Paul Boughton
A new breed of USB-controlled instruments uses PCs for the information screen and operation panel. With USB ports available on virtually every PC and laptop on the market today, the space needed for a digital oscilloscope has shrunk to just the size of a match box. Computers are now standard tools for every employee, so why should customers spend extra money duplicating power supplies and user interfaces?
The Taiwanese-based supplier Acute (distributed in Europe by Stantronic Instruments) offers the DS-1000 series family of PC-based digital oscilloscopes that provide the majority of functions and features required by design, test and process engineers. The three family members all offer two channels and a vertical resolution of 9 bits/channel. All units can be cascaded to give up to six channels and all channels in use are shown on one display.
Stantronic explains the three units differ from each other in bandwidth, sampling rate and triggering capabilities. The basic model, called the DS-1002, provides an analogue bandwidth of 100MHz, a real-time sampling rate of 100MS/sec in single-channel mode and 50MS/sec in dual-channel mode. The equivalent sampling rate for capturing repetitive signals is 2.5GS/sec with a memory length of 64k points. The second member of the family, the DS-1102, offers an analogue bandwidth of 200MHz, a real-time sampling rate of 200MS/sec in single-channel mode and 100MS/sec in dual-channel mode. The equivalent sampling rate for capturing repetitive signal is 5GS/sec with a memory length of 64k points. For users needing more memory, the third member of the family, called the DS-1202, the same features as the DS-1102 but with an extended memory depth of 512k points.
Whereas the DS-1002 features the classic trigger capabilities such as rising/falling edge and delay, the DS-1102 and DS-1202 offer an additional TV trigger and the DS-1202 has a TV line trigger as well. In Roll Mode, the units can show signals continuously up to a setting of 200ms/div and store the signals to hard disk up to the capacity of the disk.
All Acute digital oscilloscopes are operated by the same software, which displays waveforms and all related parameters on the PC's screen to look like a conventional oscilloscope. Cursors are available for precise measurements of voltage and time parameters. The input coupling can be set to AC, DC or GND for each individual channel. A 20MHz low-pass filter is standard.
The power of the PC can be utilised to perform maths functions including addition and division, as well as Lissajous curves. To perform an FFT on a signal, the units offer anti-aliasing filters such as triangle, cosine, Lanczos and Gaussian.
Each Acute DSO digital oscilloscope is shipped with two probes, a USB cable, a manual and software, all packaged in a pouch. The software for these products, which works without hardware in demo mode, can be downloaded for evaluation from the Stantronic Instruments website.
For more information, visit www.stantronic.co.uk
The Taiwanese-based supplier Acute (distributed in Europe by Stantronic Instruments) offers the DS-1000 series family of PC-based digital oscilloscopes that provide the majority of functions and features required by design, test and process engineers. The three family members all offer two channels and a vertical resolution of 9 bits/channel. All units can be cascaded to give up to six channels and all channels in use are shown on one display.
Stantronic explains the three units differ from each other in bandwidth, sampling rate and triggering capabilities. The basic model, called the DS-1002, provides an analogue bandwidth of 100MHz, a real-time sampling rate of 100MS/sec in single-channel mode and 50MS/sec in dual-channel mode. The equivalent sampling rate for capturing repetitive signals is 2.5GS/sec with a memory length of 64k points. The second member of the family, the DS-1102, offers an analogue bandwidth of 200MHz, a real-time sampling rate of 200MS/sec in single-channel mode and 100MS/sec in dual-channel mode. The equivalent sampling rate for capturing repetitive signal is 5GS/sec with a memory length of 64k points. For users needing more memory, the third member of the family, called the DS-1202, the same features as the DS-1102 but with an extended memory depth of 512k points.
Whereas the DS-1002 features the classic trigger capabilities such as rising/falling edge and delay, the DS-1102 and DS-1202 offer an additional TV trigger and the DS-1202 has a TV line trigger as well. In Roll Mode, the units can show signals continuously up to a setting of 200ms/div and store the signals to hard disk up to the capacity of the disk.
All Acute digital oscilloscopes are operated by the same software, which displays waveforms and all related parameters on the PC's screen to look like a conventional oscilloscope. Cursors are available for precise measurements of voltage and time parameters. The input coupling can be set to AC, DC or GND for each individual channel. A 20MHz low-pass filter is standard.
The power of the PC can be utilised to perform maths functions including addition and division, as well as Lissajous curves. To perform an FFT on a signal, the units offer anti-aliasing filters such as triangle, cosine, Lanczos and Gaussian.
Each Acute DSO digital oscilloscope is shipped with two probes, a USB cable, a manual and software, all packaged in a pouch. The software for these products, which works without hardware in demo mode, can be downloaded for evaluation from the Stantronic Instruments website.
For more information, visit www.stantronic.co.uk
