Stefan Salewski wrote:
Indeed I was hoping for some support during the last two years, but
there was not much interest, some people with very limited skills in
electronics area contacted me, hoping for a very cheap device. But of
course I can not build large quantities, so costs can not be smaller
than similar commercial tools from china, so people are disappointed. I
do understand that.
I'm well aware (by now ;-) that building something from scratch is not
the cheapo route
in many cases.
No, currently I do not need help, I have done schematics and layout very
carefully, learned VHDL, started design of a GTK GUI.
I'd help you if you used FLTK instead (and C++), actually I already got
something called
'flscope' - it would need to be dual license though - well I can
actually give you some code
without mentioning it's from me or whatever - or BSD.
That application uses 2 threads: one for the GUI and device control, the
other to read
and store the data stream. Connection to a particular device is designed
modular.
My personal interest in a homemade one would be something like a
mainframe scope:
slot cards of potentially different type that communicate with the
controller and memory
board via a highspeed bus, basically supplying a steady stream of time
coded samples.
The master board sends a clock signal to all signal converters and info
like settings
and start/stop.
For very fast signals, one could of course include local memory on a
slot and transfer
data in bursts.
This should all be no problem with a bus like PXI (PCI eXtension for
Instrumentation),
but I wouldn't use copper - I'd like to have a fiber bus for electrical
insulation and
floating channels, so the power supply alone determines rated voltage
(5kV - 20kV ?)
Should I really manage to burn a slot, 500-1000€ evaporate and not 1.
(an analog fiber connection from an active probe to the digitizer slot
would be
cool as well)
And I wrote my own
USB firmware some years ago. Currently I am doing some final checking of
schematics and layout, with minimal modifications. I indent to order
parts and two PCB prototype boards in harvest and intend soldering the
first prototype before end of this year. If that prototype works, than
there may be again room for support, for example for optimizing the VHDL
code, board firmware and communication with the PC, and finally
optimizing the user interface.
VHDL - thats specs for a silicon compiler, right? - so you are using
ASICs in
hobby-project?
I will tell on my homepage and on this list when there is the first
working prototype -- hopefully before the end of this year.
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