Test Equipment¶
The Group page for this week is here
My individual learnings on using the test equipment
The Osciloscope:
- Osciloscopes have handy calibrating output that you can use to test the probe
- the probes have small knob that can be tuned to match the impedance and observe a perfectly shaped square wave
- when connected to a real circuit, we can observe that the signal is not a perfect square wave, but has some noise and spikes
The logic analyzer:
- this device, paired with the software that handles it, allows to decode data protocols like I2C, SPI, or UART, which would be quite tedious to do with a osciloscope.
- the device also supports more channels, like 8 or more, whereas the osciloscope usually handles just a couple
| Feature | Oscilloscope | Logic Analyzer |
|---|---|---|
| Best For | Noise, voltage levels, signal quality | Protocols (I2C, SPI), timing, code logic |
| Data View | Continuous voltage over time | Digital states (High/Low) |
| Resolution | Very high (can see tiny fluctuations) | Low (only sees 1s and 0s) |
| Tool Recommendation | Rigol or Siglent (Entry-level) | Sigrok/PulseView (Open Source software) with a cheap $10-15 analyzer |