I am unable to afford even a half-decent scope off eBay or Amazon, since I am a 14 year old without a source of income. However, I really enjoy restoring cheap, 'broken' equipment for my own use as an AVR freak, for which I now need a scope with a decent bandwidth => 20MHz, either digital (I know that's hopeful) or analogue. Thank you to anyone taking the time to look at this,
Ben
Just to clarify I am not necessarily asking for a freebie, and I would of course pay freight to the UK.
Thanks again,
Ben
I would suggest emailing your local university for it, they are often very helpful. I got a couple of Tektronix scopes like that for free.
... and Ben, do you have a local hacker group or Ham radio club in your area? You may find someone there who has a dust collector in his back room that he would be pleased to pass on to you. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Best of luck and a belated welcome to AVRFreaks.
Ross
Thank you both, although unfortunately I don't have a University within easy travelling distance, or any hacker groups in the vicinity. Thus, I must trouble the good folks ar AVR Freaks
Cheers again,
Ben
Thank you both, although unfortunately I don't have a University within easy travelling distance, or any hacker groups in the vicinity. Thus, I must trouble the good folks ar AVR Freaks
Cheers again,
Ben
Ben,
Go into your profile settings and add your city so others who read this know where you are. You might be surprised to find that someone who could help is relatively nearby. Obviously I am not.
Cheers,
Ross
Thanks for the tip, Ross
Thanks Ben. Now we know where you are.
Here is one "local" group that may be of help to you.
http://www.meetup.com/Cambridge-...
and another...
http://www.meetup.com/Makespace/
and also...
http://www.meetup.com/Family-Mak...
Cheers,
Ross
Thanks again, I'll have to have a look at them,
Ben
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Great find Joey!
Ben, a lot of this is what is called "networking"; getting to know people who may be able to help you. Most adults are more than happy to extend the same courtesy to others that was shown to them when they were younger and in need of some help. You just need to ask nicely and show some interest in what they are doing now. If you were in the next town to me I would be happy to lend you my 2 channel 30 MHz CRO and to show you my 2 channel 200MHz digital scope.
Best of luck.
Ross
And in Cambridge there is a Amateur Radio Club ( as you would expect as Cambridge has had a long association with radio).
I am sure that someone there will help you will turn up a CRO and I suspect that there will be some training and experience there. (Make sure you get a set of probes too.)
Thanks to all of you guys, I guess I should have done a bit more research. I've sent some emails and hope to get a response.
No worries, it is sometimes difficult to know where to start. Networking is important. Once you are networked, the "tree shaking" usually turns things up. Have a good look at Amateur Radio as it may boost your foray into electronics.
Call in from time to time & let us know how you are going.
That's a nice idea, I have been looking at getting into that, perhaps I'll try and repair some gear for it (best way to get it). And good news on the scope front, a very kind guy on the EEVBlog forum has offered me a Tenma scope with a built in function generator for a very good price.
That is great news Ben.
Thanks Ross, and thanks to all of you. Your advice has really helped me in this enterprise, and has opened up opportunities for down the road. I am very grateful,
Ben
Just curious....
What do you have in the form of development kit for Atmel devices?
Jim
I own an Arduino Uno, although I want to get a new kit to enable me to more easily transfer programs made in atmel studio to a standalone micro.
Atmel Studio is designed for using the Atmel programmers. e.g. AVRISP-2
So one click can build and upload the program.
However, you can easily add a "post-build" command that uploads to an Arduino or any third party programmer.
So you get the same 'one-click' functionality.
You can even make it a template. So every new project can use the "post-build".
David.
I caution against offering to pay freight for old equipment. You might end up with a 1000 UKpound bill for some old piece of junk sent from South America.
If the low-cost scope deal doesn't come though, consider downloading a PC audio-input oscilloscope program. These programs turn the audio input into a scope. It's limited to 1 volt p-p (use op-amps and resistor dividers for higher values), 44.1K samples per second, and it's AC coupled. In other words perfect for audio but little else. But free. And with nearly unlimited memory for capturing signals.
New digital oscilloscopes are getting very good these days. But they are still starting at the $300 level. Nevertheless, $300 (@ 140 UKP) is buying the same level of utility that $5000 bought ten years ago. I recommend viewing the Dave Jones' EEVblog on YouTube for interesting videos on using oscilloscopes (and all sorts of topics on electronics).
Beware that the Mega328P -Xplained board has a shipping charge from Malaysia that costs 2-3 times the cost of the board itself. Try Farnel or some other UK electronic distributor. I found the same board on Element 14 hidden under the name Mega328 Xmini for $14.68 USD. AVR programmers are very cheap if you use a USBASP dongle.
Beware that the Mega328P -Xplained board has a shipping charge from Malaysia that costs 2-3 times the cost of the board itself. Try Farnel or some other UK electronic distributor. I found the same board on Element 14 hidden under the name Mega328 Xmini for $14.68 USD...
Ben, follow the threads in my post. The UK distributers and prices have already been discussed there as were the outrageous shipping charges from Malasia.
