New project on Kickstarter. Need a review. Multifunction device - oscilloscope . - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: hugeone
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2018, 10:23:43 pm
content: I have a poll on my facebook about the my design. Feeedback appreciated.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 02:36:57 am
content: I started a similar project a year or two ago. Ultimately I abandoned it because it was not really sufficiently different from a slew of Chinese eBay offerings to be worth the trouble.At present I am working on doing something similar using the Zynq. Rather than design hardware which would be expensive to produce in low volume, I'm focusing on writing open source FW for Zynq based DSOs and dev boards.DSOs have the limitation that the low end is just 8 bit ADC. But by varying offsets and attenuator settings in software one can achieve more accuracy by successive approximation to implement higher resolution. A cheap DSO will sample at 1 GS/S so it has a 500 MHz acquisition BW. That's quite a high spec SDR for things like real time spectrum analysis. For listening and monitoring purposes one could split the input into a portion that is being actively decoded and spectrum waterfall display that updates 30-120 times a second. That would get around the BW limitations of USB and Gb ethernet.BTW Thank you for your article on UBIFS. I found it very helpful. I did encounter issues related to properly specifying the size of the target device when trying to mount 3rd party images. The error messages from mtd-utils were less than informative.

author: chriswebb
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 06:53:00 am
content: One thing specifically on your kickstarter is that you mention in one place the third stretch goal would be 30 mhz and at the bottom its only 10 mhz.

author: abraxa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 08:15:32 am
content: Quote from: hugeone on February 20, 2018, 10:23:43 pmI suggest you have one of your designers make nice graphics. The green/red color for the condensed type? It's really easy to glance over because it's hard to read. Green/red/blue/yellow? Eh... sorry... just no.Also, typos:advances features921600pbsClock surveI²C vs. I2COutput volatagestreatch goalAlso, I don't really see a buffer size for the oscilloscope portion and whether all those features can be used at the same time or not. Also, the 8 MHz analog bandwidth is kinda odd. You'd need at least 16 MSPS to make use of that. What happens if the 10 (30?) MHz stretch goal is unlocked? Do you then increase the sample rate as well? If not then the stretch goal is completely pointless.Overall though, I'd say the only way to set yourself apart here is with the software. If it's good and easy to use, this would be a huge bonus. I'd say you should highlight it more and give better screenshots (e.g. showing functional areas one-by-one). Also, how are the debuggers actually *used*? Giving examples for certain use-cases would give people an idea of what to expect.

author: hugeone
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 10:01:17 am
content: Thank you very much for your answers.Quote from: abraxa on February 21, 2018, 08:15:32 amActually I should write "micro" and I am the only designerQuote from: abraxaThank you.Quote from: abraxaIt is not exactly the truth. Especially is we consider signals with high bandwidth consumption - for example the square wave. If you consider the 1MHz square (having 10 samples / period) - 10MHz bandwidth is a minimum.