Understanding Signals with the PropScope - Chapter 1: PropScope Introduction and Setup (Draft Copy)
Andy Lindsay (Parallax)
Posts: 1,919
Get the Latest Full Textbook in Print or PDF
The latest version of Understanding Signals with the PropScope is now published in both print and PDF.
You can download the full PDF textbook from:
www.parallax.com/go/PropScope
Thanks to all our reviewers for their input!
The latest version of Understanding Signals with the PropScope is now published in both print and PDF.
You can download the full PDF textbook from:
www.parallax.com/go/PropScope
Thanks to all our reviewers for their input!
Comments
Many thanks! I know a number of people including myself have been delaying purchasing the PropScope pending available documentation similar to the fine documentation that you created for the USB scope.
I look forward to seeing the rest of the beta version as soon as possible. Rest assured, that the user community realizes that the beta version may contain some bugs, but this is certainly no problem.
Your courses and documentation are really great and have enabled me to learn hardware interfacing from a background of many years of strictly software design.
Keep up the great work!
The latest software is here[noparse]:http:[/noparse]//forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=40&m=465791
If you have a problem please send me a pm so I can get more details.
Hanno
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Co-author of the official Propeller Guide- available at Amazon
Developer of ViewPort, the premier visual debugger for the Propeller (read the review here, thread here),
12Blocks, the block-based programming environment (thread here)
and PropScope, the multi-function USB oscilloscope/function generator/logic analyzer
Good point, I'll add an announcement tomorrow after posting Chapter 2 to this forum.
Andy
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Andy Lindsay
Education Department
Parallax, Inc.
Along with the updated software, are there any upcoming changes/upgrades in the PropScope hardware or accessories?
I'll let David or someone from Parallax handle the hardware part of your question.
My main goal for the software- especially the release for this book is to make it absolutely stable and easy to use for a relative beginner- or an occasional user.
Andy's book does a wonderful job of taking a student from no electronic knowledge to dc, ac circuits, op-amps, sensors, slow and fast measurements, and filters.
I'm a big fan of the "Khan Academy"- short video tutorials on pretty much everything:
http://www.khanacademy.org/
Would be wonderful if a set of video lectures accompanied the book and hands-on learning you get with PropScope....
I announced a "bode plot" plugin earlier this year- it's pretty close to done.
Also, serial protocol analysis and triggering for rs232, i2c and spi...
Also, channel math- being able to add/subtract/multiply signals.
Finally- a "surprise"- more when I confirm that it works...
Hanno
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Co-author of the official Propeller Guide- available at Amazon
Developer of ViewPort, the premier visual debugger for the Propeller (read the review here, thread here),
12Blocks, the block-based programming environment (thread here)
and PropScope, the multi-function USB oscilloscope/function generator/logic analyzer
hannoware.com/propscope/propscope107.exe
+only indicate "clipped" if signal(s) being displayed is clipped
+stats only calculated for channels being displayed, so measurement for ch1/ch2 will be blank when ch not displayed
+lsa "wait for trigger" indicator
+msft bug fix
+nice trigger indicator in lsa mode
+confirm proper dc average
+dso and lsa views both have their own trigger. however, in dsolsa view, only one can be active at a time. on entry into dsolsa, the binary trigger is turned of if the analog one is on
+datalogger mode is back
+datalogger mode does not disable trigger, it still shows triggers, but indicates "trigger ignored"
+when switching out of datalogger mode, time offset is set so you look at left of data, first sample is left
+when switching between datalogger timescales, time offset is set so you look at right of data- most recent is right
+trigger time crosshair is at right position- even in lsa mode
+restrict dac to 4.7
Hanno
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Co-author of the official Propeller Guide- available at Amazon
Developer of ViewPort, the premier visual debugger for the Propeller (read the review here, thread here),
12Blocks, the block-based programming environment (thread here)
and PropScope, the multi-function USB oscilloscope/function generator/logic analyzer
That should be "effect", not "affect".
P. 20 - This is picky, but:
"The probe rod in Figure 1-9 also has a switch labeled X1 X10. These settings are
typically pronounced “ten-X” and “one-X” or “times ten” and “times one”, and notations
of 10x and 1x are common."
If you have X1 and then X10, then it should be
"one-X" and "ten-X" or "times one" and "times ten"·
to keep the order the same. Of course the world won't end if you just leave it as is. They'll figure it out.
Post Edited (sylvie369) : 7/28/2010 2:31:46 PM GMT
This is great material! Thank you. All has been duly noted and queued for the next edit. I should have the Chapter 5 draft up tonight. After that, I'll be taking a 1 week break, and will resume posting chapters 6-9 starting either Thursday, 8/5 or Friday, 8/6.
Andy
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Andy Lindsay
Education Department
Parallax, Inc.
These should be the complete edits for these chapters.
chapter 3 page 15 There is a noticable lag between moving the trigger and the plot moving.
PropScope 1.0.8 showes 0 to 200 as the time scale no matter where the plot area is. Also it has the offset from trigger crosshair to the plot line.
page 29 . After entering the invalid parameters, I was totally lost after the info box. Version 1.0.8 does not require a trigger level change
Page 35. Moving the graph position, measuring a peak with the slider to the left and then moving the slider to the right for the next peak doesn't work. Time is relative to the displayed screen, not to the start of the entire data set.
edit: Forgot to state that comments apply to 1.0.8
John Abshier
Timescale bug is fixed in 109.
I didn't have a comment-enabled version of this, so they're in a Word document. Most are the comments I've already sent, but there are a couple of new ones now that I've had the chance to work through the activities.
The programs all seem to work just fine: I got the expected results in every case, both in the PropScope output and in the BS2 debug windows.
Hanno
No problem. I'm enjoying it.
Paul "will edit for parts" Smith
Wow, that spectrum analyzer stuff is wonderful. Very impressive.
I did find that some things in chapter 7 did not work with earlier versions of Propscope software. I installed 1.1.2, and that worked fine.
Edit: Oops - I see you already have the chapter 6 edits. These are the same, I think, but ch 7 is new.
There are a LOT of places where there is a description of an image (either a circuit diagram/protoboard setup or an image of the Propscope settings) on the bottom of one page, and then the image itself on the next page. It seems like this is the norm, not an occasional exception. There's an example on pages 354-355 (Ch 8) that felt sort of like the "last straw" to me, putting me over the edge into posting a comment.
If the plan is for those to be on facing pages of a spiral-bound manual, that's fine, I guess (though not that helpful to folks using a .pdf version).
If the reader will have to flip back and forth from the frontside of a page to the backside of that page, this is terribly annoying and sometimes confusing.
Given the nature of these situations, I think it'd be worthwhile to insert some whitespace if necessary to make the descriptions fall on the same page as the images they're describing. The reader will have a much better experience with the manual.
Thanks for mentioning it. We do want to hear it, especially now, before our editor makes her pass through the document. Your post points to three items on her lengthy checklist:
- Incorporate the majority of the reviewer feedback
- Reduce the real-estate the figures take
- Make instruction vs. figure layout adjustments
The manuscripts she receives are typically unformatted, and the normal flow for a Stamps in Class book is to pass it through our editor first before posting it to the forums for feedback. (Actually, that's the normal flow for a book that is written all at once. Its a little different if it has been percolating as individual forum posts for a while.) The XBee Tutorial got that standard treatment, but the PropScope book did not. It was posted before editing. So, whatever formatting you see is formatting that I applied just to help me see the relationships between explanations and illustrations in a continuous pagination view (without headers, footers, and spaces between pages).
Other parts of "passing through our editor" include:
- Adjusting explanations for clarity
- Back and forth with other explanations flagged for adjustment/correction
- Grammatical and typo corrections
- Formatting to highlight vocabulary terms, programming keywords, and software terms
- Indexing
- Removal of my foot from my mouth when needed
Without all that, it was kinda hard to click that Upload button. That said, I sure do appreciate all the great feedback. So thank you, keep em coming, and I hope youll like the final, edited version.
Andy
Incidentally, having just gone through the stuff on measuring phase differences in the sine wave chapter, did you know that human beings use measurement of phase differences between the two ears to localize low frequency sounds?
Yes, marking up each book sequentially makes good sense. Wow, what a relief to hear that you are enjoying it, especially from the "uh-oh, what's going to happen when I post this un-edited?" standpoint.
CH9 Paul Smith notes.pdf
This should be it for my edits to the PropScope book.
Great chapter, by the way. I think I understand op amps now.