5 ms·

Just curious, I see many people comment on buying or having a oscilloscope for beginning electronics. My question is how many people actually use these devices

Just curious, I see many people comment on buying or having a oscilloscope for beginning electronics. My question is how many people actually use these devices for anything other than trivial purposes these days? I feel that mine just collects dust and takes up space and does not compare to my multimeter which is probably my most used tool, but maybe I'm missing something.

mhb 4y ago
This is for learning electronics. It's very satisfying to see the actual waveform of, for example, an R and a C and to be able to see the effect of changing their values. Or to figure out what you've connected wrong when what you see is not what you expect.
II2II 4y ago
From my limited experience, oscilloscopes are useful while learning since you can see what is happening in the circuit. For example, you can build an oscillator or filter circuit then have a visual of the results. In terms of needing one: no, if you can borrow one or have access to someone else's lab. Oscilloscopes have relatively low benefit given the cost. They will either be too low frequency to be of value for many modern applications, or too finicky to learn how to use properly for higher frequency applications (not to mention expensive for higher frequency applications).
- nhecker 4y ago
  In my (also limited) experience I was able to get by with just a high-impedance piezo earpiece I could listen to in order to debug audio-frequency circuits. Ears are surprisingly sensitive detectors and can provide quite a bit of data into your brain. Some higher-frequency circuits you can still debug, but not well or at least not as thoroughly. It's not a perfect solution, but dirt cheap, and consumes a tiny amount of space. It's instant feedback and after a while you can start recognizing (guessing at?) different waveforms and types of signal quirks. I've found that a surprisingly useful part of my kit over the years. Just stay away from high voltage!
  - buescher 4y ago
    The poor-man's scope, yes. I still have an AM-radio-sized battery-operated amplifier from Radio Shack in my toolbox, but it's been a long time since I used it. An AM radio works too, and works above audio frequencies, wirelessly! The loopstick will pick up harmonics off everything in the circuit so you can hear a lot of what's going on. Helps to know what might be going on though. I had a boss that had retired the following interview question (maybe it was a PhD qual question, I forget): He'd give the candidate a portable TV and an AM radio and have them measure the horizontal scan frequency of the TV. It was probably a chestnut in some circles.
q3k 4y ago
It’s hard to convey how invaluable an oscilloscope is for most electronics labs, at least when you reach the point where you're dealing with your own designs and/or troubleshooting others' flaky designs. Not for use all the time, but for being there if needed. After all, signals in electronics are everywhere, and being able to see a represantation of them takes out so much guesswork from any situation. You don’t technically need one, but that’ll make a lot of work much harder and some work impossible.
exDM69 4y ago
I only recently bought my first oscilloscope (Telequipment analog CRT scope circa 1964), but I've done electronics for years without one. Mostly audio stuff so I've poked an audio probe in the circuit and listen to the signal rather than look at it. So no, it's by no means essential but it certainly opens some new doors in the hobby. If you want to build kits, say for guitar pedals (pretty popular electronics-related hobby), you can manage without an oscilloscope. But for designing experimental circuits from scratch, it's really nice to have one. And it's just fun to play your guitar with the signal plotted on the warm glowing cathode ray tube.
slig 4y ago
It's the Gear Acquisition Syndrome. (I got the classic Rigol 1054Z ~6 years ago, and it's collecting dust, but I love to be able to use when needed. Nowadays I'd probably go with a portable one from Banggood).
sho_hn 4y ago
I'd say a scope is to EE what gdb is to coding in C/C++. You can reason instead of observe, but observation can be a huge timesaver, especially if it's not your design.
ekingr 4y ago
I bought a cheap usb-powered hand-held oscilloscope DIY kit off Aliexpress. It was a fun soldering project and now I have a (very minimalistic) oscilloscope for when I need one (which is very seldom).
buescher 4y ago
You will use a multimeter a lot more than an oscilloscope. An oscilloscope is invaluable if something dynamic isn't working correctly. All that LCR stuff becomes real when you can see it. SPI bus and i2c bus issues become possible to visualize - though a protocol analyzer is even nicer, a scope will do.
keithnz 4y ago
scopes are like EEs console.log / print / writeline

mhb 4y ago

This is for learning electronics. It's very satisfying to see the actual waveform of, for example, an R and a C and to be able to see the effect of changing their values. Or to figure out what you've connected wrong when what you see is not what you expect.

II2II 4y ago

From my limited experience, oscilloscopes are useful while learning since you can see what is happening in the circuit. For example, you can build an oscillator or filter circuit then have a visual of the results. In terms of needing one: no, if you can borrow one or have access to someone else's lab. Oscilloscopes have relatively low benefit given the cost. They will either be too low frequency to be of value for many modern applications, or too finicky to learn how to use properly for higher frequency applications (not to mention expensive for higher frequency applications).

nhecker 4y ago
In my (also limited) experience I was able to get by with just a high-impedance piezo earpiece I could listen to in order to debug audio-frequency circuits. Ears are surprisingly sensitive detectors and can provide quite a bit of data into your brain. Some higher-frequency circuits you can still debug, but not well or at least not as thoroughly. It's not a perfect solution, but dirt cheap, and consumes a tiny amount of space. It's instant feedback and after a while you can start recognizing (guessing at?) different waveforms and types of signal quirks. I've found that a surprisingly useful part of my kit over the years. Just stay away from high voltage!
- buescher 4y ago
  The poor-man's scope, yes. I still have an AM-radio-sized battery-operated amplifier from Radio Shack in my toolbox, but it's been a long time since I used it. An AM radio works too, and works above audio frequencies, wirelessly! The loopstick will pick up harmonics off everything in the circuit so you can hear a lot of what's going on. Helps to know what might be going on though. I had a boss that had retired the following interview question (maybe it was a PhD qual question, I forget): He'd give the candidate a portable TV and an AM radio and have them measure the horizontal scan frequency of the TV. It was probably a chestnut in some circles.

q3k 4y ago

It’s hard to convey how invaluable an oscilloscope is for most electronics labs, at least when you reach the point where you're dealing with your own designs and/or troubleshooting others' flaky designs. Not for use all the time, but for being there if needed. After all, signals in electronics are everywhere, and being able to see a represantation of them takes out so much guesswork from any situation. You don’t technically need one, but that’ll make a lot of work much harder and some work impossible.

exDM69 4y ago

I only recently bought my first oscilloscope (Telequipment analog CRT scope circa 1964), but I've done electronics for years without one. Mostly audio stuff so I've poked an audio probe in the circuit and listen to the signal rather than look at it. So no, it's by no means essential but it certainly opens some new doors in the hobby. If you want to build kits, say for guitar pedals (pretty popular electronics-related hobby), you can manage without an oscilloscope. But for designing experimental circuits from scratch, it's really nice to have one. And it's just fun to play your guitar with the signal plotted on the warm glowing cathode ray tube.

slig 4y ago

It's the Gear Acquisition Syndrome. (I got the classic Rigol 1054Z ~6 years ago, and it's collecting dust, but I love to be able to use when needed. Nowadays I'd probably go with a portable one from Banggood).

sho_hn 4y ago

I'd say a scope is to EE what gdb is to coding in C/C++. You can reason instead of observe, but observation can be a huge timesaver, especially if it's not your design.

ekingr 4y ago

I bought a cheap usb-powered hand-held oscilloscope DIY kit off Aliexpress. It was a fun soldering project and now I have a (very minimalistic) oscilloscope for when I need one (which is very seldom).

buescher 4y ago

You will use a multimeter a lot more than an oscilloscope. An oscilloscope is invaluable if something dynamic isn't working correctly. All that LCR stuff becomes real when you can see it. SPI bus and i2c bus issues become possible to visualize - though a protocol analyzer is even nicer, a scope will do.

keithnz 4y ago

scopes are like EEs console.log / print / writeline