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| PC spec requirements for USB scopes and logic analyzers |
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| ElectroSone:
Hi everyone, I'm a software engineer who about a year ago started on the adventure of learning electronics, with relatively modest hobbyist ambitions. I originally focused on trying to get a decent beginner understanding of analog fundamentals but lately have been drawn more toward digital logic circuits (occupational hazard perhaps). --- End quote --- The above is the work bench I've slowly put together over the past year. As you can see my toolset at the moment is quite bare, with just a lab PSU, a DMM and a companion laptop. I'm now crossing that bridge where I don't want to go further without bringing in an oscilloscope for learning/discovery, and perhaps also a dedicated logic analyzer (replacing MCU-based hacks and homebrew code I've used so far for capture and decoding when needed by projects, since at least lines of code I can swing easily). New equipment will need table space and I want to get rid of the laptop on the table by hanging a screen on the peg board and hiding a mini PC under the table, reducing the on-table footprint to a small Bluetooth keyboard+touchpad thing I already have. Brings me to my concrete ask for the round: To fill my emerging oscilloscope and LA needs, I've not yet ruled out going the route of the PicoScopes and Saleaes. I will likely buy a more traditional benchtop scope initially (of the usual Siglent-ish variety), but I can see myself wanting tools like the former eventually, especially a nice LA for greater convenience in digital projects. It's all about not having to (re)build custom tools all the time. For the mini PC to hook these up to, I'm currently looking at fanless design like the Celeron J4125-based 8 gig RAM Mele Quieter2. This compares pretty well to the aging ultrabook I currently have on the table, anyway. But I have 0 experience with the PC performance requirements of USB-based scope/LA solutions. Are these applications (which I'd run on Linux if possible) a good fit to something like a J4125 or should I aim for a more powerful host PC for these? The vendor websites actually don't go into great details, which gives me a general "you'll be fine" vibe, but I'd like to hear from folks with practical experience using this gear. |
| ataradov:
You don't need a lot of performance for PC based scopes. All the fast stuff happens on the device itself. PC is just a display interface. And LAs don't do much work at all, so they should be fine too. It is more about how bloated the vendor software is. If it is some Electron-based monstrosity, then it would be slow even on a fast PC. |
| balnazzar:
--- Quote from: ataradov on October 26, 2022, 07:01:43 pm ---You don't need a lot of performance for PC based scopes. All the fast stuff happens on the device itself. PC is just a display interface. --- End quote --- Ok, but the processor he mentioned is very, very slow. If money allows, and the software has a release for the architecture, I'd go for for a M1 mac mini. Otherwise I'd build an Alder Lake i3/i5 mini pc. It can be made almost completely silent. |
| ElectroSone:
Thanks for your replies so far! This is partly it, I'm not quite sure what the division of labor is between the USB dongle/frontend and the host PC on these types of projects, i.e. how much of the processing happens in for example an FPGA on the product and how much on the PC. Same (or more so even) for the memory requirements for capture/analysis. I guess this is also one of the differentiators between different vendors and price ranges in that space. Just doing napkin math I can see that generally speaking any PC made in the last 15 years scales fine to the raw numbers involved in the hobbyist tier applications, buuut yeah ... being a software guy I also know how you can ruin your performance with badly-written software with very little effort. ;D |
| balnazzar:
--- Quote from: ElectroSone on October 26, 2022, 06:21:10 pm ---Hi everyone, I'm a software engineer who about a year ago started on the adventure of learning electronics, with relatively modest hobbyist ambitions. I originally focused on trying to get a decent beginner understanding of analog fundamentals but lately have been drawn more toward digital logic circuits (occupational hazard perhaps). --- End quote --- The above is the work bench I've slowly put together over the past year. As you can see my toolset at the moment is quite bare, with just a lab PSU, a DMM and a companion laptop. I'm now crossing that bridge where I don't want to go further without bringing in an oscilloscope for learning/discovery, and perhaps also a dedicated logic analyzer (replacing MCU-based hacks and homebrew code I've used so far for capture and decoding when needed by projects, since at least lines of code I can swing easily). New equipment will need table space and I want to get rid of the laptop on the table by hanging a screen on the peg board and hiding a mini PC under the table, reducing the on-table footprint to a small Bluetooth keyboard+touchpad thing I already have. Brings me to my concrete ask for the round: To fill my emerging oscilloscope and LA needs, I've not yet ruled out going the route of the PicoScopes and Saleaes. I will likely buy a more traditional benchtop scope initially (of the usual Siglent-ish variety), but I can see myself wanting tools like the former eventually, especially a nice LA for greater convenience in digital projects. It's all about not having to (re)build custom tools all the time. For the mini PC to hook these up to, I'm currently looking at fanless design like the Celeron J4125-based 8 gig RAM Mele Quieter2. This compares pretty well to the aging ultrabook I currently have on the table, anyway. But I have 0 experience with the PC performance requirements of USB-based scope/LA solutions. Are these applications (which I'd run on Linux if possible) a good fit to something like a J4125 or should I aim for a more powerful host PC for these? The vendor websites actually don't go into great details, which gives me a general "you'll be fine" vibe, but I'd like to hear from folks with practical experience using this gear. --- End quote --- I have a certain number of PCs for sale. PM me if you are interested. |
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