Pico Technical Support and Discussion Forum

Audioguy · Guest

Hi!

I have ordered a PS3224 and I wonder if it will have enough performance for general audio use. I think I have a realative good understanding on what I can do with this scope but I am not sure about the bandwith.

Will 10Mhz be enough to show oscillations in unstable audiocircuits? Ringing on transients/squarewaves and HF oscillations is what I want this scope to highlight.

Maybe I can answer this question myself: I guess it depends on the bandwith of the actuall IC's and transistors in the circuit..

Could it be that the scope isn't fast enough if I use video opamps with 100MHz bandwith for example?

/Peter

davidj · Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:43 am Post subject: 3224 Bandwidth

Hi

The analogue bandwidth of the 3224 is specified as 10MHz. You might consider the 5000 series as an alterative for the high speed video data capture application you describe. Please see here:
http://www.picotech.com/highperformance-oscilloscopes.html

Audioguy · Guest

I received the PS3224 and tried to fire it up with little succes. I tried several times to remove the drivers/program and re-instal. Strange thing is the item was called pico series 2000 though it is supposed to be a 3224 and I chosed the 3000 series drivers when installing the program. The Picoscope program told me that it could not find the scope.

During this time I could find the scope in windows and there i was ok and working,,, or so I was told. Smile

After a while I removed the drivers and tried once again, this time chosing series 2000 during the installation process. Voilá the Picoscope program found the Scope. But it runs like a 2000 series with reduced bitrate it seems and probably bandwith as well. Also I could display square waves, only sines. The program also hang up after some time and that happened several times even after restareting the program.

So, did I receive a 2000 series 8bit item instead of 3000 series 12bit?

The vertical Voltage range has its lowest settting at 50mV.

Needless to say I'm frustrated and dissapointed and thinking on a good old bench scope instead.
/Peter

Audioguy · Guest

Correction.. I can display sine and square's.

There's a sticker on the back of the unit that says "3224" but still I can't get it to work with the 3000 series drivers. Also when the Picoscope window hangs (an hourglass appear on the screen) I can still use the computer but I can not do anything with the scope. To close down the scope window I have to restart the computer.

Could it be that a mixup occured during marking and packaging so I received a 2202 instead of a 3224?

Seems to be a bug in software, do you recognize he problems I describe?

I have a duocore 1.66GHz Pentium with 50G free space on harddrive and 1G RAM so the laptop (Amilo si1520) should be up to task.

/Peter

davidj · Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:29 am Post subject:

Hi
Sorry to hear you are having problems.
If you look at Help/About in Picoscope which will show the model version and build information.
Please check this and report to support@picotech.com or telephone with any queries.

Guest · Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:54 am Post subject:

Clicking help/about in piccoscope tells me that the hardware is indeed a 2202.

Is that reliable information or is it possible that Picoscope recognize a 3224 as a 2202 if istalled with 2000 series software?

/Peter

davidj · Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 11:43 am Post subject:

The build information is read out of the firmware and so is conclusive.
Please contact the sales department with your ordering details who with then organise a replacement.
Apologies for the inconvenience.

Audioguy · Guest

Thanks for guidance!

Wrote a mail to support and also contacted the company that delivered the item.

Any ideas about the software hangup?

/Peter

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