SmartScope: the box that liberated Measuring Man from the wall outlet

You must have heard about the SmartScope, the little box that liberated Measuring Man from the wall outlet. Since it became available, anyone can take his 'scope on the road: a single cable turns a tablet, a laptop or a smartphone into an oscilloscope. Despite its colour, it ain't no black box. By giving full access to the software framework of the SmartScope, a whole new dimension of possibilities is opening up.

I wrote previously that it is hard to pass the EXIT / AUSGANG gates at the embedded world trade show in Nuremberg and not have a few demo or dev kits in your sponsored rucksack. That’s why the show is a must-attend for serious electronicists of all ages. I consider myself one but this year I was unable to attend the show and what do you think, I still I received a kit — it simply arrived in the mail a few days later. It is the Otii Arc Demo kit from IoT developers Qoitech in Sweden hence the polar bear on the box. On the Arc box proper I saw “Sony Belgium” printed.

There are many low-cost SMD testers available, but their main drawback is that they can only distinguish and measure resistance and capacitance. That’s not handy with more and more inductors being used in modern circuits. The ability to recognise inductors is therefore a hard requirement. Now the Chinese company Mastech has launched the MS8911 tester for SMD passives, which costs less than 40 euros and is able to measure inductors, resistors and capacitors. That sounds too good to be true, so we wanted to put this instrument to the test.

Back in 2016 Elektor introduced ScanaQuad Logic Analyzers to its readers: tiny, low cost, but extremely powerful logic analyzers from Ikalogic, France. Today, we were happy to hear the company announcing that a new software release - ScanaStudio V3 - brings even more features to your logic analyzer.

At a price of less than 100 euros, a reasonably equipped smartphone seems to defeat all attempts are designing and building the above modules from scratch and building them into every new application you have in mind. Not surprisingly, a vast proportion of projects I get to see from engineers contributing to Elektor Magazine employ a smartphone, usually for its display functionality and/or its touch screen as part of a user interface (UI) through Bluetooth or WiFi. Knobs, dials, meters, sliders … why go through the trouble of drilling and soldering and even purchasing parts if you can have the entire UI on single device, in your hand, battery powered, wireless, and totally reconfigurable through software only?

Most of the time simple solutions are the best. “Keep it simple, stupid” or KISS is a well-known but often ignored design principle. Not so for this project which consists mainly of clever wiring and a bunch of connectors. What can you do with it? Not only does it allow you to get out of the wallwart phone charger mess by providing inputs for several plug types but it also lets you easily attach a volt- and ammeter to see what's happening -- and why. Hide it all in a sturdy little box and what you have is a handy adapter & test tool.

Remarkably, the ERASynth from ERA Instruments uses a multi-loop PLL architecture to provide continuous frequency coverage from 250 kHz to 15 GHz in 1 Hz steps. That’s in contrast with single-loop fractional PLLs with integrated VCOs which, although great for generating RF signals with fine frequency resolution, are often plagued by high phase noise floors and an undergrowth of spurious artifacts. ERAsynth is an open source, crowd-funded project — now available on Crowd Supply — aiming to make multi-GHz RF signal synthesis accessible to everyone.

Siglent's SDS1000X-E Series employs a new generation of SPO (Super Phosphor Oscilloscope) technology that provides a new perspective on signal fidelity and performance. The system noise is also lower than similar products in the industry.

Using the fully automated test bench, several DC motors can be tested at the same time asynchronously. The load unit, which is coupled to the motor unit under test, allows the application of both passive and active load behavior and a combination of both, so that realistic operational profiles can be simulated. The high-speed control systems are taken care of by the Berghof Testing software, using NI PXI's real-time technology, the NI SoftMotion Module and Bosch Rexroth load motors. Combined with test drive control and corresponding sensor information, complex and highly dynamic test sequences can be defined and implemented both easily and flexibly.

Since it is still winter, we review this time a small, simple circuit, which nevertheless is very useful and easy to use for temperature-control type applications, for example for switching on a heat lamp for controlling the temperature of a terrarium or even the control of a small electric heater to prevent frost in a particular space. It goes by the moniker ‘Intelligent Digital Thermostat Switch’ in our store, and that is exactly what it is.