Digital Oscilloscope

HOMEPAGE

Digital Oscilloscope is a simple but powerful diagnostics tool (logic analyzer) that is very easy to build. It requires the minimal number of components for its hardware.

The package you get consists of the powerful Digital Oscilloscope software featuring all the needed commands and options imaginable, and the HEX files that need to be programmed to the microcontroller pairs, the oscilloscope hardware is based on. There are three choices available for the data sampling microcontroller: ATmega328P, PIC18F26K22 or PIC18F26K80. The software communicates with the hardware over the USB computer port (PIC16F1455 or PIC18F2550 can be used for the interface to the data sampling microcontroller). This makes six oscilloscope hardware variations in total to be chosen from. The hardware does not require any external power source.

Digital Oscilloscope software requires the license to operate. By purchasing the license, you will be able to download the software install package, along with the HEX files for the microcontrollers, so you can build and use this awesome product. For more information please visit the licenses page.

You can find all the information on the oscilloscope functionality below.

Oscilloscope functionality info

On the power-up (plugging the hardware to the USB port) the hardware enters the initialization mode. Green and red leds blink three times with the 2 seconds period. The hardware is now in idle mode, ready for channels data recording. There are two data recording modes available.

ATmega328P based hardware

By pressing the button 1, the green led is turned on and the recording mode 1 is entered. The hardware waits for the first logic level change on any of the 6 channels. The red led is turned on and channels sampling starts at 1MHz rate. That means that the channel states are sampled every 1us. Every state change on any of the channels is saved. In this recording mode a maximum of 500 channel state changes can be recorded. And the sampling can last for at most 16.5 seconds. When either of these two limiting conditions is meet, the hardware exits the recording mode 1, green and red leds blink three times with the 0.6 seconds period, and the hardware enters the communication mode.

Alternatively, by pressing the button 2, the red led is turned on and the recording mode 2 is entered. The hardware waits for the first logic level change on any of the 6 channels. The green led is turned on and channels sampling starts at 1.25MHz rate. That means that the channel states are sampled every 0.8us. Every state change on any of the channels is saved. In this recording mode a maximum of 670 channel state changes can be recorded. And the sampling can last for at most 52ms. When either of these two limiting conditions is meet, the hardware exits the recording mode 2, green and red leds blink three times with the 0.6 seconds period, and the hardware enters the communication mode.

PIC18F26K22 based hardware

By pressing the button 1, the green led is turned on and the recording mode 1 is entered. The hardware waits for the first logic level change on any of the 8 channels. The red led is turned on and channels sampling starts at 0.8MHz rate. That means that the channel states are sampled every 1.25us. Every state change on any of the channels is saved. In this recording mode a maximum of 950 channel state changes can be recorded. And the sampling can last for at most 20.5 seconds. When either of these two limiting conditions is meet, the hardware exits the recording mode 1, green and red leds blink three times with the 0.6 seconds period, and the hardware enters the communication mode.

Alternatively, by pressing the button 2, the red led is turned on and the recording mode 2 is entered. The hardware waits for the first logic level change on any of the 8 channels. The green led is turned on and channels sampling starts at 1MHz rate. That means that the channel states are sampled every 1us. Every state change on any of the channels is saved. In this recording mode a maximum of 1250 channel state changes can be recorded. And the sampling can last for at most 65ms. When either of these two limiting conditions is meet, the hardware exits the recording mode 2, green and red leds blink three times with the 0.6 seconds period, and the hardware enters the communication mode.

PIC18F26K80 based hardware

By pressing the button 1, the green led is turned on and the recording mode 1 is entered. The hardware waits for the first logic level change on any of the 8 channels. The red led is turned on and channels sampling starts at 0.8MHz rate. That means that the channel states are sampled every 1.25us. Every state change on any of the channels is saved. In this recording mode a maximum of 880 channel state changes can be recorded. And the sampling can last for at most 20.5 seconds. When either of these two limiting conditions is meet, the hardware exits the recording mode 1, green and red leds blink three times with the 0.6 seconds period, and the hardware enters the communication mode.

Alternatively, by pressing the button 2, the red led is turned on and the recording mode 2 is entered. The hardware waits for the first logic level change on any of the 8 channels. The green led is turned on and channels sampling starts at 1MHz rate. That means that the channel states are sampled every 1us. Every state change on any of the channels is saved. In this recording mode a maximum of 1180 channel state changes can be recorded. And the sampling can last for at most 65ms. When either of these two limiting conditions is meet, the hardware exits the recording mode 2, green and red leds blink three times with the 0.6 seconds period, and the hardware enters the communication mode.

Further functionality info

The software can set the number of channel states changes that will be skipped before the data recording starts.

When the hardware is in the communication mode and the Digital Oscilloscope software is running and connected to the hardware, by pressing the Download Graph Data button all the recorded data from the hardware will be downloaded to the software.

The powerful and easy to use Digital Oscilloscope software features all the needed commands and options for the data review and diagnostics, as can be seen on the screenshots. The software is rich in tooltips and provides the commands for file saving and opening of downloaded graph data. Multiple instances of the software can be started.

When the hardware is in the communication mode, the simultaneous pressing of buttons 1 and 2 restarts the hardware initialization mode, the hardware enters the idle mode very soon, and becomes ready again for the new data recording.

One does not need to use the professional probes. Sewing needles soldered to the wires work just fine.

The appropriate configuration info for the PIC microcontrollers is embedded in the HEX files. For the ATmega328P microcontroller the low fuse byte should be set to 0xCE, the high fuse byte to 0xD6, and the extended fuse byte should be set to 0xFD value.