Sound card oscilloscope is a great type of oscilloscope that receives its data from the sound card with 44.1 kHz and 16 Bit resolution. This sound card oscilloscope can select the data source by using the Windows mixer such as microphone, line-in or wave.
The sound card oscilloscope has frequency range that depends on the sound card, but 20-20000Hz should be possible with all modern cards. The low frequency end is limited by the AC coupling of the line-in signal. You need to be aware, that most microphone inputs are only mono.
In addition, the sound card oscilloscope contains a signal generator for 2 channels for Sine, Square, Triangular and Sawtooth wave forms in the frequency range from 0 to 20 kHz. These signals are available at the speaker output of the sound card. These can be fed back to the oscilloscope in order to generate Lissajous figures in the x-y mode.
Basically, the sound card oscilloscope is equipped with many features that include trigger modes (off, automatic, normal and single shot), frequency analysis (Fourier spectrum), frequency filter (low-, high- and band-pass), and so forth. The sound card oscilloscope comes with cursors to measure amplitude, time and frequency in the main window. It also has audio recorder to save data to a wave file. For multi soundcard system, the used card can be selected in the settings tab.
Furthermore, the signals for the sound card oscilloscope can be internal to the computer (MP3 player, function generator etc.) or from external sources (line-in, microphone). For external sources care has to be taken, not to exceed the voltage range of the inputs. The range is usually only ±0.7V. If higher voltage needs to be analyzed, a voltage divider has to be used. Additional protection diodes are recommended in order to avoid any damage to the sound card and to the computer.
The sound card oscilloscope is available in several options. If you want to know more about it, you can check out the following information that will provide you two reviews about sound card oscilloscope from AZEskop and Virtins. So, just take a look at the following information and find what these oscilloscopes can offer you.
AZEskop Sound Card Oscilloscope
Azeskop is recognized as a low-frequency oscilloscope. This oscilloscope uses your computer’s sound card as analog-to-digital converter. Azeskop is free software that can be freely downloaded and used. This sound card oscilloscope features dual channel, 1 special function channel (Ch1+Ch2, Ch1-Ch2, Ch2-Ch1, -Ch1, -Ch2), and time/Div (50ms – 50us/Div). This oscilloscope can save display as Bmp, png or jpg.
Virtins Sound Card Oscilloscope 3.2
The second option of sound card oscilloscope comes from Virtins. This oscilloscope is a powerful PC based virtual instrument software. It features a specially designed data acquisition approach which is able to monitor the input signal continuously without missing any trigger event before the frame of data is collected.
Moreover, this oscilloscope supports sophisticated triggering method including pre-trigger and post-trigger which are generally missing from other sound card based instruments. Virtins Sound Card Oscilloscope comes with all of the features of a modern digital storage oscilloscope that provides four types of views including real time wave form display of Channel A and Channel B, real time wave form display of Channel A + Channel B, real time wave form display of Channel A – Channel B, and real time Lissajous Pattern display for Channel A and Channel B.
After all, the information about sound card oscilloscope above is just few reviews that you can consider before deciding to choose certain unit. Simply find other reviews and see what kind of oscilloscope that suits with specification you are yearning for, in order to get the best result on your selection process.
