Poll: The Essentials of Test Equipment. What Would You Prefer to Learn?

I voted for waveform / function generators, as I have a need for producing arbitrary signals for testing some apparatus. But any learning is good learning!

Kind regards.

Well Dave from EEV Blog have some really good tips on how to use Oscilloscope for various test cases, But I would be very interested in a More Element14'ish  learning  on oscilloscopes. After all, They are The Holy Grail of Electronics

Regards,

Gill

michaelkellett

I noticed that, and you can grab it. with no registration. And they have an SDK!!

I have a Picoscope (different model) - one (additional) nice thing is that they upgrade the software and don't charge for upgrades.

MK

michaelkellett

You are quite right about Lecroy very cool but stacked against everybody else they are very spendy.

ZeroPlus (never heard of) and their offering seem only for M$windows, (keep that hot mess away please)

Now the PicoScope is doable. Their base unit is < $150.00 and they support Linux, Mac, and even M$windows.

Since my laptop is Linux it sounds good to me!

Thanks for the heads up!

Some logic analysers come close, (both stand alone and integrated into scopes).

The ZeroPLus analysers are not too bad but the range of decoders is good:

http://www.zeroplus.com.tw/logic-analyzer_en/products.php?pdn=10&pdnex=list

Picoscope are a bit more mainstream and still reasonably priced and offer:

PicoScope can decode 1-Wire, ARINC 429, CAN, DCC, DMX512, Ethernet 10Base-T and 100Base-TX,  FlexRay, I²C, I²S, LIN, PS/2, SENT, SPI, UART (RS-232 / RS-422 / RS-485), and USB protocol data as standard, with more protocols in development, and available in the future with free-of-charge software upgrades.

LeCroy prices are bit extreme but the range is good:

https://teledynelecroy.com/options/default.aspx?categoryid=12&groupid=88

Tek and Keysight have stuff too.

MK

I have my old Tektronix 475B Scope sadly it is only a dual-channel device and sometimes I wish I had 6+ channels, and I have used all sorts of equipment.

I think what I would love to get my mitts on would be a universal protocol analyzer. But to my knowledge, this beast does not exist.  You need a different box for each protocol. So you sometimes have to build them yourself.

I selected Spectrum Analyser, mainly as I'm interested to see what new ones are capable of (having used them over 20 years ago). However I would also like to see articles on Oscilloscope use (although there are some great articles already on Element14 by the likes of The specified item was not found. Tektronix and rohde&schwarzeu etc) as well as Logic Analysers.

Hi Doug,

I agree with you. I feel that I can always use a better education on the basics of my test instruments. The oscilloscope is a great place to start.

John

The only instruments I am likely to have at home are a scope and a power supply. Although my scope has a function generator, a frequency counter, logic inputs and FFT capability, those features are much less used than normal scope functions.

I would prefer to be more of an expert on basic scope techniques than anything more exotic.