[TriEmbed] oscilloscopes

[Jon Wolfe]

I don't have a Nano, only the Quad and the Touch, but these are the 
specs from their site:

DSO Nano: 1 Ms/s
DSO Touch: 10 Ms/s
DSO Quad: 72 Ms/s

I do know that the Quad has a dedicated ADC chip and FPGA to help 
process the data stream, so that's why it's so much faster. I think the 
Nano uses the built-in ADC on the main CPU.  I'm not sure what's inside 
the Touch.

On the Touch and the Quad, I can select AC or DC coupling mode for each 
channel. I think maybe that was something they left off the 
Nano(inadvertently, or cost-cutting?)

The alternative firmwares for the Quad are what I think turns it from 
"meh" to "pretty neat". Too many little cool features to list, but there 
are "apps" and you can do things like sample and replay signals just 
like a fancier scope, do I2C protocol decoding, etc.

The main thing I didn't like about the DSO Quad was the awful input 
buttons and rockers. They take some getting used to. The Touch is tons 
better in that regard, but it seems hardware-wise it's power lies 
somewhere between the Nano and Quad. Then again, so does its price.

I tend to use a logic analyser more than an analog scope, and for that 
the Saleae Logic is pretty awesome. The newer models do analog as well, 
but are more expensive. You can download their software for free and 
play with it in "simulation mode", if you want to kick the tires.

I love the Bus Pirate (It's the original reason I became a DP/Seeed 
reseller), but I use it more for "active" interaction on a bus, eg when 
I want to "talk" to a I2C/SPI/UART bus from my PC. For sampling raw 
signals, it's bandwidth is extremely slow.

On 2015-04-14 08:56, Alex Davis wrote:
> I have the DSO Pocket Nano V2. It's poor specs-wise but it gets used 
> the
> most since it takes up very little space in my crowded workbench. Main
> drawback is no real probe and no DC-offset blocking. Not sure if the 
> DSO
> Quad addresses those but lack of DC-blocking can be annoying.
> 
> I also have an OWON SDS6062V. It has a beautiful 8" TFT IPS display and
> is very easy to use. I don't use it often, though.
> 
> Something like a Bus Pirate would be good for seeing if you're having
> problems with serial, SPI, or I2C. It's low-end but only $30.

-- 
Jon Wolfe
Anibit Technology LLC.

https://anibit.com