Tag: dsPIC Oscilloscope

Low budget DIY oscilloscope in a matchbox

  By

It seems that less money you have, more creative you are. Not many dear to start a DIY oscilloscope project since these tools already aren’t that expensive as they were earlier. Anyway there are always hobbyists somewhere in the world that would rather build a tool rather saving to buy. In my opinion, oscilloscope is must have tool on a bench and if possible good one. So if your budget is short to buy one, ajoyraman offers his plans on $15 scope. Oscilloscope doesn’t come with display, so it has to be connected to PC. He made sure that software is a multi-platform where Visual basic was used to to build windows compatible part, while Python for Linux. Scope has two channels with sampling frequency from 1Mbps to 20Mbps. Other features are like on common scopes including triggering on both edges, selectable gains, different capturing modes including single, repeat and store. Most of work is done on PC software where you can select various parameters and see graphs. Here you can zoom, copy, save images as you would like. Scope… Continue reading

Wireless Oscilloscope

  By

This is an Android based Bluetooth oscilloscope. The transmitter circuit uses Microchip’s dsPIC33FJ16GS504 for the analog-to-digital conversion of the input signals on two channels. The processed data on the dsPIC are then transmitted to the phone (for waveform display) via the LMX9838 bluetooth SPP module. For plotting the waveform, they have used a SurfaceView object to draw on its canvas. For the rest of things, they mainly involves porting of Python S60 scripts to JAVA language which he has made for his previous project A good thing about the project, is all the source file and the schematics are made open- source and hence the oscilloscope can be built at home provided you have an Android based smartphone. Although the application was tested on an android 2.1 but it should work with later version also. I believe that the dsPIC he has used is most probably NOT the best choice for this project because of the many left unused peripherals (extra pins) but it was the only chip with the fastest ADC the author had while making the project. Continue reading

Scopey II – The Great Combination of dsPIC Oscilloscope and Spectrum Analyzer

  By

Do you have a dsPIC oscilloscope and Spectrum analyzer in your lab, but you still think that you didn’t fully used it for a great purpose? Well, then it’s time to use some of your creativity and effort to combine these two stuffs together and transform it into a magnificent Scopey II! Before it, do you know the main function of the Spectrum analyzer? Technically, it is a device used to examine the spectral composition of some electrical, acoustic or optical waveform. Sometimes, it can be also measured the power spectrum as well! Basically, the spectrum analyzer can be divided into two main types and there is analog and digital spectrum analyzer. This is how the Scopey II works… Everything is comes in through the BNC jack on the front and the signal is than attenuated or amplified by the attenuator and amplifier. The gain of the input stage is fully controlled by the PIC and the input stage level will shift the input so it can centers around 2.5v to enable reading negative voltages. Furthermore, the ADC is also… Continue reading