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Affordable oscilloscope

kerbingamer376

My problem is that a decent oscilloscope is the best part of $500, maybe more.

My idea is to make an affordable, Arduino-based oscilloscope, so hobbyists (like me) who are short of money can build their own to help them make their own projects.

  • Even $50-100 can land a useful enough oscilloscope if you're happy with an older used model, and it may be cheaper than some Arduino designs I've seen, if your aim is

    to have an affordable oscilloscope.

     

    If you do want to build your own, then for lower cost consider devices that have a cheap video output capability or network capability, so you can reuse things you have

    already paid for (e.g. monitor, or a PC). That can be cheaper than purchasing an LCD display and connecting to an Arduino.

     

    Check out this Raspberry Pi 'oscilloscope' - the word oscilloscope is used extremely loosely, so I don't want to mislead you. It is an analog electronics aid at best, as are most

    Arduino based ones.

    It costs just $15 if you already have a raspberry pi (And a model A+ won't cost much anyway - doesn't need to be a model Pi 2). It uses the network and your web browser

    on your existing PC, so no need to buy an LCD display or anything.

     

    Another cool approach is the ADALM1000 - again not a true oscilloscope but can capture analog signals by switching it into a measurement mode. It is about $50 and plugs

    into your PC.

     

    Yet another option (now into the $100-$150 mark) is the BitScope MicroBitScope Micro. It is much closer to a more usable oscilloscope. It occupies a good price-performance point, for those

    unwilling to purchase a used oscilloscope or unwilling to spend more.

     

    Also, some people could get away with a low-cost logic analyzer for some work - it doesn't show the complete picture but is useful if you know how to interpret it and if you are aware that you're seeing

    a clocked logic level capture and not necessarily what is really occurring on the wire. So it needs interpretation and care from the user.

    The Open Bench Logic Sniffer (OBLS) is about $50 and is all-round a nice tool.

     

    Personally if I only had (say) $75 to spend and didn't want to save, then I'd buy a used oscilloscope - here is an oscilloscope on ebay that is £50 currently, and is analog, dual-trace 20MHz.