Syscomp for Hobbyists and Makers

Many projects include some electronics. And it’s not unusual that the electronics doesn’t work properly. Now what? You need to troubleshoot the circuit.

A digital multimeter will help in some cases, but there are also many situations where you need to see what the signals are doing as a function of time.  Is a signal arriving at point A?  Is signal A happening before signal B?  Is the signal the correct magnitude and timing?  Is the signal clean or corrupted by noise?  An oscilloscope is essential for diagnosing those kinds of problems.

Time was when an oscilloscope was large, heavy and expensive. No longer: our CircuitGear Mini USB oscilloscope has the capability of identifying problems even though it’s small and light enough to fit in a jacket pocket and about the same cost as a digital multimeter.  Even better, the CircuitGear has a built-in signal generator, spectrum analyser and vector-network analyser for measuring frequency response.  Years ago, a network analyser was a huge, expensive piece of gear.  The network analyser is an an included feature with Circuit Gear, and it’s being used by hobbyists to measure guitar pickup response, among other applications.

The controls are electronic so there are no switches or mechanical knobs to wear out.  The software runs under Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems and it’s Open Source, so you will be able to get years of use from the instrument. We support the product with free downloads of application notes and tutorials from our website, and we provide email-based help to resolve any problems.

So the next time your mobile robot misbehaves, you have backup. Grab the a Syscomp instrument and look at some signals.