I know you guys are not keen on cheap equipment
My current problem is that I have a chip that needs a 6 MHz crystal, but for some reason, the oscillation for the crystal does not start (I see the impulse on my oscilloscope, but it doesn't start the sine wave as expected). The hardware obviously has problems and I already have a revision of the PCB planned, so I'd rather continue on with firmware work rather than battling with the crystal.
I know I can just hook up a 6 MHz full swing oscillator to it for about $3, but it got me thinking, I might want to have a function generator someday.
I'm not rich, the most expensive electronics tool I own is a DS1052E and that was free.
So I've found three interestingly cheap options on eBay
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/New-AD9850-module-modest-capacity-AD9851-DDS-Function-Generator-up-to-40MHZ-ahg-/190857915186?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c7004ab32&_uhb=1There are a lot of these on eBay, I think from a usability point of view, they kind of suck, I'd probably need to breadboard it up every time I want to use it. But you can't beat that price.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/New-DDS-Function-Signal-Generator-Module-Sine-Square-Sawtooth-Triangle-Wave-/161090477412?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2581bd9d64&_uhb=1Plenty of these, a lot of ATmega + LCD + some synth chip for under $20
But I'm kind of leaning towards this:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/AD9854-DDS-Function-Signal-Generator-Module-1HZ-100MHz-PC-Control-Software-/161090927292?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2581c47abc&_uhb=1Seems useful and a great deal for the price, the software looks like some guy dragged-n-dropped a bunch of buttons in Visual Studio (but I'm a Windows user anyways, and I'm always near my laptop so having no knobs is no problem). What do you think?
I don't think I want to spend $300 on a proper lab bench generator if I just need to generate some clocks once in a while, I just need enough accuracy and stability to meet USB spec, and 2.4 GHz spec (but before the PLLs, I don't actually need to generate 2.4 GHz).
Since I am going for such cheap equipment, I should also keep a frequency counter handy, correct? what do you think of this cheap one?
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/VC3165-Radio-Frequency-Counter-RF-Meter-0-01Hz-2-4GHz-Victor-Professional-Tester-/330995504851?pt=Motors_Automotive_Tools&hash=item4d10de96d3&vxp=mtr&_uhb=1