Hearing an oscilloscope signal - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: jsi
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2016, 04:18:38 pm
content: Maybe this is silly, but I'd like to be able to hear the signal on my Rigol DS1054z. My project has an audio output component and being able to actually listen to the sound as the signal works its way through the circuit would be helpful.My beginnerness is showing because this seems like something people would want to do, but I can find no mention of it anywhere. How might someone do this?

author: suicidaleggroll
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2016, 04:22:58 pm
content: You could use a T splitter and a BNC to RCA adapter to feed it into an audio amp and speaker.

author: 10101
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2016, 04:26:31 pm
content: you could use 2 multimeter probes (or other type) to connect to some amplifier like:http://www.ebay.com/itm/LM386-Super-MINI-Amplifier-Board-3V-12V-DIY-Kit-M57-/301724184707?hash=item464029b083(it's a kit), and then connect the amplifier to a small speaker.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2016, 04:52:44 pm
content: that's the poor man scope. oh, for how many years i used a cheapish audio interface to look at audio signals and slow clocks (such as the steinberg CI1, the one i had. can be got for 50€ or lower on the second hand market)use an external audio interface because there is some robust input protection

author: Totalsolutions
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2016, 05:00:33 pm
content: Remember something like a crystal earpiece was used, no cost....?Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2016, 11:25:20 pm
content: If you had one of those useless and obsolete junk analog oscilloscopes with a vertical output, then this would be a solved problem. One of my old DSOs even has a channel 2 vertical output.

author: technogeeky
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2016, 12:10:47 am
content: I'm assuming that you want to hear the signal that's going into the oscilloscope (as the scope shouldn't normally be generating signals, I guess, unless you're talking about the trigger out on the back).So you'd need a TEE connector.Then you can use a tone generator wand (that you'd normally use to pick up the signal from the tone generator).Then, simply use a BNC to female banana connector (or you can just use a regular BNC or regular coax wire and get *very* close to the center BNC wire). You'll hear whatever sound it's making, through inductive pickup.This won't work for frequencies out of your hearing range (or out of range of the speaker), so something like 50 Hz - 20 kHz.Pretty cheap way to do it, though.

author: ealex
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2016, 12:47:00 pm
content: You could try to look for an old signal tracer. They where used exactly for that purpose to debug radios / audio stuff.Or just make a simple amplifier with adjustable gain. Just be careful to keep the input impedance high so you will not disturb what you are measuring.you could build something like this:

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2016, 09:28:51 am
content: Quote from: jsi on July 26, 2016, 04:18:38 pmYou can always feed the signal to the mic/line-port of a PC, laptop, smartphone.Depending on the right details, no device will melt/smoke.Be aware that every measurement influences the signal, the mic-input or wires can influence the signal you see on your scope.Ground loops can influence the signal you see too.

author: breadbox
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2016, 09:55:56 pm
content: Or you could just leave out the oscilloscope altogether . . .Marvin Minsky’s study, a crowded place, contains a computer terminal; a number of researchers in A.I. all around the country can exchange messages with one another over a computer network they established in 1969 [this article was published in 1981]. Several times while I was there, Minsky paused to read his “mail”—messages on the terminal’s printout system. Near the telephone is a machine that I naïvely thought might be a stereo set. When Minsky saw me looking at it, he asked if I would like to listen to it. He flipped a few switches, and the machine began to make an uncanny series of ever more complex musical sounds. Minsky told me that some years ago he had taken a box of computer modules home to use in constructing logic circuits. He was having trouble debugging the circuits, because he did not have an oscilloscope—an instrument that renders the behavior of the circuits visible on a screen—and it occurred to him that if he ran computing circuits very fast and wired them to a loudspeaker he might be able to listen to them and tell by the sound if something was wrong. “I connected a couple of speakers to the circuits,” Minsky told me. “And I found that by listening to them I could tell if any of the flip-flops were dead.” Flip-flops are electronic components that can take one of two stable positions. “The machine was making all those sounds, and I started to like them. So I set up various circuits to make little chords and tunes. This thing was going one day when a friend of mine named Edward Fredkin, who’s a professor of computer science at M.I.T., came in, and he said, ‘That sounds pretty good. How did you get it to make those sounds?’ I showed him, and we spent the afternoon making more sounds. Fredkin formed a company to manufacture the machines as toys.”http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1981/12/14/a-i