The DSO Nano's are back in stock at seeedstudio.com for anyone who is interested, and now they are selling a KICK'n little stand for it!

I have GOT to get a stand for mine but I am not sure I can afford it. They always get you with the "extras"!

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/contem ... p-631.html

What functions in a oscilloscope are necessary? Does this one have all of the necessary functions or does it have more functions than I will use? Is it good enough?

I suppose I will need a tutorial on how to make some good use out of it.

Well, this thing really isn't the "scope", it's just the stand. I guess you could hang some clothes with it when your not using it on the bench!

Just kidding.

Serioulsy,

The DSO Nano is pretty cool for what it is and if you happen to be a gadget junky... IT's A MUST!

As far as functions in a scope that are necessary... well, that depends entirely on what you need to do. I "rarely" need one so I had been looking for something like this for a long time (no space for a bench top unit).

The DSO Nano handles all the basic operations of any o-scope. Is it good enough?... Again, that falls back to my first answer, entirely up to what you are doing.

I can tell you that it is very easy to navigate through the menu. The display is very pleasing on the eyes and easy to read the waveforms. It has nice vertical and horizonal markers.

It's a simple 1MHz bandwith scope. It is a one channel o-scope but has a memory trace that you can use to compare two signal responses (must use memory card). I do a lot of stuff in the audio range so it has come in handy for me. It has also been able to handle anything I have done with any of my microcontroller projects. When I can no longer watch my LED's blink on and off... out comes the scope! It also measures DC voltage better than my little analog volt meter so I am happy with that.

As far as a tutorial goes, I have done a few searches to find a nice review on all the features and I am suprised that I couldn't really find any. Most of the videos and write-ups only focus on the unit as someone is taking it out of the box and powering up for the first time, not really putting it to the test. Instead of trying to do a long write up on the unit, let me suggest a couple links that are probably more in depth than most:

http://www.justblair.co.uk/seeed-studio ... eview.html

http://robotics.ong.id.au/2010/01/seeed ... pe-review/

These are older reviews and there have been minor changes made to the unit since (i.e. the battery does not need to be "soldered" in - just snap the connectors together).

There are plenty of others but maybe soon I'll sit down and make a short video and write-up myself (because I don't like what I have seen so far).

The software is open source and there are a few things you can do to "upgrade" it (so to speak) but I have done none of those since I purchased mine. It works great as is and I don't need anything more.

Below are the features/specs which might do more for answering your questions than anything I can tell you:

Features:

Display 2.8″ Color TFT LCD
Display Resolution 320×240
Display Color 65K
Analog bandwidth 0 - 1MHz
Max sample rate 1Msps 12Bits
Sample memory depth 4096 Point
Horizontal sensitivity 1uS/Div～10S/Div (1-2-5 Step)
Horizontal position adjustable with indicator
Vertical sensitivity 10mV/Div～10V/Div (with ×1 probe)
0.5V/Div～100V/Div (with ×10 probe)
Vertical position adjustable with indicator
Input impedance >500KΩ
Max input voltage 80Vpp (by ×1 probe)
Coupling DC
Trig modes Auto, Norma, Single, None and Scan
Functionalities: Automatic measurement: frequency, cycle, duty, Vpp, Vram, Vavg and DC voltage
Precise vertical measurement with markers
Precise horizontal measurement with markers
Rising/falling edge trigger
Trig level adjustable with indicator
Trig sensitivity adjustable with indicator
Hold/run feature
Test signal Built-in 10Hz～1MHz (1-2-5 Step)
Waveform storage SD card
PC connection via USB as SD card reader
Upgrade by bootloader via USB
Power supply 3.7V Chargeable Lithium battery / USB
Dimension (w/o probe) 105mm X 53mm X 8mm

Since my last usb based oscilloscope didnt meet my needs I may look at getting this mini scope.

What are they like for reading serial data? pretty accurate?

The refresh rate for the screen might be an issue for doing that. If the waveform is continuously changing, the screen will leave some pixels from the previous response.

The closest I can think that I have done to making a serial data measurement is hooking it to the output of my MonoFonic Audio Chip and watch the waveform as it plays a tune.

I assume that would be sufficient for what you mean by reading serial data?

Unfortunately I need a dual channel scope

Because I need to see what the data is doing as well as what the clock is doing (which synchronises the data)

But still, an amazing price for a colour handheld scope!

As much as you use an o-scope I wouldn't recommend the DSO Nano for you unless you are interested in having something portable or just one of us who say... "Look at this cool toy I got!"

I supose its one of those things that you got to say , "you get what you pay for" But it looks like a good handy tool Ive already got a 4 channel scope so dont think ill be needing one of these

Now that I think about it, my scope has 64 Channels and a 50" screen. It does the job I guess...

What's the big deal?

The DSO Nano is multi channel. I connect it to a test point and take a picture of the response. Then reconnect it to another test point and take a picture of that response and compare the two.

I can do this as MANY times as I wish and have UNLIMITED channels!

Who's your daddy now?

And we have a winner!

From what I understand, the DSO's bandwidth is only 1 MHZ which another user says isn't of much use.

What do you look for in an Oscilloscope?

I look for an o-scope with a 1MHz bandwidth!

He he

1 Mhz is great for microcontroller applications especially if you are using a 4Mhz clock. Most instructions take 4 clock cycles to execute, this means that you can run 1 million instructions per second.

So even if you programmed the fastest and most basic program (flashing an led on and off) you will still be able to display it on the 1Mhz scope.

the more code you add from their, the more instructions you use therefor the slower the speed which means you can easily measure it on the scope.

Other people with credentials say there is a 100 MHZ minimum and they use a TEK 2235 100 MHZ scope.