Could use a logic analyzer recommendation for repair work.

[HHaase]

Time for a bit of an equipment upgrade in my little home repair shop, and could use a suggestion.

I do pinball board repairs as a small side job, and lately have gotten a few tricky boards in for repair. Not complicated stuff at all, but I'm getting enough volume lately that I need to streamline my diagnostics. A logic probe and test LED's are slow to work with, and hauling out my 'scope is equally cumbersome. I'd really like to have a logic analyzer to speed things up when I get a tough one, but at the same time my budget is pretty limited.

The stuff I do is almost exclusivly running Motorola 68XX series processors, which are only a paltry 1mhz.

I was hoping somebody could point me at a unit that can fit my needs, and I've nailed down my requirements pretty solidly.
16 input channels.
Enough speed that I can use all 16 at once, to catch the full address bus.
Pattern generator, so I can test the TTL logic chips.
Compatible with 5v TTL logic.

The big limitation seems to be that pattern generator. Not many appear to have one, but it would be a huge help for me to have it.

I've been eyeballing the PoScope and the Hobbylab units, which appear to be the same thing, but I just can't tell from the specs on them what the sample rate is when sampling all 16 channels. Apparently you can now run multiple units simultaneously as well, which would be fantastic too.

I flat out don't care one way or another about any oscilliscope features, and do zero work with serial data. It's all 8-bit parallel.

 

[cr0sh]

https://www.saleae.com/

 

[HHaase]

The Saleae looks fantastic, but apparently the software isn't ready yet for the signal generator and needs add-on hardware, which isn't avaialble yet either.

Right now I think the only one that's going to work for me is the PoScope Basic2. I was able to get an answer on the sample speed at 16 channels, and it's just barely enough..... but it's enough at 1mhz. Or I could apparently run two of them and get 32 channels at 1mhz or 16 channels at 8mhz. It's also got a couple of different styles of signal/pattern generators on it.

-Hans

 

[3v0]

You may want to look to the used market for professional equipment. With the decrease in US based R&D there is a good supply of used LA's at a moderate price.

I suggest looking into the HP/Agilent 16500C. A used setup for about $400 will blow the doors off anything mentioned so far in this thread. The 16500C number is the main frame only. It will be sold with various cards and pods. You have to do a bit of homework to figure out which card or cards you need. In particular I do not recall if the LA cards have a pattern generator built in or if that is a unique card.

 

[HHaase]

Wow, I hadn't priced out the used units, and didn't realize how much the prices had come down. I'm on a very tight crunch of available workspace, but may be able to fit it in there somehow.

Worth looking into.

 

[HHaase]

I ended up sticking with a USB unit for now, I just don't have much budget at the moment, too much cash tied up in projects. The ONLY one I found that did what I needed without costing a fortune was the PoScope Basic.

Seems that almost none of them have pattern generators to them, and I really need it in there.