect that those things might be slightly more than you wanted to pay, but as far as I know most folks who've shelled out for a Fluke meter have been happy customers for years after. You won't get an oscilloscope-type readout (but you can get handheld scopes too, if you want) but you'll be able to read any voltage or amperage in your car if you can reach it.

Is that something like what you had in mind? Otherwise I'm not sure what to suggest.


Torben

 

[whiz115]

Whoa. That one recommends a 1GHz machine, at least Windows 2000/XP, and isn't freeware? It also doesn't say how high of an input frequency it will accept. I think I'll stick with VA.


Torben

my answer comes a bit late but... come on Torben i don't find your response quite reasonable.. what system you got there? few people play with something less than 1GHz and with 98/95/3.11 nowdays are you one of them?


what do you mean it's not freeware? it's FREE for U!

input frequecy?! what do you expect from your sound card?
it's not a TEKTRONIX oscilloscope.. please check the site again..

 

[mdanh2002]

Just a quick warning for those who wants to play with PC oscilloscopes.... of course It's nowhere as good as TEKTRONIX oscilloscopes but also very easy to damage once you supply the wrong thing

I once found a DOS program which provides a parallel port oscilloscope via a 5V ADC. I mistakenly supplied 15V to it - surprisingly the ADC was not damaged but the parralel port was! Luckily I did not use the built-in port, I use an ISA card for parallel port so replacing it was easy. When the card was taken out, I noticed several chips were severely burned...

At another time I used a sound-card oscilloscope (input via microphone). I was designing FM transmitter so without thinking about the supported recording frequency of a sound card (max. 44.1kHz), I attempted to see the waveform from the output of the RF oscillator. The computer immediately restarted, and after that I found my sound card to be "deaf" - playback was still ok but recording could not work. Probably the too high frequency from the oscillator had killed the microphone part of the sound card?

I always use proper oscilloscope for experiments. To me, PC oscilloscope only works as proof-of-concept.