PC-based 'scope for ripple voltage measurements

dissonance · Post by **dissonance** » Tue Jul 22, 2003 6:52 pm

I'm looking for a PC-based 'scope to measure the ripple voltage of various ATX power supplies and have pretty limited experience with oscilloscopes in general so I'm really not sure what I need. I definitely want the 'scope to be PC-based, though.

So far, I've had the ADC-200 and ADC-212/3 recommended for my needs and, of course, I'm looking to find out which would be better suited to my needs. For now, all I need to do is measure voltage ripple as part of a larger suite of tests to determine power supply quality.

If one 'scope or another can do that and potentially also measure things like video signal strength for a PC graphics card, that would be a bonus, but not necessary. Really, I'm just looking for the cheapest PC-based option to reliably measure ripple.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks.

markspencer · Post by **markspencer** » Wed Jul 23, 2003 10:12 am

Hi,

Both the ADC-212/3 and ADC-200/20 will produce the results that you want. The major difference in these product is the accuracy, resolution and bandwidth.

The ADC-212/3 has a 1.5 MHz bandwidth when one channel is in operation and 770kHz when both channels are being used The ADC200 can measure higher bandwidths 10MHz when either one or two channels are being used

The resolution for this unit is 12 bit and thus it can measure smaller changes in voltage than the ADC200 (this is an 8 bit oscilloscope).

The accuracy of the ADC212/3 is 1% across the measured voltage range, whereas the ADC200/20 is 3%.

They should also both beable to measure video signal strength.

Best regards,

It really comes down to what you believe are the applications requirements.