02 December 2009

Digital PC Scope (Part 1)

This is the other Velleman kit that I found, that I was very enthousiastic about. It is an digital oscilloscope that you can build yourself. It connects to a PC through a printer port and comes complete with software. It has the option to record signals and also has a spectrum analyzer build in. And of course the great thing is that you can save images from the screen. That would be great to post on this blog from time to time. I was very curious so I started building it right away when I got home with it.

Here is the content of the box again in the picture on the right. In front you see the PCB and the software on CD. And behind that a neat looking plastic case with aluminum front and back panels. Like the VU meter kit most components are on a roll again in the correct order. But this kit is a lot more advanced for sure than the VU meter kit. I would not recommend this for an absolute beginner. The good news though is that they also sell these completely assembled. So you can just but them when you are looking for a cheap oscilloscope.

After a few hours of work this was the result. The PCB is finished already. You can see the BNC connector on the front. This is the input of the oscilloscope on the right is a test point that is needed for the calibration process. I need to get a 9 Volt power adapter for it. That was obviously not included. Next thing was to build it into the casing. There was a little tricky thing there because another power regulator needed to be attached to the back panel and then soldered from the top of the PCB. I managed, but it was not very easy to reach.

Here you see the PCB in the case. There is a piece of foil included that needs to be wrapped under and over the PCB to get rid of outside interference. I think they could have done a bit better on this, but well when it works it's fine by me. It is inside the case anyway so you won't see it. OK next thing is hooking the power up and see if the unit wants to communicate with the PC. But not today :) I had enough for one day. I'll let you know the results very soon. Good night to you all.

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