CartPicoScope Oscilloscope and Spectrum Analyser Software
The PicoScope 3200 range of computer oscilloscopes are supplied with with a comprehensive suite of software. There are no licence fees – all software is included in the price and free updates can be download for free from our website.
The information below shows some of the main features and functions of the software. If you would like to explore the software in more detail, demo versions are available for free download.
Supplied Software
- PicoScope – Oscilloscope
- PicoScope – XY Scope
- PicoScope – Spectrum Analyser
- PicoScope – Meter
- PicoLog – Data Acquisition
- Drivers, excel macro and third party programs
Picoscope
PicoScope – Oscilloscope
The PicoScope oscilloscope combines all the functionality of a conventional ‘benchtop’ scope with the benefits of a PC. Regular scope users will feel at home with the usual timebase, trigger options, etc, but will welcome the advantages of other useful features.
A number of display modes are available in PicoScope for reducing noise, capturing one off glitches and highlighting signal jitter. A chart recorder option is included to trend slowly changing signals.
Trigger options include a 'save to disk' mode which makes tracking down elusive intermittent faults easy. The ability to save waveforms means service engineers can have a library of waveforms on disk showing working instruments and likely faults.
PicoScope – Zoom
PicoScope with its X and Y zoom functions allows you to make full use of the buffer memory. The waveform (above left) shows three lines of a captured video signal. The expanded area (above right) shows the same signal magnified horizontally by a factor of 50 and vertically by a factor of 5 to reveal the complex detail hidden in the signal.
PicoScope – Measurements and Rulers
Automated measurements are available both for the oscilloscope and the spectrum analyser. Measurements are displayed at the foot of the trace and can include a variety of statistical indicators (current value, average, standard deviation, minimum and maximum). For production testing, pass / fail limits can be set for any measurement.
Dual rulers are available for both the scope and spectrum and can be used to measure amplitude, time and frequency.
Users can also customise PicoScope by adding ‘test menus’. These menus can load reference waveforms or settings. They can also load and display documents and web pages to provide explanation about the waveform or the tests to perform.
Available measurements: Frequency, low pulse width, high pulse width, duty cycle, cycle time, DC voltage, AC voltage, peak to peak, crest factor, minimum, maximum, rise time, fall time, rising rate, falling rate, voltage at cursor, time at cursor, frequency at cursor, amplitude at cursor.
XY Scope
As well as the conventional X-T oscilloscope option, PicoScope also has a XY mode.
The XY scope plots one parameter against another. This is useful when comparing the phase of two signals or aligning mechanical equipment.
The PicoScope 3000 units have one digitizer per channel: This ensures that samples are taken simultaneously on the two channels. Some oscilloscopes (to save costs) share one digitizer between multiple channels: this can lead to large phase errors in XY measurements.
PicoScope – Spectrum Analyser
The spectrum analyser shows the amount of energy in each of a number of frequency bands. It is ideal for measuring the distortion of a signal or for tracking down noise. As an example, a peak at 50 or 60 Hz would suggest noise due to mains pickup, higher frequency peaks might be switching noise from power supplies or noise from digital circuits. An averaging mode is provided to reduce the effect of random noise and a peak detect mode for testing amplifier bandwidths.
Summary of main features: FFT based spectrum analyser with 50dB dynamic range. Normal, average and peak detect modes. Linear/Log scales for both amplitude and frequency. Rulers to show amplitude, frequency and phase. Seven window types (Rectangle, Triangle, Gaussian, Hamming, Blackman, Parzen, Hanning). Variable number of spectrum bands (4096 max). Same trigger functions as oscilloscope. 16 automated measurements including frequency, total power, THD, SFDR, SINAD, SNR and IMD.
PicoScope – Meters
The meter displays one or more parameters as numbers, together with an optional bar graph. The multimeter displays AC volts (true RMS), DC volts, decibels or frequency. Other parameters can be displayed (e.g. pressure or acceleration) by adding custom ranges.
As you can see from the screenshot on the left, one of the advantages of PicoScope is that multiple oscilloscopes, spectrums and meters can be viewed at the same time. PicoScope also has the ability to load stored reference traces so that they can be compared or overlaid with the current signal
Picolog - Data Acquisition Software
PicoLog data acquisition software is a powerful but flexible program for collecting, analysing and displaying data over long or short periods of time.
When used with a PicoScope 3200 PC oscilloscope up to 1 million samples per channel can be collected.
Data can be viewed both during and after data collection in both spreadsheet or graphical format. The data can be easily exported to other applications.
To see for yourself just how good it is, you can find more information here, or you can download a free demo copy .
Software Drivers, Examples and Excel Macro
For users who either wish to write their own software or use our products with third party software, we provide, free of charge, a range of software drivers and examples.
Drivers are included for all current versions of Windows (98SE/ME/XP/2000). Programming examples are supplied for C, Delphi and Visual Basic.
Support for third party software includes LabVIEW, Agilent and VEE.
Also included is a Excel macro to allow data to be collected directly into a spreadsheet (pictured right)
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