Portable Logic analyzer (Need your opinion) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: Alis
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: January 30, 2014, 11:32:52 am
content: Greetings, everyoneFirst of all please excuse me for my poor english, as I am not an native English speaker myself.About a week go sitting in a cafe I thought about an idea of making a portable logic analyzer.I googled the idea, and it seems I am not the first one who came up with this.http://serasidis.gr/circuits/mini_logic_analyzer/miniLogicAnalyzer.htmThe person in the link above made a 400KHz 4 channel analyzer with a 5110 lcd and an ATmega8 clocked at 16MHz.I built it, and while it works quite nice i wasn't fully satisfied with it.This made me thinking again. What about adding more channels, a bigger TFT lcd, more bandwidth, a rechargeable lipo with usb charging capability, microSD screenshot saving capability, buzzer for all sorts of prompts and the ability to choose more options (trigger settings, sample rate and so on).Here is a little fast sketch I made with paint (Sorry for the roughness I don't have any CAD software at the moment):The whole size shouldn't be bigger than a standard 3.5" - 4" cellphoneHere is the hardware I am thinking of using:* ATmega2560* MCP73831/2 (With load sharing) for charging the lipo* 3.7v >=700mah lipo* ILI9341 LCD (2.2", 240*320 Dots), but still looking for bigger one's for reasonable prices as it seems to be to smallThe main question would be, would you want something like this in your tool box? If yes, are there any people who would consider joining and making it a real product? We could definetely make it open-source.Waiting for your thoughts.Cheers,Alex

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2014, 12:22:03 pm
content: I am not interested but a couple suggestions to you:1) capturing + displaying is not difficult at all. What would be really useful is protocol analysis.2) start simple.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2014, 12:32:13 pm
content: The device sounds nice, but, it's one of those thing that are nice, I would like to have them, but would not buy unless they were VERY cheap. Small devices like this are generally very unfriendly in terms of user interfaces, especially, when by four buttons you are trying to achieve the full functionality of a log. analyzer. Doable, but not friendly.For a cheap analyzer, this looks very nice.http://www.oscium.com/logic-analyzersNote that the ATmega2560 is a pricey beast, pricier than a lot of much more powerful ARM processors.I wish you luck though.QuoteUseful triggering - therein is a lot of the complicated stuff.

author: Skimask
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2014, 01:02:05 pm
content: http://www.gabotronics.com/Got an Xprotolab portable. Works great for it's intended uses. 'nuff said...

author: Fsck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2014, 03:20:42 pm
content: why not just carry a ultraportable 11-13"ish and a logicport?

author: Alis
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: January 31, 2014, 12:26:44 pm
content: Thank you everyone for your feedback.I guess if I want to make something like this I should cut down the price to a minimum (I guess less than $60 is affordable?) and add more features to it (not just only a logic analyzer) to make useful at least a bit.I'll make some more thinkering, maybe I'll decide to make it after all.Cheers,Alex