Tektronix TDS 340 and Option 14 interface with photos!

[mdanh2002]

Hi,

Out of curiosity, I purchased a Tektronix TDS 340 100 MHz 2-channel digital storage oscilloscope from eBay and spent some time playing with it.

This is a nice digital oscilloscope with up to 500MS/s sampling rate and has a memory of 1000 samples. It also supports external trigger, delayed timebase and some maths operations on the input signal. Overall, it is good enough for most of my hobbyist micro-controller and analog projects.

I also purchased the Option 14 interface board to be able to connect the oscilloscope to my LCD monitor via its DB9 VGA port (needs to make an adapter for that). I also wrote a Windows application that is able to communicate with the oscilloscope via its RS232 port, make some measurements and most importantly, save a screenshot of the oscilloscope on the PC.

Some interesting photos are attached to this thread. Details are documented on my blog at the following links:

TDS340 Overview and Option 14 installation: http://minhdanh2002.blogspot.sg/2014/01/experimenting-tektronix-tds-340-100mhz.html
TDS340 RS232 Programming: http://minhdanh2002.blogspot.sg/2014/01/programming-tektronix-tds-340-100mhz.html

You can see clearly from one of the attachments the VGA output of this oscilloscope on my LCD monitor, and the rest of the equipments on my workbench. Let me know what you think.

[c4757p]

Nice. I have the TDS-380 (400 MHz, 2GSa/s). I used to hate it for its slow update rate (particularly with measurements active) but I am warming up to it. Quite a capable little scope.

At the maximum RS232 speed of 19200bps on the TDS 340 (the TDS 340A supports a higher speed of 38400bps), it takes almost 20 seconds to transfer the 37.5KB 640x480 bitmap image produced by the oscilloscope.

GPIB isn't a whole lot faster - ten to fifteen seconds. Both, however, beat the hell out of the floppy drive, which takes literally over a minute.

[mdanh2002]

Nice. I have the TDS-380 (400 MHz, 2GSa/s). I used to hate it for its slow update rate (particularly with measurements active) but I am warming up to it. Quite a capable little scope.

At the maximum RS232 speed of 19200bps on the TDS 340 (the TDS 340A supports a higher speed of 38400bps), it takes almost 20 seconds to transfer the 37.5KB 640x480 bitmap image produced by the oscilloscope.

GPIB isn't a whole lot faster - ten to fifteen seconds. Both, however, beat the hell out of the floppy drive, which takes literally over a minute.

I wished I had some GPIB-capable devices now to try the GPIB port of the oscilloscope. Most GPIB cables and interface equipments I found on eBay are way overpriced. It is interesting when you mentioned that it still takes at least 10 seconds with GPIB. I was hoping it could be much faster.

[bingo600]

I have a TDS-320 w. Opt14

I don't use it much after i got the Rigol DS1102E , but at times i fire it up , to verify the Rigol's waveforms.

The only "down" is that my fan is even louder than the Rigol.

Thanx for the pics ....

Btw: Any chance of getting the source of the program you made (screen copy) , i'm linux based

/Bingo

[kc9qvl]

Now I might have to get option 14 for my tds-360. Been using the floppy drive.   

[mdanh2002]

I have a TDS-320 w. Opt14

I don't use it much after i got the Rigol DS1102E , but at times i fire it up , to verify the Rigol's waveforms.

The only "down" is that my fan is even louder than the Rigol.

Thanx for the pics ....

Btw: Any chance of getting the source of the program you made (screen copy) , i'm linux based

/Bingo

Hi Bingo,

I have a INSTEK GOS-6101 100MHz analog oscilloscope and the fan is very noisy, much louder than my old table fan . Have not had time to fix that.

You can get the source code and binary of the application that I made from my other article
http://minhdanh2002.blogspot.sg/2014/01/programming-tektronix-tds-340-100mhz.html
(the link to download is at the end of the article).

It's for Windows only at the moment Will try to make a Linux (Ubuntu) version when I have the time too.
 

[c4757p]

It's for Windows only at the moment Will try to make a Linux (Ubuntu) version when I have the time too.

It's .NET, right? Might work unmodified under Mono.

[mdanh2002]

It's for Windows only at the moment Will try to make a Linux (Ubuntu) version when I have the time too.

It's .NET, right? Might work unmodified under Mono.

Yes, it's .NET Will try to see if it can work under Mono.