Electronic Projects for Oscilloscopes

Book excerpt: Electronic Projects for Oscilloscopes by Joseph Berardi There is a tutorial on how an oscilloscope works and the different types of waveforms that can be observed. The book starts out with the fundamentals of passive electronic components including: resistors, capacitors, inductors and transformers. More sophisticated components are presented with a comparison of different possible components used for making the circuits for a digital oscilloscope including: diodes, LED Displays, op-amps, timer integrated circuits, TTL logic family, voltage regulators, analog-to-digital converters and SRAM memory. There is a tutorial on the application of a human interface for controlling an electronic project. The first several projects are the building blocks for making your own oscilloscope including the following projects: a 5V DC Power Supply, variable DC Power Supply, 555-based oscillator and a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). Each project includes the design theory, schematics, parts list, PCB artwork and test results or corrections required to make the project work. The book culminates with several oscilloscope projects including a simple easy to build Oscilloscope 2 student version project, then onto a much more sophisticated Oscilloscope 5 broken into four individual projects to a high-speed A/D converter Oscilloscope 6 project. All of the book projects are standalone not requiring a computer, micro-controller or any software programming.