[Scott F.]

Hiya Guys,

I was wondering if anybody here has any experience with any of the PC based scopes on the market?

I'm not looking to pull the trigger just yet on something like this but considering the cost compared to a stand alone unit, its starting to look pretty attractive. One of my fears is that the USB interface might freak out and backfeed high voltage into my laptop. Last thing I want is to is kill my machine.

Does any body have any experience with these, especially side by side to a stand alone scope?
Are they as accurate?
Are they as fast (as in real time or does the speed of the processor and architecture slow down response time)?
Is there any danger to high voltage back-feeding into my machine?
Do they have the same functionality as a quality stand alone machine?

Heres a link to one that looks rather interesting;
http://www.hobbyengineering.com/H1976.html

TIA!

[JoshK]

Jim Hagerman has some rec'ns on his site for such a beast. I think they might be easier to use for the computer generation than standard analog scopes.  I haven't played around with various scopes so I have no idea.

[hagtech]

Link Instruments makes a number of good ones.  I recommended the "Stingray" because it's the only one that samples both channels simultaneously.  Something I need for the VacuTrace display.

There are others, too.  Most now double as an FFT spectrum analyzer.

jh

[Scott F.]

Cool, thanks for the tip Jim  

Are you using a computer program as a signal generator too?

[ctviggen]

Wow, those rock!  Here's the link to link instruments:

http://www.linkinstruments.com/oscilloscope21.htm

This is an amazing price for both an oscilloscope and an FFT-based spectrum analyzer.  It looks like it comes with two probes, too.