Pocket Oscilloscopes, experiences?

Hi Cabe,

Man, when do you work?! It seems like everytime I check Element-14 you've put up like 10 new posts. Anyway I haven't had any experience with those types of oscilloscopes, but I think it looks pretty cool. You can actually get one off of sparkfun for $100 I think.

One thing to mention an Oscilloscope with 10Mhz bandwidth can measure frequecies greater than 100kHz accurately. I think you meant to say that with 1MHz bandwidth you can measure up to 100kHz, right?

I say if it suits your needs go for it, it will definitely be a neat gadget, if you already have a good oscilloscope I don't see a reason to buy it.

Best Regards,

Jorge Garcia

Jorge,

Thanks for finding that error. I did indeed mean 1Mhz, not 10Mhz.

My friend bought that O-Scope from Sparkfun. I can't wait to try it out. I will post some impressions of it after some tests.

And, by the way, I work all the time, and try to squeeze in as many posts as I can during breaks. What can I say, my quest for knowledge is insatiable.

Cabe

I bought a UT91 more than a year ago. It's a combined pocket DSO and multimeter. It's rather primitive as optimal features go, but what it does is pretty good.

I think 1 Msps (Samples per second ) is a little low. For under $200, the UT91 does 40 Msps. I guess by your estimate, that means it could show me a 4 MHz signal quite well, but I put it on a USB output ( 11 MHz ) and was able to read hex off the screen - It didn't translate it for me, I was doing that in my head, but the image was sufficient for me to read the encoded data bits accurately first go and getting a good image wasn't too onerous.

At that kind of sample rate and price point, it's a useful tool. It comes with a PC interface ( useless, except for voltage logging and mine didn't work anyway ) and has a few channels to store signals - I think 4 from memory. Also lacks nice presets.

But the trigger works well, it's easy to use and adjustable. It has an auto-scale feature that I find more of a pain than a help when I want to measure something, but if I don't know what I'm looking for, it can be useful.

Lots of fiddly button pressing. I got it so I can have an oscilloscope nearby and not have to pull the large CRO out of the shed each time I want to measure something. I don't have a workshop set up at the moment.

Definitely a valuable purchase. Being able to show me the signal before and after the trigger is useful too.

I'd like a delay setting, or to be able to adjust where in the sample the trigger goes off, but sadly it doesn't do that. Also some presets would be nice.

But for $200 I'd buy one again if this one broke.... I did have to shop around for that price though... I've seen these from $80 ( Yes, I actually saw them go for that price once, new ) to $1000... So the market doesn't seem to know where the right price point is.

But it gave me an accurate measurement and worked well. Also measures signal specifics like frequency and displays them. Usual stuff.

Does this help?

David.

Update - Just had a look at the nano... On the subject of scale - the UT81 is a typical multimeter sized pocket scope... ie, big pockets. If I could only have one, I'd take the UT-81... 40x the sample speed can be more useful... But since I can have two, I might buy the nano as well.

David,

Can you post a link to the UT91 you mentioned, I can not seem to find anything about it.

Also, I reviewed the DSOnano here. It turns out, it's a fairly useful device for quick measurements. Nothing I would write down in a final design lab report, but for testing and troubleshooting it truly shines.

Cabe

Hi Cabe,

Sorry, my bad - I typo'ed the model... No excuse...

Here's a link to the UT81 on Ebay.

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1313&_nkw=ut81b&_sacat=See-All-Categories

David

David,

8Mhz on the UT81 is impressive. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on one of these. Thanks for the link.

On another note, is there a dual channel handheld o-scope yet?

Cabe

You will find a product overview of low-end USB oscilloscopes here: USB Oscilloscopes - Product Overview (Low-end)

On the same website (Oscopes.info) there is also a list of "10 tips for selection an oscilloscope" available. See /Basics

We've had some nice discussions about oscilloscopes and their specs in this topic: http://www.element14.com/community/message/137641/l/re-recommendations-for-an-oscilloscope#137641, especially on the 2nd and 3rd page. Gives some good hints on what to look for in the specs.

I think I'd rather have  a bigger pocket and something like this if I needed a really portable scope.

http://www.circuitspecialists.com/handheld-oscilloscope-dso1060.html

Of course the Fluke ones are much nicer but a lot more expensive.

This one might be worth a look.

https://www.lab-nation.com/store

MK

Hi Cabe,

I have used a number of pocket scopes and USB scopes and the one I like the best (by far) is a DS203, sometimes called DSO Quad.

It easily fits in a pocket and is extremely handy in many unexpected ways - like fitting in the video below without blocking the main subject matter. And having a battery-operated signal generator (completely isolated) can be very useful if such functionality is needed.

It has 2 analog channels (72Ms/s) and 2 digital channels plus a signal generator - and is based on an ARM Cortex M3.

It is fairly full featured with all the standard functionality and lots of other features - the only real warning that should be mentioned is that the user interface is not the usual scope knob layout, so count on a bit of a learning curve to become proficient at selecting settings.

You can see it in use in some of my videos - like this one:

Smarter Life Challenge - The Henrietta Project - Light Sensor

Doug