If you add the obvious rewards of portability and a lot superior screen resolution, the future is searching bright for the usb oscilloscope .
• Do I want frequency domain (spectrum analysis) too?
• Do you want automatic measurements?
• Will you have a laptop PC out there (so you'll be able to use a USB PC scope adapter) or must this be a standalone solution?
Answers to these questions and considering the topics below will help in your choice method.
Sampling Rate/Bandwidth
Bandwidth
What sort of signals do you desire to display? For instance, a microprocessor method clock could be the highest frequency signal the scope you will want to display. So your oscilloscope should have a bandwidth of 3 - 4 times greater than this clock frequency, as a way to display the waveform adequately. If, however, you would like to accurately see the rise-time of the clock, you'll need about 10 times that frequency as a sample rate.
Bandwidth is arguably the single most significant property of an oscilloscope, determining the range of signals that could be displayed. It also dictates price range, because it is actually a lot harder and far more expensive to make genuinely fast scope circuitry. Bandwidth is often defined as the maximum frequency of signal that could pass by way of the front-end circuitry (amplifiers, attenuators, ADCs, interconnects, relays), so the analog bandwidth of your scope must be greater than the maximum frequency which you wish to measure. Most scope manufacturers define bandwidth as the frequency at which a sine wave input signal is attenuated to 71% of its true amplitude (-3 dB point) - the displayed trace amplitude are going to be 29% in error at this frequency! Details at oscilloscope usb
The PCO interface acquisition might be a regular audio card or possibly a video game port, when mainly sound and low-frequency signals might be needed. This, of course, depends upon the application which can require considerably more method capability.
PC based oscilloscopes may well transport information and facts to the pc employing a couple of principal modes which incorporate block or streaming. Block mode employs the random access memory of the certain PC to gather a block of facts that is copied to the computer as soon as it is actually recorded. The computer system can receive block after block at a high rate of speed which increases sample capabilities up to the transfer limits of the processor.
In the streaming mode, info is recorded continuously and is actually far more accurate due to the fact that no data is lost as can happen between blocks. The actual speed on streaming is determined by the method of connection (i.e. USB or Ethernet)
You can find quite a few advantages with PC based oscilloscopes. Here are 5 which can be frequently mentioned.
1. If you already have a workable computer system, the cost is significantly much less than for a standard oscilloscope.
2. The information and facts transfer rate and ease of manipulation with PC word processors and spreadsheets in attractive.
3. Networking and information storage capabilities are far less expensive than for standalone oscilloscopes.
4. The hi-res monitors of desktop or laptop PCs is far superior to standard scopes.
