Choosing the right equipment

Which product is right for your exact requirements
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Sinbad22
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Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:31 am

Choosing the right equipment

Post by Sinbad22 »

Hi,

Please ignore my last post.

I want to record a signal that will be sent to a servo. This means that I only need to use one channel.
I want a sample rate of at least 1MS/sec to give accuracy of at least 1 microsecond.
I want to record this data because I am interested in working out the high pulse duration of the signal as the signal changes.
I would like to record at least 2 seconds of data.

What equipment is best for my situation?

Thank you.

Hitesh

Re: Choosing the right equipment

Post by Hitesh »

Hi Sinbad22,

Could I ask what the frequency of the signal you are looking to measure is?

Also, what is the max. amplitude of the signal do you require 8-bit or 12-bit resolution for your amplitude measurements?

You may wish to look at the PicoScope 2000 and 3000A series to begin with:

http://www.picotech.com/picoscope2200-s ... tions.html

http://www.picotech.com/picoscope3000.html

Regards,

Sinbad22
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Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:31 am

Re: Choosing the right equipment

Post by Sinbad22 »

The frequency of the signal is 50hz. The max amplitude of the signal is 5 volts and 8bit resolution is required.
What is the cheapest oscilloscope that will do this?

Hitesh

Re: Choosing the right equipment

Post by Hitesh »

Hi,

The PicoScope 2204 is the cheapest 2-channel PC oscilloscope:

http://www.picotech.com/entry-level-oscilloscopes.html

You would have to use the PicoScope software though probably with a trigger for the sample rate that you are looking for.

Hope this helps.

Sinbad22
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Posts: 0
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:31 am

Re: Choosing the right equipment

Post by Sinbad22 »

The 2204 has an 8000 sample memory. What time base do I need to get accuracy to equal or be a bit better than 1us?

I looked at the PicoScope6 software and I saw that you can save 10000 buffers. Why does the time start at zero for each buffer instead of increasing? Why are the buffers all stored in separate files? Is there something I am misunderstanding? I dont want to have to manually go through each file, see where the timestamp ends and then add that time to the next file to get a complete picture of the data.

Can PicoScope6 and the 2204 oscilloscope do seamless data logging?

Hitesh

Re: Choosing the right equipment

Post by Hitesh »

Hi,

You can use a timebase of 200ms/div and set the number of samples to 2MS to achieve a rate of 1MS/s.

It is possible to save the data to a single .psdata file - choose File -> Save All Waveforms As... and then save the data.

The psdata file does not show the actual time on the oscilloscope display, but if you choose Views -> View Properties you can see the time of capture.

It is also possible to use the Save All Waveforms As... option to save the data as .csv files to open in a spreadsheet application - it will be split into files though as a program like MS Excel can only show a finite number of lines. The data will contain a time column though.

There will be some dead time between waveforms for a trigger re-arm. In your particular case, with the above timebase setting you should be able to capture seamless data for the period of 2 seconds.

Hope this helps.

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