LCD Oscilloscope

[davebr]

David Ingebretsen has posted his photos of his custom LCD oscilloscopes. I decided to take the lead from him on the JYE Tech LCD and build a 2U module around it. I've ordered the front panel but haven't built it yet. I started a page with my design 2U LCD Oscilloscope

Dave

[werock]

Look forward to seeing the completed module...

[davebr]

Look forward to seeing the completed module...

I completed it and updated photos on my website.

[Added 11/28/10] JYE Tech continues to release software updates. They fixed some user interface issues and added two significant features: FFT mode and equivalent time sampling. The frequency response is much higher for periodic waveforms. I have a photos of Time, Frequency, and FFT mode on my website.



Dave[/img]

[emergencyofstate]

Nice work!

[rezzn8r]

looks nice. very usefull!

[THM]

Looks very nice and useful !
Please let me know if you'd ever produce these on demand.

[pugix]

So, Dave. How well does this work? $35 USD seems really cheap for the kit. Did I read that wrong? I'd consider building one of these if it works well.

[dude]

very cool, any further word on prices. how easy of a build is this. kits? come with ALL necessary parts? very interesting indeed!

[bwhittington]

very cool, any further word on prices. how easy of a build is this. kits? come with ALL necessary parts? very interesting indeed!

LCD Oscilloscope kit . . . $35.

Second EWI road case to mount it in . . . $120 + shipping

Getting sucked into the blackhole of modular lust . . . priceless!

[dude]

i've begun mounting modules on the back of my case where i have the power mounted in rails. but an oscilloscope would be sad back there all ignored and out of line of sight.

[davebr]

So, Dave. How well does this work? $35 USD seems really cheap for the kit. Did I read that wrong? I'd consider building one of these if it works well.

I'll try and put together a video. There's two videos of the JYE Tech oscilloscope on youtube that show some of the features.
Video1
Video2

As to how well it works ... that's subjective. The LCD display is very nice. The scope has a reasonable vertical range. At the 1V/div you can multiply by 1, 2, or 5, so the 2V/div fills up the display pretty well with a 10V pk-pk signal.

The scope triggering is basic. The display jumps around quite a bit but if the waveform is not repetitive, for example mixing 3 signals (say from a JH Living VCO). You can hold the screen to see the display and since the acquisition buffer is larger than the display, you can scroll horizontally through the waveform.

The frequency mode is nice although I find it hard to get out of. You have to hold the OK button for 3 seconds and sometimes when you release it goes back into frequency mode.

There are three modes: Auto, Normal, and Signal but little documentation. Signal acquires one buffer and then holds the display. Normal displays the waveform when you have a valid trigger. Auto updates the display continuously.

The + and - buttons seem backwards in some modes but it is easy to figure out by watching what is happening.

The firmware does need some work and it looks like they update it on occasion. I couldn't really tell from the documentation how to wire up the RS-232 for bootloader updates so I'll have to do that.

For example, in Signal, the display holds. You can't get out of that mode while it is in hold. You have to push OK and then the + or - to change modes before it goes into hold again.

There's been a couple of times where I think I have locked up the firmware. The buttons were unresponsive but I keep poking buttons and it came back to life. I did have to power cycle once.

It will allow you to see repetitive waveforms and measure frequency so I it is worth $35. Don't expect a great scope though.

Dave

[davebr]

So, Dave. How well does this work? $35 USD seems really cheap for the kit. Did I read that wrong? I'd consider building one of these if it works well.

I'll try and put together a video. There's two videos of the JYE Tech oscilloscope on youtube that show some of the features.

I did put together a video today and put it on my web site.

Dave

[BananaPlug]

Back in March I posted about a very similar unit. It's nice to have around. I think of it as somewhere in between the Blacet bar graph and a real scope.

[Henfield]

Dave,

Great video and website showing how you adapted this kit into 5U!

Thank you very much for sharing this with all of us!

[majesticbear]

Well, I finally got around to converting the gabotronics oscilloscope to 5U. I was hoping bill and will would post their conversion but got impatient so I dove in - turns out it wasn’t as hard as it looked. The panel layout is similar to DFAs except I didn’t include the RS-232 output. i didn't need it anyways cause i don’t think I’ll ever hook it up to a computer serial port. Thanks go out to bill and will from DFA and dave brown for the idea.

It’s a pretty solid scope – no bugs, everything works as it should considering the abuse it took removing all the components. The refresh rate is pretty slow, but its more eye candy for looking at waveforms rather than a measuring tool. The pic shows the output from a CGS dual utility LFO.



(the wirings pretty long cause i wanted to assemble it first before i ordered the panel)



construction notes:




the hardest part was getting the BNC and RS-232 connectors off. the solder sucker removed most of the solder, but since there are so many pins, you have to kind of rock the connector back and forth, look for the pin that doesn’t move, heat that up and hope it’s the only one that’s still attached to the pcb. The pots and pushbutton switches were relatively easy to remove compared to the connectors, just snip those off and desolder the leads. the other major issue was knowing which encoder to get. The ones on the multikit doesn’t have a thread and the shafts are relatively short so you can’t mount it to the panel. After looking up the specs on gabotronics website it seemed that these bourns pots were the closest to the Panasonics.

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Bou ... uIDg%3d%3d

used these pushbutton switches:

Green: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Mou ... Arsg%3d%3d

Red: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Mou ... 5uqw%3d%3d

The switch is a three way (on-on-on) I had lying around.

Heres gabotronics website:

http://www.gabotronics.com/development- ... tikitb.htm

i ordered the kit with the EL module, which is the LCD backlight. it's not very bright, but at least you can see it in the dark.

Here’s the FPD file in case anyone wants it.

richard

[THM]

Thnx Richard; great description of how to make such thing !
I have no experience with DIY or any electronic circuitry skills, but your info tempts me to try things out as I want an oscilloscope and preferably a 5U DotCom format...
Cheers, - THM -

[robotmakers]

This is truly spectacular. I could imagine these being quite popular, as a lot of time I'm guessing about what I'm hearing.

Great job!
-Roger

[2012]

Realy Nice!

[Ebolatone]

[pugix]

Thanks for the FPD file. This looks like a very cool and relatively simple project. I may have to put it in the pipeline (which is now EMPTY 8_)) .

[majesticbear]

you're right, its a simple project if you don't separate the two pcbs. looks like david ingebretsen moved the BNC and RS-232 connectors to the front panel by splitting the PCBs and resoldering the pins with a ribbon cable - look at that ribbon cable soldering maybe his day job's a surgeon. with my luck i'd fuck it up.

[JohnLRice]

Great job all around, carynrich!

[ganzziani]

Hi there, this is Gabriel, from gabotronics.com, the designer of the MultiKitB oscilloscope. Congratulations to Richard for a fantastic modification on the unit. I am writing an article about it on my website.

If there is enough interest, I could design an oscilloscope that would be easier to mount on a panel, saving time on the customizations required. Let me know by replying to this post or by sending me an email.

[patchdub]

most definitely interested!!!

[THM]

Hi Gabriel, could thisalso be available in 5U DotCom format ?