Can you support this with one or two pictures.
That would be the proof of the pudding.
Hans
A screen grab to 8" floppy, perhaps?
Re old Weller irons: Hang on to them. Manufacturing quality dropped like a stone about fifteen years ago. In about 2010, I bought a new TCP to replace the one I had bought second-hand in 1985 that was getting rather tatty. I have already replaced the switch twice. The old iron solders on...
Re old Weller irons: Hang on to them. Manufacturing quality dropped like a stone about fifteen years ago. In about 2010, I bought a new TCP to replace the one I had bought second-hand in 1985 that was getting rather tatty. I have already replaced the switch twice. The old iron solders on...
Hi Hans,
Do you have a DSO ,an analogue scope? Then just use your eyes, it is not subtle. Even in 12 bit mode, my Keysight MSOX3104T (look it up) isn't as sharp as my analogue scopes. Any one of you out there can try it, it ain't very difficult.
While you are at it, look up how much that scope is worth, my Philips PM 3070 was a fraction of that and is a far better instrument for viewing waveforms. The Keysight does a bunch of other things, and a couple things are better, the the core function on the Philips is superior. I also have Tek 2465B, 465, 7613 and others, so a wide base of instruments I use to choose from. I've used oscilloscopes for over 50 years, I am just being honest.
Do you have a DSO ,an analogue scope? Then just use your eyes, it is not subtle. Even in 12 bit mode, my Keysight MSOX3104T (look it up) isn't as sharp as my analogue scopes. Any one of you out there can try it, it ain't very difficult.
While you are at it, look up how much that scope is worth, my Philips PM 3070 was a fraction of that and is a far better instrument for viewing waveforms. The Keysight does a bunch of other things, and a couple things are better, the the core function on the Philips is superior. I also have Tek 2465B, 465, 7613 and others, so a wide base of instruments I use to choose from. I've used oscilloscopes for over 50 years, I am just being honest.
There are options. My Hakko soldering iron has been 100% reliable for at least 15 years.
The Keysight has impressive specs, but it´s display has only 800x480 pixels, that´s probably where the big difference is.
My 3840x2160 PC screen has 21 times more pixels that in combination with a high res Nvdia video card enables the Picotech SW to produce waveforms that are just 1 pixel wide, as sharp as it can possibly be.
See attached image, just an example, original recording and zoomed version to illustrate the sharpness.
Hans
Attachments
And colored traces too...
I have had the hots for all the latest TV's since childhood (all CRT's back then)... not just because I discovered girls on them... and not just Annette Funicello (though later in life I discovered a detailed centerfold with exceptional pixelation of Barbie Benton and developed a newborn admiration for colored paper products... but don't tell my wife...and particularly not my girlfriend). The last "CRT" type TV I wanted desperately was a huge 40" Sony flat screen that I suspect is now dangling from a chain on the side of the Queen Mary in Long Beach California.
I have had the hots for all the latest TV's since childhood (all CRT's back then)... not just because I discovered girls on them... and not just Annette Funicello (though later in life I discovered a detailed centerfold with exceptional pixelation of Barbie Benton and developed a newborn admiration for colored paper products... but don't tell my wife...and particularly not my girlfriend). The last "CRT" type TV I wanted desperately was a huge 40" Sony flat screen that I suspect is now dangling from a chain on the side of the Queen Mary in Long Beach California.
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Be careful. You can smooth the traces and make it look good, but the sampling resolution is what matters.
My scope has coloured traces and all kinds of toys. It is a wonderful thing, but when I have to look at real detail ... analogue wins every time. I am hoping that DSOs improve further, they have come such a long way so far.
My scope has coloured traces and all kinds of toys. It is a wonderful thing, but when I have to look at real detail ... analogue wins every time. I am hoping that DSOs improve further, they have come such a long way so far.
I have 4 picoscopes. I have been using them for.20 years now. They are the best of the USB scopes. However less so for troubleshooting. No knobs. A Tek 547 had them sharpest trace of any analog scope but limited to 50 MHz. The switched electron gun tech to get the faster writing speed. W his also makes for a bigger fuzzier trace.
Chasing fine detail on a time display may not be the best way to find what you are looking for. Modern scopes have amazing trigger and analysis tools. In the far distant past I remember squinting at 4 traces looking for timing issues with three 547. Getting a dual trace scope was magic. 4 digitized real time traces is a whole new world.
Chasing fine detail on a time display may not be the best way to find what you are looking for. Modern scopes have amazing trigger and analysis tools. In the far distant past I remember squinting at 4 traces looking for timing issues with three 547. Getting a dual trace scope was magic. 4 digitized real time traces is a whole new world.
You can download the software for free and run it in demo mode without a Picoscope.
Even a simple thing like having the traces in different colours is massively convenient.
Last I looked at them I wasn't impressed by the front-end of those things. I think the lowest V/div (highest sensitivity) was around 100 mV/div. That's not very useful in the analog world. But it's possible that they've improved since then. You'll want something in the single digit mV/div ideally.
Tom
Kind of forgotten about the color thing. And the probes have the little color key on them. I'd not used a scope in decades since I got my 1st DSO 3 years ago. The scopes I'd used at my first job in the 80's did not have color. Since that job I've gone into a world where simulation is the only way to look at stuff, or a SEM.
Doesn't that depends of the model of scope used? I think that it's been improved quite a bit. (looking the 2000 series)
https://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/2000/picoscope-2000-specifications
Yupe tons of stuff, nice looking modern software it seems, man a software like this on a quantasylum would be fantastic!
I'm starting to look for a PC based test rig.
(and that doesn't mean I'm going to ditch my old stuff) I like push buttons, pulling levers, switches and all that jazz 🙂
Yes, colour is wonderful. But how often do you see coloured traces lined up one above the other? Too often (and that means more than once). The whole point of colour is that the scope's ADC's need to be run right up to their limit or you are throwing away resolution. But that means you have four full height traces and need to distinguish one from the other, hence the need for colour. It's vital for a digitiser that you run it as hard as possible...
But that's no different than an analog multi-channel scope. You need to use the full screen to get the best view. You just can't tell the traces apart.
I don't often need the full resolution on all channels when I use all channels, but I do need to be able to tell them apart. For example, one trace could be used to trigger the scope while another trace is the measurement of interest. I usually scrunch down the trigger trace so it's one division tall, assuming that's good enough to trigger on.
But I still prefer actual boxes for equipment like oscilloscope, DMM, and power supply.
Tom
I don't often need the full resolution on all channels when I use all channels, but I do need to be able to tell them apart. For example, one trace could be used to trigger the scope while another trace is the measurement of interest. I usually scrunch down the trigger trace so it's one division tall, assuming that's good enough to trigger on.
Nothing wrong with that. I thought I would miss pushing buttons when I bought my APx525, but haven't. The APx software is fantastic. You can download it and play with it in demo mode to see for yourself.
But I still prefer actual boxes for equipment like oscilloscope, DMM, and power supply.
Tom
My opinion is have both digital and analogue scopes.
If you are a digital millennial guy, spend the money on a great DSO and pick up an older, less expensive CRO for <$100 and use it for analogue stuff where the instant response, and overall ease of operation is superior.
If you're an old-school bloke, you probably already have good to excellent CROs that still work perfectly and likely cost you a ton of money back in the day. You've probably been tempted by DSOs and have already bought a 'toy' one to play with. I think that's where we can sell ourselves short on what a really good DSO handles like.
I picked up a few near-mint CROs (20, 30 and 60MHz- Kenwood, B&K, Trio) a few years back for little money and put them away for "backups". The B&K still had the protective plastic on the front. They were from technicians or engineers who had long retired and had put down the tools, although they'd bought those 'scopes for their home 'labs' that never really got used. Eyesight and health issues generally result in techs hanging up their probes.
If you are a digital millennial guy, spend the money on a great DSO and pick up an older, less expensive CRO for <$100 and use it for analogue stuff where the instant response, and overall ease of operation is superior.
If you're an old-school bloke, you probably already have good to excellent CROs that still work perfectly and likely cost you a ton of money back in the day. You've probably been tempted by DSOs and have already bought a 'toy' one to play with. I think that's where we can sell ourselves short on what a really good DSO handles like.
I picked up a few near-mint CROs (20, 30 and 60MHz- Kenwood, B&K, Trio) a few years back for little money and put them away for "backups". The B&K still had the protective plastic on the front. They were from technicians or engineers who had long retired and had put down the tools, although they'd bought those 'scopes for their home 'labs' that never really got used. Eyesight and health issues generally result in techs hanging up their probes.
I haven't done this yet, but it would be fairly easy in a Tcl/Tk wish program to create your own GUI and just use SCPI to drive the instrument. So far I've always had a specific purpose in mind and since C is second hand to me, I write the SCPI sequence thru C. Wish supports sockets and you can easily define widgets with actions that could be send the appropriate message down the SCPI socket or use timers and probe settings you want to see the values of.
Maybe I'd arrive at a different view if I was 'more serious' about this stuff, but as is (dabbling in audio for a little while at a time, and then switching to something else, and maybe picking up again weeks or months later) I appreciate compact equipment that doesn't take up too much desk or bench space when in use, has a quick learning curve, and is easy to stow away when I'm done with it. So far I'm very happy with my FPGA-based Digilent (National Instruments, now Emerson) 'Analog Discovery 2' USB scope. Bandwidth (30 MHz) and resolution (14 bit) seem perfectly adequate for my needs, you can buy simple audio and network analyzer interfaces for it, and the PC (Windows tablet, in my case) integration is just super practical for taking screen shots and seamless integration with note taking (or web posting... ;-) .
I know there are much better stand-alone scopes and logic and network analyzers out there that can be interfaced to a computer or network (i.e. no need for transporting images or data via USB stick or floppy - or taking Polaroids...), but for what I (and I'd argue maybe the average hobbyist in general) need it's really hard to beat the compactness and computer integration of a USB oscilloscope/analyzer like the AD2 (or now AD3).
On a related note, I was never crazy about the stand-alone units that used a Windows interface, some of them even with a mouse. Those seemed to combine the worst of both worlds to me, the idiosyncrasy of a Windows-based file & menu system, but on a crappy screen, plus hardware button/switch control for some but not all of the functions. Windows crashes, software update popups at the most inopportune time: almost as bad as the Tesla car interface, incl. rebooting at 60 mph...
I know there are much better stand-alone scopes and logic and network analyzers out there that can be interfaced to a computer or network (i.e. no need for transporting images or data via USB stick or floppy - or taking Polaroids...), but for what I (and I'd argue maybe the average hobbyist in general) need it's really hard to beat the compactness and computer integration of a USB oscilloscope/analyzer like the AD2 (or now AD3).
On a related note, I was never crazy about the stand-alone units that used a Windows interface, some of them even with a mouse. Those seemed to combine the worst of both worlds to me, the idiosyncrasy of a Windows-based file & menu system, but on a crappy screen, plus hardware button/switch control for some but not all of the functions. Windows crashes, software update popups at the most inopportune time: almost as bad as the Tesla car interface, incl. rebooting at 60 mph...
The Analog Discovery 3 is $380. That's a lot for something that's limited to ±25 V input, 125 MS/s, etc. If I had $380 to blow on a scope, I'd probably look at Rigol/Sigilent. If I had a bit more, I'd look at Keysight, Tektronix, and other higher end brands.
That said, I do think the Analog Discovery can be useful for general "getting started" type stuff. That's just not what I'm looking for in a scope.
Tom
That said, I do think the Analog Discovery can be useful for general "getting started" type stuff. That's just not what I'm looking for in a scope.
Tom
I wouldn't expect the Rigol or Siglent scopes to be ~$400 for much longer. If you can still get one at that price, better get it now.