USB DSO: The Beginning
Posted Thu, 15th Mar '12 at 5:37am by Blackthorne TA
I suppose some of you are wondering just what the heck you were looking at in my first blog post. Briefly - for now - it is the schematic for the back end of a Universal Serial Bus Digital Storage Oscilloscope that I designed and built.
USB most of you must be familiar with, having computers and all to visit this site. An Oscilloscope for those unfamiliar with the world of electronic diagnostics is a tool used to capture and display voltage waveforms over time. The "digital storage" part just means that it digitizes the analog voltages and stores the captured data in memory where it can be displayed and manipulated. Typically it also means it does not display the voltage waveforms in real-time; a finite amount of data is captured and subsequently displayed afterwards.
Why would I do such a thing?
Some time ago I was reflecting on how much things had changed since my University days. Data sheets for electronic parts are on every manufacturer's website making it easy to search and discover what's available and what they can do. SoCs like those from Cypress can do a whole host of things for you for a couple of dollars apiece and they provide development tools for free. PCB Fab in a Box sells a system where you can create your own high-quality single and dual sided PCBs with a laser printer, laminator and their special paper. Product companies like DipTrace and Microsoft offer their extremely high-quality development products in limited free versions for hobbyists to use. And I hadn't programmed for Windows since Borland C++ and Windows 95.
So I thought it would be nice to learn a few of these new things and make something somewhat useful at the same time. I had run across USB DSOs for sale for upwards of a couple hundred dollars, and I thought I could make something much cheaper that certainly wouldn't be as good, but would be good enough to be useful, and I would be able to learn a lot about current hardware, firmware and Windows programming (including .NET 4 and C#).
And that was the beginning.
USB most of you must be familiar with, having computers and all to visit this site. An Oscilloscope for those unfamiliar with the world of electronic diagnostics is a tool used to capture and display voltage waveforms over time. The "digital storage" part just means that it digitizes the analog voltages and stores the captured data in memory where it can be displayed and manipulated. Typically it also means it does not display the voltage waveforms in real-time; a finite amount of data is captured and subsequently displayed afterwards.
Why would I do such a thing?
Some time ago I was reflecting on how much things had changed since my University days. Data sheets for electronic parts are on every manufacturer's website making it easy to search and discover what's available and what they can do. SoCs like those from Cypress can do a whole host of things for you for a couple of dollars apiece and they provide development tools for free. PCB Fab in a Box sells a system where you can create your own high-quality single and dual sided PCBs with a laser printer, laminator and their special paper. Product companies like DipTrace and Microsoft offer their extremely high-quality development products in limited free versions for hobbyists to use. And I hadn't programmed for Windows since Borland C++ and Windows 95.
So I thought it would be nice to learn a few of these new things and make something somewhat useful at the same time. I had run across USB DSOs for sale for upwards of a couple hundred dollars, and I thought I could make something much cheaper that certainly wouldn't be as good, but would be good enough to be useful, and I would be able to learn a lot about current hardware, firmware and Windows programming (including .NET 4 and C#).
And that was the beginning.
Total Comments 2
Comments
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This is great Blackthorne. I still don't really understand it but it makes me curious enough to try and learn more. I wish I had the skills you have to make things like that.Posted Thu, 15th Mar '12 at 6:38pm by Dice 
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Well hopefully my further adventures in blogging about my experience with this project will bring enlightenment
Glad you are enjoying it so far.
Oh, and if anyone has questions, don't hesitate to ask. I'll be happy to answer them in comments or in a future blog postPosted Thu, 15th Mar '12 at 7:22pm by Blackthorne TA
Updated Thu, 15th Mar '12 at 8:08pm by Blackthorne TA
