Another toy ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: DavidDLC
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2011, 03:15:04 am
content: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/07/osciums-imso-104-turns-ipad-iphone-into-mixed-signal-oscillosc/For $300.00 you can get this little toy. Well $300.00 if your already have the iPAD.

author: the_raptor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2011, 10:37:31 am
content: For $300 you can get a very good old CRO or an okay DSO.

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2011, 10:50:07 am
content: All you need is a USB port, and all USB instruments will work, but you need to get the software front end rewritten for iOS.

author: Hypernova
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 08, 2011, 01:40:28 pm
content: Quote*Cough* DSO nano *cough*

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 08, 2011, 05:24:03 pm
content: an Ipad/iphone is an Ipad/Iphone. An oscilloscope is an oscilloscope

author: alexwhittemore
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2011, 04:07:48 am
content: Oh hey there was already a thread. Oh well. I've always thought it'd be cool to have some test equipment plugins for my phone, but I don't know how I feel when this guy is $300 for at best half the bandwidth of the soon-to-be-released DSO quad. And one channel, no less. I guess the digital channels would be a nice addition, but even then, only 4?

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 10, 2011, 10:10:58 am
content: $300 will easily buys a 20 MHz scope of better specs. For $150 you can get the Velleman HPS140 [ reviewed on the forum] which still has better specs. 5 MHz MSO is practically useless as most digital electronics work in the 100s of MHz and higher.

author: tekfan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2011, 01:07:00 pm
content: Quote from: the_raptor on April 08, 2011, 10:37:31 am300 USD gets you a very very good analog scope indeed (Tek 2400 series - you can even get DSOs from thus series). Just search ebay.The Oscium thing probably does work reasonably well for AF. Anything more complex than that and you will seriously regret buying it.I don't get this Iphone craze. OK it's cool and all but if it wasn't meant to be an oscilloscope at the first place it will never be one.

author: alexwhittemore
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2011, 01:19:24 pm
content: I don't necessarily agree with "if it wasn't an oscilloscope..." These low-end portable scopes, and to a greater extent PC oscilloscopes (which, don't knock, have great midrange specs these days for a much lower price than comprable bench models) sort of exemplify that only 2/3 the battle is front end and sample storage/computation. The electronics to make a passable scope are getting cheaper and cheaper, and with FPGAs and fast embedded processors, that's only becoming more true. The real point here is $300 for only the capture engine portion? $300 is 3/4 of the way to a DS1052, which (after mods, so the hardware cost is the same) has specs nearly two orders better. There can't be much more in that thing than an FPGA, a (not even terribly fast) ADC, and maybe an ARM chip, along with passives for the front end. Besides development costs (which, again, can't be THAT high, this type of thing isn't terribly hard these days), the total manufacture cost can't be much more than $30, and I doubt even that high.It just seems to me like it's cool, but they priced it way out of reach of the target market, who probably aren't enough interested in electronics to warrant a $300 expense.

author: quirmche
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2011, 03:27:00 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on April 08, 2011, 05:24:03 pmI agree,...rubbish!!!

author: slburris
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 11, 2011, 07:03:50 pm
content: Note that the sampling rate is only 12M samples/sec.So for any complex signal, derate by a factor of 10.That means complex waveforms up to 1.2Mhz. It'sa step above the DSO nano, which only samples at1M samples/sec, but it's not a very big step.For about $215, you could get the DSO Nano Quad,which supposedly can sample up to 72M samples/second.Still a toy, but on the higher end up the spectrum of toydom :-)Scott