LMR-o-Scope

BaseOverApex's picture

LMR on an oscilloscope.

I used Chris Meighan's ScopeShapes program to drive my oscilloscope from my PC sound card.

The program was loaded with a DXF file created by Armin Müller's eleFont program.

This was a fun day!

Embedded video: 
jip's picture

Wicked! Reminds me of this

BaseOverApex's picture

Goals

I'm aiming for something like this... But I don't think my beam can move fast enough to look like it's being switched off between parts. I'm going to play with the DXF file format now.
GroG's picture

How do you do this? - I'm

How do you do this? - I'm O-scope challenged - what I have only has analog inputs - I take it the high quality oscopes you guys use can take samples inputs of digital files?  Autocad files? They can read these in?

 Very Artsy Boa!

rik's picture

X and Y

Grog, all you need on your scope is an X-Y mode. Where each channel controls its own axis.
BaseOverApex's picture

Analog

I'm pretty sure all scopes have analog inputs. They just measure voltages.

Mine is a 20 year old CRT scope I found in the garbage at an old school. One sold recently on eBay for $190 including postage.

A scope which has 2 inputs normally displays 2 graphs with the scope generating an internal timebase to sweep the dots across the screen. If the scope has an XY mode, you can make one input control the X axis and the other to control the Y. It's just a matter of putting appropriate voltages in at appropriate times.

The software mentioned does this using the DACs in the soundcard as the source voltages. Apart from a 3.5mm jack plug and a bit of cable, there's no additional hardware required.

 

GroG's picture

Ahhh - that is the part I

Mine can't do XY - everything is on the X axis ... there is bailing wire and matchsticks holding it together, so it might be the grandfather of all oscopes.

Ahhh - that is the part I was missing - so his software converts and autocad file into an analog signal on the sound card.. nifty!  So what does a spinning LMR sound like?

 

BaseOverApex's picture

Channels - plural?

Did you say your scope had "channels"? I think it's unusual if a multi-channel scope doesn't have XY mode.

Maybe it is the grand-daddy...

Anyway - there are two pieces of software. One creates DXF files (which I think is some format used for transferring CAD files to milling machines and stuff) and the other reads the DXF file and squirts it out through the sound card!! They're from two different authors for two different purposes. The artist in me wanted to see what would happen if they were used together!

fritsl's picture

R-E-S-P-E-C-T-!:D 

R-E-S-P-E-C-T-!

:D 

BaseOverApex's picture

Well, thank you!

AND there was NO science involved. (Well, there was, but it was all done by other people. I did all the arty stuff.)

The question is: does it qualify for the challenge....?

mintvelt's picture

Vectrex

Very very cool indeed.

Looks a bit like the old Vectrex game-console that drew images by directly moving the displays beam.

If you're too young (or old) to remember a console that hit the market in 1982. Look it up -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex 

CaptainTuna's picture

 wow! let's make an

 wow! let's make an oscilloscope-based LMR game! :-)
rik's picture

TING!

I just realized how easy it is to make that object "spin" around its "vertical axis". All you do is turn the X-axis amplitude way up, then down again, then inverse it, then back to zero and way up again, and again.

And again. sigh. kiss

 

Nicola's picture

woooa that's incredible :P

woooa that's incredible :P
BaseOverApex's picture

Surely not?

Is my credibility at stake, here?

rik's picture

it's going around

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