6 ms·

I think projects like that would have been a godsend 2-3 decades ago, when even a basic oscilloscope costed as much as a used car. Nowadays, very good oscillos

I think projects like that would have been a godsend 2-3 decades ago, when even a basic oscilloscope costed as much as a used car. Nowadays, very good oscilloscopes with 200 MHz bandwidth, good user interfaces, and responsive displays are selling for $300 - I'm talking Siglent, Rigol, UNI-T. So the merits of DIYing something much worse just aren't quite there. It's that one piece of equipment you use to troubleshoot all your other designs, so you want it to be dependable, easy to use, and accurate. This is not to say it's not a fun, geeky project to work on and publish... but you know, only once you have a real oscilloscope. If you're just setting up, do yourself a favor and spend a bit more money on this. The remaining equipment is not nearly as critical.

iceflinger 2y ago
I think there's something to be said for the form factor here though: I can see myself owning one of these just to take as part of a kit if I expect to need to do some troubleshooting away from my typical workspace.
- nicolaslem 2y ago
  I have a cheap handheld oscilloscope (ZOYI ZT703S, ~$80) that I find very convenient to have around. It's the size of a multimeter, runs on a battery and works well enough that I don't feel too limited by it.
yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
I think there's a difference in options at $200/$20/$2 (see elsewhere in this thread) just in lowering the bar to entry to the point of triviality. I'm not spending $300 without knowing exactly what I want it for, $20 is easy, $2 is an impulse buy.
- serviceberry 2y ago
  Fair enough, but on the flip side - you either want to get into electronics or not. If not, there's no real point in spending the money, even if it's $2. If you do, then you probably don't yet have an understanding of what features you need, and the cheapest option will actually hold you back. Some specific issues: first, the number of inputs. A lot of circuit debugging is about "let's see how signal A looks like when signal B happens" (B might be a bus clock or something like that). So, a lot of the time, you need two inputs, not one. Second issue: even hobby MCUs generally run faster than 4 MHz, so you might need more bandwidth to monitor I/O, even for old-school Arduino stuff - let alone RP2040. Third issue: for anything analog, from audio equipment to household appliances, the 0-6 V input range just doesn't cut it. I'm not trying to dunk on this project: I think it's about as good as you can do for the price, and it's clearly a passion thing for the author. But if you can afford it, and if you want to learn electronics, a "real" oscilloscope is almost certainly a better deal.
  - burgerone 2y ago
    Rich designed it with trigger IO pins to be able to easily chain them. While the UI doesn't support managing multiple Flea-Scopes at once, you can just open the UI multiple times, which does seem like a reasonable option to me. As as others have pointed out before, there's just no alternatives in this form factor. The scope is tiny, and for what it is it packs quite a punch. 3.3V and 5V are standard logic levels which will suffice for quite a lot of basic probing. Being made for students, it does likely everything that would be required of it in an educational environment. How well this pans out in real-life we'll see soon. Granted that with enough money and space at hand there are much better options out there.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    > you either want to get into electronics or not. If not, there's no real point in spending the money, even if it's $2 It's fuzzier than that; there are hobbies that look fun but I can't decide if I want to fully invest into them, but having a cheap, but not-great equipment is a good stepping stone. Besides, beginners won't have the skill to fully use fully-featured pro-level-gear. A cheap soldering iron is great for those looking to get their feet wet; sure the lack of precise temperature control can be a hinderance, but investing in an expensive soldering station is wasteful if one decides that it's not really for them.
    - 05 2y ago
      Ironically, beginners would benefit the most from a good soldering station, proper liquid flux and leaded solder. Seasoned electronics guys can probably solder anything with a cigarette lighter and a scrap piece of metal, but using proper tools makes a huge difference when you're just starting and might mean not dropping the hobby altogether because of a lousy first experience..
      - rlonstein 2y ago
        > Seasoned electronics guys can probably solder anything with a cigarette lighter and a scrap piece of metal This made me laugh. In college in the late 80's I repaired a roommate's not-quite vintage C64 fastloader cartridge with a bad wire bodge using a lighter and the tine of a dining hall fork...
burgerone 2y ago
In his presentation video [0] Rich explicitly states that his goal is to make electronics approachable for the younger generation. A low barrier of entry in almost all directions is a key component in that in my opinion. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRXDkHS_V0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRXDkHS_V0
chefandy 2y ago
It’s a matter of perspective, though. For a white collar professional in the US? Sure. For most of the world’s population, the distinction between $300 and $18 is extremely consequential.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  For the majority of humanity, it's several days' worth of wages vs several weeks or months.
  - chefandy 2y ago
    Right. $18 is 6% of $300. For that to be a difference of little consequence, $300 must be an expenditure of little consequence. In the other direction $300 is 6% of $5000. There are people— a number of whom likely frequent this forum— for whom a $5000 expenditure isn’t particularly consequential, and getting an OK thing for $300 doesn’t make sense when you can get a pretty good thing for $5000. That certainly doesn’t mean someone being able to offer a useful version of a $5000 thing for $300 has no merit. I see this sort of thing in amateur radio all the time. “Why on earth would anyone just starting out consider getting a Baofeng radio for $20 when you can get a better quality name brand equivalent for $200?” Well because $180 is a whole lot of money for a whole lot of people.
andyjohnson0 2y ago
Nowadays I have a fairly decent Rigol scope, which suffices for my modest and infrequent needs. But back when I was a teenager I had very little money but plenty of time. A cheap DIY option would have made a lot of difference to me. I hope project this makes a difference to people on a budget, of whatever age.
WheatMillington 2y ago
There is still a WIDE gap between $18 and $300.
ericol 2y ago
> very good oscilloscopes with 200 MHz bandwidth, good user interfaces, and responsive displays are selling for $300 This is a very strong first world POV. Those U$D 300 rank pretty high across world's minimum salaries [1], not to mention that prices can very likely double in countries like my own. Moreover, a large % of people that can really get a very good use of this (Kids in high school) usually have a lot less money at their disposal, and we are not getting into collaterals like building your own and learning how it works. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_w...
- BubbleRings 2y ago
  I totally agree. Want to keep a distractable 14 year old busy for an hour? Give him or her some wire, a cheap meter, a battery, some switches and LEDs. Want to possibly change that kid’s life? Give him the above, plus a scope, and hook it up to a music player playing his favorite song.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  I get what you’re saying, but there are also fully functioning oscilloscopes for far less. For the purposes you are talking about you can get what you need with one of the $20-40 scopes. Those ones also tend to be portable and more rugged which is what you need if you don’t have a full blown lab to keep a nice oscilloscope in.
  - ericol 2y ago
    Note: the intention of this comment is just to be informative. I did a quick search in my country's Mercado Libre (the local Amazon, we could say) and the cheapest available one, Fnirsi-138 Pro [1] goes for a price of aprox. 50 USD [2] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Oscilloscope-Portable-Sampling-Oscilloscopes/dp/B0BXD6JL8T https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Oscilloscope-Portable-Samplin... https://www.mercadolibre.com.ar/osciloscopio-digital-fnirsi-138-pro-200-khz/p/MLA27527728 https://www.mercadolibre.com.ar/osciloscopio-digital-fnirsi-...
    - 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
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cushychicken 2y ago
The new Rigol DHO800 series are fabulous bargains for the money, and extremely well designed in a lot of ways: - 12 bit ADC frontends - Actually usable touchscreen inputs - Super simple to drive remotely over a network connection (though getting the IP address with just the touchscreen is a little tricky) - USB-C power input - you can run it from a battery pack if you like! - All the essential decoders built in for free (I2C, SPI, UART) - VESA Mountable - I got a monitor arm to gain back some desk space (awesome feature) - Very, very easy to hack one of the budget models and upgrade it to a 250MHz model :D
- djray 2y ago
  These start from 450 euros.
  - cushychicken 2y ago
    Well worth the money if you work with electronics with any kind of regularity. Maybe a bit pricy for the hobbyist.
- analog31 2y ago
  I got one recently, and it's been a pleasure to use. My only regret is not getting the 4 channel version, though I've only needed 2 channels so far. But at my workplace, I've found that an extra channel is the thing that helps me solve a problem, more frequently than higher performance does. I'm an old timer so I'm familiar with the traditional scope front panel, but have come to like the touch screen for changing settings. Perhaps my only gripe is how long it takes to boot.
  - cushychicken 2y ago
    I get around the long boot time by never turning mine off lol I used to thing touch screens on scopes were a gimmick. Then I used one to name a signal quickly and easily for a trace capture. After that I was hooked. Also - be sure to upgrade the firmware if you haven’t yet. They fixed that annoying bug where it doesn’t remember your probe settings between power cycles!
logtempo 2y ago
You can put, for the same price, almost 20 fleascope in a classroom instead of one profeasional one. I think it does have its place even today.

iceflinger 2y ago

I think there's something to be said for the form factor here though: I can see myself owning one of these just to take as part of a kit if I expect to need to do some troubleshooting away from my typical workspace.

nicolaslem 2y ago
I have a cheap handheld oscilloscope (ZOYI ZT703S, ~$80) that I find very convenient to have around. It's the size of a multimeter, runs on a battery and works well enough that I don't feel too limited by it.

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago

I think there's a difference in options at $200/$20/$2 (see elsewhere in this thread) just in lowering the bar to entry to the point of triviality. I'm not spending $300 without knowing exactly what I want it for, $20 is easy, $2 is an impulse buy.

serviceberry 2y ago
Fair enough, but on the flip side - you either want to get into electronics or not. If not, there's no real point in spending the money, even if it's $2. If you do, then you probably don't yet have an understanding of what features you need, and the cheapest option will actually hold you back. Some specific issues: first, the number of inputs. A lot of circuit debugging is about "let's see how signal A looks like when signal B happens" (B might be a bus clock or something like that). So, a lot of the time, you need two inputs, not one. Second issue: even hobby MCUs generally run faster than 4 MHz, so you might need more bandwidth to monitor I/O, even for old-school Arduino stuff - let alone RP2040. Third issue: for anything analog, from audio equipment to household appliances, the 0-6 V input range just doesn't cut it. I'm not trying to dunk on this project: I think it's about as good as you can do for the price, and it's clearly a passion thing for the author. But if you can afford it, and if you want to learn electronics, a "real" oscilloscope is almost certainly a better deal.
- burgerone 2y ago
  Rich designed it with trigger IO pins to be able to easily chain them. While the UI doesn't support managing multiple Flea-Scopes at once, you can just open the UI multiple times, which does seem like a reasonable option to me. As as others have pointed out before, there's just no alternatives in this form factor. The scope is tiny, and for what it is it packs quite a punch. 3.3V and 5V are standard logic levels which will suffice for quite a lot of basic probing. Being made for students, it does likely everything that would be required of it in an educational environment. How well this pans out in real-life we'll see soon. Granted that with enough money and space at hand there are much better options out there.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  > you either want to get into electronics or not. If not, there's no real point in spending the money, even if it's $2 It's fuzzier than that; there are hobbies that look fun but I can't decide if I want to fully invest into them, but having a cheap, but not-great equipment is a good stepping stone. Besides, beginners won't have the skill to fully use fully-featured pro-level-gear. A cheap soldering iron is great for those looking to get their feet wet; sure the lack of precise temperature control can be a hinderance, but investing in an expensive soldering station is wasteful if one decides that it's not really for them.
  - 05 2y ago
    Ironically, beginners would benefit the most from a good soldering station, proper liquid flux and leaded solder. Seasoned electronics guys can probably solder anything with a cigarette lighter and a scrap piece of metal, but using proper tools makes a huge difference when you're just starting and might mean not dropping the hobby altogether because of a lousy first experience..
    - rlonstein 2y ago
      > Seasoned electronics guys can probably solder anything with a cigarette lighter and a scrap piece of metal This made me laugh. In college in the late 80's I repaired a roommate's not-quite vintage C64 fastloader cartridge with a bad wire bodge using a lighter and the tine of a dining hall fork...

burgerone 2y ago

In his presentation video [0] Rich explicitly states that his goal is to make electronics approachable for the younger generation. A low barrier of entry in almost all directions is a key component in that in my opinion. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRXDkHS_V0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRXDkHS_V0

chefandy 2y ago

It’s a matter of perspective, though. For a white collar professional in the US? Sure. For most of the world’s population, the distinction between $300 and $18 is extremely consequential.

sangnoir 2y ago
For the majority of humanity, it's several days' worth of wages vs several weeks or months.
- chefandy 2y ago
  Right. $18 is 6% of $300. For that to be a difference of little consequence, $300 must be an expenditure of little consequence. In the other direction $300 is 6% of $5000. There are people— a number of whom likely frequent this forum— for whom a $5000 expenditure isn’t particularly consequential, and getting an OK thing for $300 doesn’t make sense when you can get a pretty good thing for $5000. That certainly doesn’t mean someone being able to offer a useful version of a $5000 thing for $300 has no merit. I see this sort of thing in amateur radio all the time. “Why on earth would anyone just starting out consider getting a Baofeng radio for $20 when you can get a better quality name brand equivalent for $200?” Well because $180 is a whole lot of money for a whole lot of people.

andyjohnson0 2y ago

Nowadays I have a fairly decent Rigol scope, which suffices for my modest and infrequent needs. But back when I was a teenager I had very little money but plenty of time. A cheap DIY option would have made a lot of difference to me. I hope project this makes a difference to people on a budget, of whatever age.

WheatMillington 2y ago

There is still a WIDE gap between $18 and $300.

ericol 2y ago

> very good oscilloscopes with 200 MHz bandwidth, good user interfaces, and responsive displays are selling for $300 This is a very strong first world POV. Those U$D 300 rank pretty high across world's minimum salaries [1], not to mention that prices can very likely double in countries like my own. Moreover, a large % of people that can really get a very good use of this (Kids in high school) usually have a lot less money at their disposal, and we are not getting into collaterals like building your own and learning how it works. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_w...

BubbleRings 2y ago
I totally agree. Want to keep a distractable 14 year old busy for an hour? Give him or her some wire, a cheap meter, a battery, some switches and LEDs. Want to possibly change that kid’s life? Give him the above, plus a scope, and hook it up to a music player playing his favorite song.
dghlsakjg 2y ago
I get what you’re saying, but there are also fully functioning oscilloscopes for far less. For the purposes you are talking about you can get what you need with one of the $20-40 scopes. Those ones also tend to be portable and more rugged which is what you need if you don’t have a full blown lab to keep a nice oscilloscope in.
- ericol 2y ago
  Note: the intention of this comment is just to be informative. I did a quick search in my country's Mercado Libre (the local Amazon, we could say) and the cheapest available one, Fnirsi-138 Pro [1] goes for a price of aprox. 50 USD [2] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Oscilloscope-Portable-Sampling-Oscilloscopes/dp/B0BXD6JL8T https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Oscilloscope-Portable-Samplin... https://www.mercadolibre.com.ar/osciloscopio-digital-fnirsi-138-pro-200-khz/p/MLA27527728 https://www.mercadolibre.com.ar/osciloscopio-digital-fnirsi-...
  - 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

cushychicken 2y ago

The new Rigol DHO800 series are fabulous bargains for the money, and extremely well designed in a lot of ways: - 12 bit ADC frontends - Actually usable touchscreen inputs - Super simple to drive remotely over a network connection (though getting the IP address with just the touchscreen is a little tricky) - USB-C power input - you can run it from a battery pack if you like! - All the essential decoders built in for free (I2C, SPI, UART) - VESA Mountable - I got a monitor arm to gain back some desk space (awesome feature) - Very, very easy to hack one of the budget models and upgrade it to a 250MHz model :D

djray 2y ago
These start from 450 euros.
- cushychicken 2y ago
  Well worth the money if you work with electronics with any kind of regularity. Maybe a bit pricy for the hobbyist.
analog31 2y ago
I got one recently, and it's been a pleasure to use. My only regret is not getting the 4 channel version, though I've only needed 2 channels so far. But at my workplace, I've found that an extra channel is the thing that helps me solve a problem, more frequently than higher performance does. I'm an old timer so I'm familiar with the traditional scope front panel, but have come to like the touch screen for changing settings. Perhaps my only gripe is how long it takes to boot.
- cushychicken 2y ago
  I get around the long boot time by never turning mine off lol I used to thing touch screens on scopes were a gimmick. Then I used one to name a signal quickly and easily for a trace capture. After that I was hooked. Also - be sure to upgrade the firmware if you haven’t yet. They fixed that annoying bug where it doesn’t remember your probe settings between power cycles!

logtempo 2y ago

You can put, for the same price, almost 20 fleascope in a classroom instead of one profeasional one. I think it does have its place even today.