Australia's Science Forum

Has anyone used a USB cro for Physics

We are looking at purchasing one in next years budget, but after some feedback from anyone who as used one.

The old cro we use here came off the arc and is so cumbersome to use...

Any info grateffully appreciatd

Dee

Dee,
I have not used a USB oscilloscope, but we have a nifty computer program that we use here called "Wave Window" It basically gives the display on the computer screen that you would get by connecting a microphone to an oscilloscope (which is the main thing our oscilloscope was ever used for!). The program is only $12. It runs on a Mac, but I would be very surprised if there was not a PC equivalent for free somewhere!

cheers

Ian

We have a USB CRO called POSCOPE, as well as two programmes from TLI. they all work well and are much quicker to set up than a normal CRO

Thanks for the replies

The Poscope one is the one we were looking at

Will put onto the wish list for next years budget
Dee

We use the free download program Audacity. Teacher asked yesterday for ideas for sound, but was reluctant to try the CRO, as it took so much time to get it tweaked. Audacity was already on our desktop, so I showed how to use it. Simple really, as her computer has a built-in microphone and is attached to the smartboard, so all she had to do was press the record button, and voila the wave pattern appears. I showed her then how to expand (stretch) the wave pattern so the students can really see the waves. Being a dinosaur, I had used this program some years ago to record our LP's on to the computer and then on to my ipod, but I told the teacher to not tell the kids that, as they wouldn't know what a record was. They apparently think that CD's are old hat and that no-one buys them anymore.

hi
do you have "how to" for the audocity (short and simple version )please

I'd like to know that also as I have just discovered it is on the kids school DET laptops and it would be a lot easier then getting out and setting up the CRO for the 7 Year 10 classes in the communication topic

I think the CRO programme from The Logical Interface is better than Poscope and audacity

OK, click on Audacity to start. If it is the first time you have used it, it may come up with a box "Audacity project files" click yes.
Then "Audacity first run" select English.
You may get a help screen, but you can close it.
What you will see is a screen with a menu and buttons across the top.
Plug in a microphone into your computer if necessary.
Then press the red "record" button. A dual Audio track will appear and as you make noises into the microphone a blue line, or wave will appear. Both tracks will be the same,(not sure why there are two, but don't worry).
Press the yellow "stop button at any time.
You can now select any part of the audio track, by left click and drag, to highlight the part you want.
Now select the zoom tool (magnifying glass +) and click as many times as you like. You will see the selection stretch and expand showing the wave more.
Just click on the X at the top left of the audio track to clear and start again.

Hope this clear enough, if not, don't hesitate to get in contact.

many thanks, Darelle - that'll come in very handy!