EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: HowToTurnOn on October 29, 2020, 04:26:11 am
-
Hello fellow nerds,
I'm trying to develop an ultrasonic system for immersion scanning at home for a little startup company. In the past, I've used work owned PCI digitizers and Tektronix oscilloscopes for these applications, however those are a bit pricey for me.
To the point: I want to buy an oscilloscope (preferable under $1k but can do more) that can have waveforms continuously pulled from it via programming (Python or C#) and capable of a sample rate of +50MHz.
I've looked at the Siglent SDS1104X-E ($500) and SDS1204X-E ($759), Rigol DS1054Z ($349.00), Hantek DSO5102P ($245) and all sorts of random other ones.
Has anyone had experience programming/collecting live waveforms with these or other recommendable oscilloscopes/digitizers? What are your thoughts/opinions on them?
Thanks!
-
I don't think any of those will do it at 50MHz+.
Apart from the problem of raw data transfer speed (which I don't think will be anywhere near fast enough) you also have another major problem in that the data comes in bursts/batches. It won't be a nice continuous stream, there'll be gaps in the data.
ie. They're simply not designed for this.
-
For continuous capture applications like this consider a PC oscilloscope that can stream data via USB. Products like the PicoScope 3000 series can send data back to the PC at 125MS/s and have drivers for C#. Depending on what real time processing you need to do on the data you will need efficient code and a fast PC.
https://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/3000/picoscope-3000-oscilloscope-specifications (https://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/3000/picoscope-3000-oscilloscope-specifications)
-
One of my friend is working with ultrasonic things like you mention.
Without giving out his trade secrets, he is using FPGAs and/or embedded processors like iMX.
-
Hello fellow nerds,
I'm trying to develop an ultrasonic system for immersion scanning at home for a little startup company. In the past, I've used work owned PCI digitizers and Tektronix oscilloscopes for these applications, however those are a bit pricey for me.
To the point: I want to buy an oscilloscope (preferable under $1k but can do more) that can have waveforms continuously pulled from it via programming (Python or C#) and capable of a sample rate of +50MHz.
I've looked at the Siglent SDS1104X-E ($500) and SDS1204X-E ($759), Rigol DS1054Z ($349.00), Hantek DSO5102P ($245) and all sorts of random other ones.
Has anyone had experience programming/collecting live waveforms with these or other recommendable oscilloscopes/digitizers? What are your thoughts/opinions on them?
Thanks!
Welcome to the forum.
If you're running a Linux system LXI Tools might be of interest.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/open-source-lxi-tools-and-liblxi-v1-0-released-for-gnulinux/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/open-source-lxi-tools-and-liblxi-v1-0-released-for-gnulinux/)
It's been tailored for the SDS1104X-E and a number of other Siglent products and it's a fast utility for LAN connectivity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EE3mf_wADg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EE3mf_wADg)
-
Look at Picoscope..
-
Are you operating in pulsed mode, i.e. transmit a pulse, record the echo, wait a bit, and repeat? Can you make the inter-pulse gap longer during development? If so, then almost any cheap oscilloscope with a USB or similar interface should work. Since they almost all have 8-bit digitisers, it can be useful to operate in 'hi-res' mode, where successive ADC samples are averaged together to increase resolution & reduce noise, at the expense of a lower sample rate. Most, but not all, cheap oscilloscopes have this mode.
If you can't reduce the pulse rate, look for scope with a large memory that can be operated in segmented mode. This will let you record a 'burst' of pulses, then stop and download them all to the computer. Each segment is a separate time record, corresponding to a separate trigger event.
I have no personal experience with oscilloscopes in this price range, but from what I have read, a Siglent or GW Instek may be suitable.
-
This may looks a task for the National Instruments line of products
-
Analog Discovery will sample at 100Msamples/s, 2 channels at 14 bit. https://store.digilentinc.com/analog-discovery-2-pro-bundle/ (https://store.digilentinc.com/analog-discovery-2-pro-bundle/)
-
Thank you all for your replies. I'll run through the suggestions and will checkout their specs/do more research! Once I make progress on this project I'll share what worked for me