Garage oscilloscope

[andyvh1959]

Cheap high tech for home modders
Some of us like to try and mix parts from other bikes and brands. These days that can require getting to know what signals you get or need to get components working. Decades past that meant you had to be a television techy with an oscilloscope. An oscilloscope is a very expensive electronic device that can see and analyze the signals generated by electronic devices.

But, these days we hold amazing power in our pocket (not THAT), our smart phone. And there are apps for turning your smart phone into an oscilloscope! I got to thinking about this because of apps to use your phone as a sound meter. The phone takes the input from the microphone and a sound meter app produces the waveforms relative to the sound input. Some persons much smarter than me took that steps further, using an input jack from a old set of headphones (the four segment jack), two resistors with a ratio of 1:10 between them, and a downloaded oscilloscope app and your smart phone now becomes an electronic analysis tool. Way cool for us home techies:

Here is a guy testing the wheel speed sensor on a car:

Here is one that includes an adjustable range controller:

_________________

 

[theoldwizard1]

Interesting ! Oscilloscopes have been "beat to death" around here, especially in the past few weeks.

My current "low cost" 'scope favorite is

Typical Chinese, it is sold under multiple brand names, at different price points, but the model number always seems to contain "1013".

YEAPOOK ADS1013D Handheld, 2 Channel, Storage Oscilloscope, 7" touch screen display - Amazon $150.

 

[2ndGearRubber]

So can it record and review? Or just show a live pattern on the screen?

What kind of input voltage could it conceivable handle?

 

[u3b3rg33k]

So can it record and review? Or just show a live pattern on the screen?

What kind of input voltage could it conceivable handle?

That last question can burn you if it's a plug in unit, often the shield is earth ground, and almost always the shields are all the same. hook that up wrong and BOOM! goes your scope/leads. if you want to hook a scope to line voltage plan on spending just as much on the test gear as the scope.

 

[Shakes_26]

When we were looking for lower cost alternatives at work for Field techs we landed on PicoScope. Uses your laptop/tablet for the screen and recording etc. I see them now and they are way more than we ever bought them for. Look for USB Oscilloscopes or similar. Generally pay attention to the probe shields and available triggers. I would think anything 100Mhz or better should be ok for hobbyist use.

 

[Mr_B]

pico 2000 series, pretty low cost but can do hell of a lot including signal generator and do it with intuitive interface and great maths functions .

Other great budget option for 'garage scope' that actually amazingly good is OSC482 scope, has windows software that far nicer than Hantek buggy garbage plus scope smoother signals and hardware ac couple mode and has big plus of full support of android hscope app that amazingly good, far far better hardware/software ability than say uscope and far cheaper, OSC482 is around 65bucks, plug it in your notebook or use it with a android phone or tablet that have otg usb support.
What you got realise in auto testing is you don't need high end hardware specs but logging ability and general software ability the big plus .
Basically for under 200bucks you can build very good scope ability and basic probes that touch close to ability of shop kit at 10x the cost .

 

[Davefr]

Guys, any updates on basic oscilloscope recommendations for general purpose/DIY projects? I have a large Tek scope but I'd prefer a small benchtop scope. Prefer something that's all self contained. (not a cell phone/USB type)

The unit that oldtechwizard referenced in Post #2 looks interesting. Any others? Threshold of pain is around $200.