for my needs, all of my circuits are fine, I don't need to read anything beyond a few hundred khz.
i've never has an oscilloscope and to get my feet wet, $65 was worth it.
Knowing all that
That's connected up to an Arduino with the example code.
/*
Fade
This example shows how to fade an LED on pin 9
using the analogWrite() function.
This example code is in the public domain.
*/
int led = 9;Â Â Â Â Â // the pin that the LED is attached to
int brightness = 0;Â Â // how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 5;Â Â // how many points to fade the LED by
// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup()Â {
 // declare pin 9 to be an output:
 pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
}
// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop()Â {
 // set the brightness of pin 9:
 analogWrite(led, brightness); Â
 // change the brightness for next time through the loop:
 brightness = brightness + fadeAmount;
 // reverse the direction of the fading at the ends of the fade:
 if (brightness == 0 || brightness == 255) {
  fadeAmount = -fadeAmount ;
 } Â
 // wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect Â
 delay(30);             Â
}
First of all, it might be "tacky" but I just learnt how PWM works, i connected it up to TR/RV lines and watched the data being sent, i've only had it a day and
i've learnt so much! that alone is value to me, i've learnt and will continue to learn new things with this tool, i'm not interested in reading scientific measurements.
I'm having so much fun with one, I want to get my hands on a full sized 2 channel scope, but i'd probably not even contemplated doing such a thing if not
for the fact i took a risk free try with one of these ARM FPGA devices for $65!
I'm not starting a flame war, I just don't see why the "experts" are so harsh on these devices, would you deny yourself a multimeter because it can only measure voltage?
even if all you need is to measure voltage?
I'm happy for you, you just got a whole new way to find out things about the world.
PS: I don't know if I'm an "expert" or not but my oscilloscope is a $200 DSO Quad (the big brother of that one) and I'm very happy with it. It does everything I need.
I don't know any "expert" who would diss gaining a whole new perspective on their hobby, certainly not at the incredibly low cost this sort of device is available at.
Have fun with it, get creative - that's what it is all about.
I remember at school never really "getting" circular functions until my maths teacher got an oscilloscope and a LF audio signal generator, showed us a sine wave, and then simply turned off the timebase to show the vertical motion of the trace.
Then he got a second sig-gen and showed us Lissajous figures - we'd all seen them on (it seemed) every episode of Dr Who, or other low-budget sci-fi TV show, but to have them in our classroom on such simple equipment made an impact, particularly when he showed us how little circuitry there was inside our old Telequipment scope.
At work, I use scopes whose probes alone cost many times what my 50Mhz Rigol cost, yet I still love tinkering.
I figure I'm setup now with most all the test equipment I need at home. I started with this scope but as good as it is the display is a bit to small so I bought a DS203 and the screen is a lot more readable. I also found a logic analyser to be very helpful so purchased a ScanaLogic2 and it has been more useful than the scope.
AWOL:
I don't know any "expert" who would diss gaining a whole new perspective on their hobby, certainly not at the incredibly low cost this sort of device is available at.
EEVblog #86 - Buy a real Analog Oscilloscope PLEASE!
I was going from his opinon and i'd consider him an "expert" but for my needs i don't see how what he says hold's true.
while i read the rest of your and the others posts.....
Riva:
I figure I'm setup now with most all the test equipment I need at home. I started with this scope but as good as it is the display is a bit to small so I bought a DS203 and the screen is a lot more readable. I also found a logic analyser to be very helpful so purchased a ScanaLogic2 and it has been more useful than the scope.
He likes the sound of his own voice (I don't - that's nine minutes of my life I won't get back) and he keeps repeating himself (he should also pay more attention to his driving), but I'm not convinced.
Yes it boils down to being a pretty subjective and personal choice. Perhaps it's my age and specific life experience but I still feel that as an aid to one's electronic education most beginners can really benefit by obtaining an old used Tek analog scope before spending money on the present digital scope offerings.
I bought a DSO Nano , model DSO201 for $70 two months ago.
The good :
It measures voltages and times, displaying on a screen like an oscilloscope.
It has a storage function to capture one event and display it.
The bad :
The documentation is wrong.
Wrong menu descriptions.
Single triggering is difficult, first trigger mode, "NONE" then use one "SINGLE" triggering.
The display shows a second trace of a garbage waveform that cannot be erased. I ignore it.
The SD card port is defective and cannot be used. The SD card falls out.
Conclusion :
Made by communists and dumped on USA as trash that is barely adequate. I am keeping it and I use it successfully after getting over my anger, disappointment and frustration. It is the worst oscilloscope ever. It has tolerable performance and I use it often and I trust the voltages and times that it shows on the tiny screen. I will keep it. For $70 I cannot find anything else like it. I hated it, but now I am using it with trustworthy results. Do not buy it. If you do buy it, you may become satisfied after a harsh lesson of adapting to crumby equipment that works good enough for a cheapskate. I used it yesterday to see waveforms of an IR remote control sensor $4 from Radio Shack. The oscilloscope waveforms were correct. The little oscilloscope works good enough for me. I will keep it and use it for single trace work while ignoring the second trace of garbage that cannot be removed from the display screen.
I use it on my Arduino Due that I added a shield to for level shifting 3.3v ports to be a 9.0 volt port of seven digital output bits plus two digital to analog pins to set sample and hold capacitors that control 18 oscillators that drive six power amplifiers totalling 1000 watts that drive electromagnets for my Magnetic Drum Set. My drumheads have magnets on them and the DSO Nano has measures 64 volt waveforms that appear on the coils near the magnets on the drumheads. The DSO nano is useful for musical drum project. It lets me see the waveforms so I can calculate inductances for my handmade copper coils. The DSO is version V1.60 PCB and V1.40 software. References : minidso.com and e-design .
See the wrong documentation :
The actual DSO menus and not described anywhere. I learned to adapt to this horrible tool that barely is adequate. I will use it often.
After having it for a few days, I deleted the firmware.
You're right, it's slow refresh rate and hangs and has bugs and other issues, so I dumped it for this which is claimed to be 10-100x faster
written by "BenF" whoever Ben might be.
Basically, holding down - while you power on brings up the upgrade firmware, step 2, copy 1 file at a time to temp drive the nano brings up
first the core files then the app, in hex format, it will reboot each time you copy a file..
heaps of improvements on this version and it is considerably faster not the claimed 100x lol (I attached the firmware)
The PDF on how to use it is in the rar file, the new version is much better, it handles up to about 500khz before it starts to get into trouble...
