First Oscilloscope Recommendations

Calamity1911 · August 16, 2018

I was looking at a fairly cheap DIY Oscilloscope kit and I was wondering if this would be worth the trouble. I've been messing with soldering and stuff since 8th grade and I'd say I know what I'm doing but not the advanced stuff. So would this kit be worth buying?

The kit is called the DSO138 Mini and is $30 ish USD.

Unimportant · August 16, 2018

2 hours ago, Calamity1911 said:

I was looking at a fairly cheap DIY Oscilloscope kit and I was wondering if this would be worth the trouble. I've been messing with soldering and stuff since 8th grade and I'd say I know what I'm doing but not the advanced stuff. So would this kit be worth buying?

The kit is called the DSO138 Mini and is $30 ish USD.

Such kits are, off course, just toys. Whether or not it is useful to you depends on what you're going to use it for.

If you're only dealing with extremely low frequency stuff and don't need any precision/resolution (basically just want to see if some wave shape is there) - and you don't have high single-shot requirements - then such a kit might work for you.

The bandwidth is extremely low - only 200 Khz. So the input can only accurately handle sine waves of a frequency somewhere below 200 Khz (remember that there's already 3db attenuation at 200 Khz). Complex waveforms, such as square waves used in digital circuits, will be limited to a far lower frequency - due to harmonics - say 10 or 20Khz or so. If the things you're working on are below these frequencies then it might work for you. (Note that this is only about the input circuit's performance, the accuracy of the acquisition is a different matter, but there's no reason to expect high accuracy).

These things have little memory, so don't expect high resolution. (especially single-shot).

Lolucoca · August 30, 2018

To beginners I always recommend getting an old analog oscilloscope. You can pick those things up for next to nothing and they're great for learning purposes.

TheFlyingTraut · September 3, 2018

What exactly are you wanting to scope? I have a multimeter with a built in oscilliscope for my car audio work, and it works just fine for hobby stuff on the bench.