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| Does a hobbyist need a Oscilloscope? |
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| System Error Message:
--- Quote from: nctnico on June 30, 2016, 07:12:50 pm ---3 pages on this simple topic? :palm: Ofcourse a hobbyist needs a scope! Stupid question because a scope is the only instrument which lets you look at the shape of a signal and electronics is all about shapes of signals :rant: --- End quote --- Thats what i've been trying to say, its not just about seeing waves as you can learn a lot from it. Its a must if you want to learn/do electronics. |
| imidis:
Tools, toys, whats the difference? >:D |
| suicidaleggroll:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on June 30, 2016, 05:21:06 pm ---How much can you compress the CLK? --- End quote --- A lot. You can compress it to what a synchronous sampling LA would do, instead of what you would get if you just sampled it at 500 MHz without any compression. --- Quote from: tggzzz on June 30, 2016, 05:21:06 pm ---Yes, if it is a 10MHz clock and one message every millisecond; that's 10000 transitions per message --- End quote --- Uh huh, and that's different than synchronous sampling how? Also the vast majority of clocked serial lines only run the clock when they're transferring data, so the point is moot. --- Quote from: tggzzz on June 30, 2016, 05:21:06 pm ---If it is capturing when a message arrives, that's a "hit". If it is dumping, the message will be "missed"! --- End quote --- If you want to see a message, you sample. You only stop and review when the event is done and you want to analyze the results. --- Quote from: tggzzz on June 30, 2016, 05:21:06 pm ---Thank you for making my point! --- End quote --- What is your point? --- Quote from: tggzzz on June 30, 2016, 05:21:06 pm ---LAs can't verify the signal integrity, which is a necessary pre-requisite before it is worth connecting an LA! --- End quote --- It's only a pre-requisite if there's a signal integrity problem. --- Quote from: tggzzz on June 30, 2016, 05:21:06 pm ---A scope can, OTOH, do some of the things that an LA can - and with some understanding and imagination, is often sufficient. --- End quote --- Scopes suck ass at logic analysis. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. And yes, a LA is useless for scope duties as well. They're different tools for different jobs. The question is which would be more useful for somebody connecting up COTS boards and writing firmware to communicate between them, and a LA is the clear choice IMO. He will probably run into a signal integrity problem eventually, and a scope would be the right choice to debug it, but the other 99.9% of the time it's going to be a firmware problem and a scope will do next to nothing to help diagnose it. |
| nctnico:
Let's just say that a scope with decoding goes a long way and an MSO can solve 99.9% of the logic analysis problems. What an MSO is very good at is displaying digital signals in realtime which can be a major advantage over a logic analyser. |
| Howardlong:
--- Quote from: nctnico on June 30, 2016, 08:14:08 pm ---Let's just say that a scope with decoding goes a long way and an MSO can solve 99.9% of the logic analysis problems. What an MSO is very good at is displaying digital signals in realtime which can be a major advantage over a logic analyser. --- End quote --- I'd agree with that, in fact a scope, MSO or DSO (or even a CRO if you are very patient) can help you solve 99.9%+ of logic analysis problems given enough time and effort. The same is not true the other way around, i.e., and LA cannot solve signal integrity problems. If I had to choose either a scope or an LA, I'd always take the scope. While that's a facile statement for me to make nowadays, barely 10+ years ago, it was frequently the way it was. This takes me back to the days of decoding software on microprocessor based systems with exposed parallel busses in the 70s, using a scope together with a piece of paper and a pen, forcing a reasonably tight software loop to reset and reproduce, find a trigger (never did I use holdoff so much!), decoding one string of bits at a time to figure out software bugs, which frequently, but not always, were causing a stack overflow. Debugging with a scope compared to an LA is frequently a different workflow. Perhaps an analogy is the difference between using an in circuit debugger and printfs in your code to debug, both have value and some prefer one to the other, or use both. I hardly ever use a dedicated LA anymore but for some years, until fairly recently, I did so extensively. Nowadays I much prefer an MSO. Others have different opinions and workflows, but that's as much a personal choice as it is technical reasons (almost every project I do is real time mixed signal). One of the joys of analytical skills is that there are almost always more than one way to skin the same cat. Or, to out another way, ask three engineers the same question and you'll get a dozen different answers, all of which may well have merit. |
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