DIY Oscilloscope is Awesomely Affordable

[Andy1845c]

Anyone seen this before?

DIY Oscilloscope is Awesomely Affordable | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Looks like a fun project for the kit price of $33.00 US

Anyone have one?

 

[pcbheaven.com]

for fun would be nice...

 

[mramos1]

Andy,

Looks cool. I bought something called an ozifox (I think that is the spelling). Years ago for less than $30, but max input voltage was very low, screen was very small and poor resolution. But that was many years ago.

Will look for the specs, but looks like this has promise for a low cost toy/scope/meter. Open source is great too and they mention use it as a DVM.

Another neat little project I never had time for was:

Super Probe

 

[crutschow]

Looks like a neat little device. Should be adequate for sine-waves up to a MHz and digital signals up to a 100KHz or so (above that the square-wave digital waveform will start to look more and more like a sine-wave).

 

[Berserk87]

AH!

thats exactly what i was looking for!
a cheap oscilloscope to do some basics with.

i think im going to order one of these.

i dont have the $$$ to shell out $400 on a normal oscilloscope, plus the $400 ones have tons more feature then ill probably ever use.


sold out already :'(
im broke right now anyway.

 

[Sceadwian]

I paid 30 bucks for my first oscope, most of it was shipping, an old HP 1200B. Good up to 500khz. Great working condition amazingly. Just gotta watch e-bay long enough. Make a nice fast multi-meter.

 

[Berserk87]

I paid 30 bucks for my first oscope, most of it was shipping, an old HP 1200B. Good up to 500khz. Great working condition amazingly. Just gotta watch e-bay long enough. Make a nice fast multi-meter.

nice. a massive thing like that was probably $20 shipping :S

 

[Sceadwian]

Actually I was surprised, it was only 15 shipping, the meter itself was 15. 4U rackmount =) it's a beast, when it dies I'll try to repair it, and if that fails I'll there's going to be at least 30 bucks in usable parts in it. It's got that classic green trace, I love it =)

 

[Berserk87]

It's got that classic green trace, I love it =)

that makes it priceless.

you could grab a microcontroller and make a pong game with it

 

[Sceadwian]

I should, I know the XY mode works, haven't had too much luck with the Z value but I think I was driving it wrong. I've done Lisajouses on it. Nothing makes you feel more like a mad scientist that seeing a lisajouse on a green tubed o'scope.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I should, I know the XY mode works, haven't had too much luck with the Z value but I think I was driving it wrong.

Z inputs are usually VERY crude, and normally require very high signal levels to see any effect.

 

[Salgat]

Unfortunately the bandwidth is terribly small (even for a kit that uses a microcontroller adc).

 

[Berserk87]

Unfortunately the bandwidth is terribly small (even for a kit that uses a microcontroller adc).

its only $30, cant expect much.

its more of a novelty.

 

[Thunderchild]

well you can get a decent 20 MHz osciloscope on ebay for £ 50 ish but I'm sure this gadget can be quite useful especially with its compact size

 

[Hero999]

I've never paid for a scope.

I got my first scope from work when they were throwing a load of old things away. It was an old Gould scope with a bandwidth of only 1MHz. It sort of broke and then suddenly decided to start working but it's still temperamental, the brightness of the display oscillates slightly.

My latest scope is a Telequipment US model, which is a pain because it requires a 110V transformer. It has a bandwidth of only 2MHz. I got it from a colleague, it's quite a nice scope.

I'm getting another scope off someone at work next week. Hopefully it'll be better than all the above.

If the next scope I get is good then I'll give the old Gould scope to anyone that wants it.

This scope looks good and is probably really handy if you don't have a digital scope. It has the advantage of being able to set the timebase down to 10miniutes/Division which is great for monitoring extremely low frequency signals.

100mV/Division is a little disappointing though. I suppose it isn't very hard to build an amplifier to boost that to 10mV/Division at a bandwidth of 1MHz.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I've never paid for a scope.

I got my first scope from work when they were throwing a load of old things away. It was an old Gould scope with a bandwidth of only 1MHz. It sort of broke and then suddenly decided to start working but it's still temperamental, the brightness of the display oscillates slightly.

My latest scope is a Telequipment US model, which is a pain because it requires a 110V transformer. It has a bandwidth of only 2MHz. I got it from a colleague, it's quite a nice scope.

Are you sure about those bandwidths?, they sound impossibly low - certainly for Gould who didn't make scopes that long ago.

Did you perhaps miss a '0' off both of them?