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how to make an analog osciloscope

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popsik

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osciloscope is one of the most important things in you workshop if you trying to work with electricity waves... buuuut there is a big problem, osciloscopes are very expensive and i can't afford it... so i thought that it would be great to make an analog osciloscope.
I think it will cost less, than to buy one, and also it will be a very nice project, working with advanced electricity.
 
Your best solution would likely be something like this. While not the best it will work. A Google of "Sound Card Oscilloscope" will bring up other hits. Building an oscilloscope from scratch is not an easy project. Another option is to look for an older used scope. While a PC Sound Card scope is not very good, it is better than nothing.

Ron
 
... osciloscopes are very expensive and i can't afford it... so i thought that it would be great to make an analog osciloscope.
I think it will cost less, than to buy one, and also it will be a very nice project, working with advanced electricity.

To achieve decent results, building it yourself will cost you ten times more than a new one; won't work well, and will take 10 years to gather the parts... if lucky. Do not forget building a chassis, controls panel and more. Leaving aside years of blood, sweat and tears.

There is no better option than buying a used or new one. For a simple very reliable unit, search for a Hitachi V-212 and you will be surprised of its cost, and you can have it tomorrow, not next decade.

If you insist on building one, get any used one with its service manual; dismantle it to pieces : Now you have all the parts---> Tested good, at a tenth of the price of buying them from any source. Now put it back together, and pray.
 
osciloscope is one of the most important things in you workshop if you trying to work with electricity waves... buuuut there is a big problem, osciloscopes are very expensive and i can't afford it... so i thought that it would be great to make an analog osciloscope.
I think it will cost less, than to buy one, and also it will be a very nice project, working with advanced electricity.

What's your bandwidth needs, and how much can you spend?

You can get microcontroller based scopes for around $50.00 USD that'll give you 1 MHz single-channel bandwidth. You can also buy scope software for PocketPC devices fairly cheap (but, you need one of those devices - and it has to have a microphone input - its basically a sound card scope). If you have an old DOS PC lying around, there's plenty of scope software for that platform available - which can use either the soundcard or a parallel printer port (generally for the latter you have to assemble an interface to do the ADC). Another possiblity would be to use a microcontroller (there's also very low-speed scopes that use a USB chipset that has a built-in ADC it can sample). For the really desperate - there's always rigging a TV set (generally b/w) into a scope...

Before we can really help you, though - knowing what you need for bandwidth, and what you -can- spend - can be helpful.
 
**broken link removed** Many are available in kits, if you are determined to built it.
 
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