Test-Equipment on Colin O'Flynn

Analog Discover Pro Teardown

Sat, 17 Apr 2021 16:14:13 +0000

NOTE: This was going to be a twitter thread but twitter was down? So this is a lazy blog post…

Analog Discovery Pro (from Digilent Website)

Anyone used to Digilent would expect this to be based on Zynq or similar - the fact the device has USB + ethernet ports makes it a pretty much sure thing! Taking the screws off the bottom gives us this view:

Experiments with Seek Thermal Camera

Sat, 23 May 2015 20:14:47 +0000

A while back I got a Seek thermal camera, as I wanted to use it for measuring electronics component temperatures. As part of a course I’m teaching at Dal, I did a few experiments I wanted to post here. These photos were taken with a macro lense, shown here: To get that lens, I purchased a 20mm diameter ZnSe Lens with 50.8mm/2" focus off E-Bay for about $20. I ended up getting both a 100mm and 50mm focal length to try both. Then you need a holder, which I used one I found on Thingiverse. If printing again I’d try to enlarge the size of the space for the lens - I had to use a knife and considerably carve the inside step down. In fact I’d remove the middle ‘ridge’ which holds the lens in, and instead epoxy it.

Rigol DP832 Review

Wed, 15 Oct 2014 23:37:00 +0000

The majority of the review is available in movie format:

I purchased a Rigol DP832 power supply from RAE Electronics (local supplier). I had a chance to play around with it and wanted to leave a bit of a review.

To begin, I also bought some useful accessories. I got them from Digikey, and here are the part numbers:

Test Leads: Ponoma B-24-x, where x changes for color

Aligator Clips: Digikey 461-1208-ND

Minigrabbers: Ponoma 4723-0 / 4723-2

I think those are the most useful accessories to get. Buy at least 4 supply cables, maybe more as if you want to have +/- supplies it's nice to have a colour for '0v'.

PicoScope 2204A Review

Fri, 18 Apr 2014 20:50:00 +0000

I've been spending some time with a low-cost PicoScope device, and wanted to give a review in case you're looking at one. To begin with, you can check out my Circuit Cellar Articles about selecting a scope.

There's also a video version of this:

Introducing the 2200 Range

PicoTech's 2200 range is a compact oscilloscope, if you want all the details check out The PicoTech Website. Presumably you're interested in my hands-on experience instead though, so I won't duplicate everything there.

Selecting an Oscilloscope

Thu, 06 Feb 2014 20:31:00 +0000

Check it out - my blog post on Circuit Cellar on selecting an oscilloscope is live. It’s full of 4 parts, so check back every week on the CC website for the next part

PicoScope 5000 (5444) Review

Wed, 08 Jan 2014 01:23:00 +0000

If you check out my older blog post, you'll see a very detailed review of the PicoScope 6000 series device. I also had a chance to use a 5000 series device, specifically the 5444.

The 5444 is a 4-channel scope with a built-in AWG. The sample rate is up to 1 GS/s in 'normal' mode, but you can use something called Equivalent Time Sampling (ETS) to boost that up to 10 GS/s in specific cases.

PicoScope 6000 (6403D) Review & Comparison

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:02:00 +0000

This is an *EXTREMELY* long post, but there is a ton of ground I want to cover. I hope you find it useful if you are seriously considering purchasing an oscilloscope.

Looking for a medium-cost scope? There's lots of options out there, and I'm going to concentrate on the Picoscope 6000 series for this review, specifically the 6403D. This device has 350 MHz analog BW and 5 GS/s max sample rate on a single channel, which can be boosted with Equvilant Time Sampling (ETS) to 50 GS/s on *all* channels. Anyway I wanted to give you something more than the normal 'press reviews'. I've spent a ton of time doing this review & hope you find it useful.

Hardware, Box, First Impressions

The scope comes in a nice plastic carrying case, and includes a power adapter with plugs for everything (even Australia!). It's always nice having somewhere to store your equipment when it's not out on the desk.

Quit wasting time debugging USB: Using TotalPhase Triggers

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 01:52:00 +0000

This blog post might seem commercial… but I have no connection to TotalPhase. I’ve used their Beagle 480 USB analyser for some time, and before that have used a variety of other solutions (mostly SW-based), so have some idea what other options are out there. It’s worth noting that they seem to give free updates forever. When I first used the Beagle 480 it could dissect mass storage & HID I think. Since then they’ve added almost every class possible… hell you can even do stuff like sniff a USB-Ethernet device, and pass the frames to Wireshark for IP-layer decoding. Total Phase has added tons of features in the last 4-5 years I’ve used this device, and they’ve all been freely available and usable with my device. So why do I think other debuggers are a waste of time? Simply: the ability to trigger in/out of the device. Check out this video for more: I also wrote about some of this in an article in Circuit Cellar, see The CC Webstore if you want to check that out, but the part I talk about debugging with the 480 is only a few paragraphs. Basically you can do stuff like the following:

Bed of Nails Test Bed

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 12:22:00 +0000

This is the final product, it can hold a PCB for testing without needing to have soldered any pins to it: And without the PCB mounted: I got parts from ebay seller “pingf123”. Parts used were: “4 Edge Latches for Phototype Test Fixture PCB ICT” “20 Chisel Spring Loaded Pogo Pin” “spring loaded guide pin for prototype fixture PCB” Here are a few of them spread out: The bottom PCB was drilled & bolts threaded into it (I didn’t have proper taps, but with PCB you are able to thread holes w/o them if you are forceful). The top PCB is drilled to allow the pogo pins to fit through. Getting the height of the pogo pins correct is critical, so this method let me test the height easily. When the height was correct you just screw the bolts through the top PCB to lock it all together. Soldering the pins in one row at a time. Once this was done I soldered the male headers on the bottom side, and put a lot of epoxy on it. Be careful not to get epoxy anywhere that is supposed to move!

Metcal MX-500P Soldering Station Review & Repair

Wed, 09 May 2012 13:08:00 +0000

For some time I've been using a METCAL soldering station. I picked mine up used on E-Bay, as they are expensive new.

They have phenomenal heat transfer ability - they use RF energy to transfer heat right to the tip. It means you can go from soldering a 0402 capacitor to desoldering an entire SMA connector with the same tip, and it all works perfectly.

There is a few "must" tools for anybody deeply involved in electronics. The Metcal soldering station is very high on that list. Simply put you are wasting your time with a normal soldering station. I previously used a fairly good soldering station - ceramic heater element, good temp control, etc. The Metcal is still just that much better.

Interfacing to 34401A

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:14:00 +0000

I recently got my 34401A bench meter out of storage, and wanted it working with my computer, something I hadn’t done for several years. I forgot to get my ‘official’ Agilent connection cable, but figured I could use my standard cables no problem.

This took a bit of effort to actually get working, so here is my notes on the issue:

The required settings are 9600 Baud, 1 Start Bit, 2 Stop Bits, Hardware flow control. Hyperterminal never seemed to work, possibly because the 34401A uses full RTS/CTS + DTR/DSR flow control. I did however have success with the ‘Termite’ program with the following settings:
Send the SYSTem:REMote command first, you should see a little ‘RMT’ appear on the 34401A VFD front panel. This indicates comms are working. Try a READ? command too; As an example see the following, blue is what I’ve sent and green is the meter responding:
I first tried a small null-modem adapter + RS232 extension cable. You need to ensure your cable has all lines connected, since the 34401A uses full flow control. My null-modem adapter didn’t have lines 1 & 9 connected straight-through, as the 34401A manual says it should be. I figured it wouldn’t matter since it doesn’t claim to use them, and the rest of the lines were connected as required, but the meter didn’t respond to any commands. Using a null-modem cable which had line 9 connected straight-through, but not 1, seemed to work fine. So the hardware can be an issue!
So far the Excel/Word Plug-In hasn’t worked for me. I know it did at one point, so still working on that, but I might end up just using Python or something instead anyway.