Out of Topic. Oscilloscopes.

[AnthonyH]

Has anyone tried one of those USB scopes?

Fiddling with the VR-sensor the other day was really annoying without a scope and I feel that it's time to get one for myself now. Having a scope, I can detect 'noise' sources, sensor functions, etc. And maybe even use it to calibrate the knock-light.

I've been looking at USB-Instruments Stingray
http://www.usb-instruments.com/oscillo_stingray.html

It's options looks very tempting as it can also be used as a dataloger. But I'd like to know if anyone has tried one of these things in real-life and what you feel about it.

Cheers.

[mikep]

Never tried that one, but I have several, and swear by them.

I need to get a few more for school, and I need one to replace my Tektronix at home.

[the poi]

Man, that looks awesome. I totally badly want one now...

edit://hmm, only 250kHz bandwidth. Would be okay for a lot of things....

[740Weapon]

craigslist often has real scopes for sale for like $50.

i was going to buy one before i gave up on MS.

a USB DAQ of any sort is going to be like a grand or more.

[Tomslide50]

http://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope_kits.html These are more expensive but I can say that they are fantastic. Very powerful and easy to use software with good displays.

[canadiangt]

Make sure you do your homework. I bought a Parallax USB oscilloscope. The thing is pretty much a piece of crap. Don`t get me wrong, it works pretty good, but the this is not well assembled and the software interface sucks. It will not do datalogging either.
When working with cars, datalogging is a just about a must have feature.

[Boris740]

Get a real scope. If you do not mind the size, used Tektronix 465 is a good 100MHz one. That USB scope has only 250kHz analog bandwidth. You will not catch short spikes and glitches with that one.

[arsenix]

I researched these a while back... there are plenty out there that are decent. This one was one of the best deals (and does 60Mhz): http://po.labs.googlepages.com/usbosciloskop

A real scope is convenient since you don't need a PC... but you need a PC out in the car to tune your FI anyways so it might be the ticket (plus they are cheaper).


James