I am a hobbyist and electrical engineering student that is looking
into purchasing a Velleman PCS500 oscilloscope that connects to the
computer. The specs can be found at www.designnotes.com. This
company is having a sale and the price looks reasonable for what it
can do. The circuits that I am analyzing are not high speed and the
transient recorder included with this device looks attractive.

My question is this...Does anyone own or have any experience with the
PCS500?

Thank you for your response.

Tom McAndrews wrote:

I am a hobbyist and electrical engineering student that is looking
into purchasing a Velleman PCS500 oscilloscope that connects to the
computer. The specs can be found at www.designnotes.com. This
company is having a sale and the price looks reasonable for what it
can do. The circuits that I am analyzing are not high speed and the
transient recorder included with this device looks attractive.

My question is this...Does anyone own or have any experience with the
PCS500?

Thank you for your response.

These are sometimes called Virtual Instruments.
Never used this product but here are some observations.

They appear to have only one product. That may be an indicator
they are not in the Virtual Instrument business for the long haul.

I could find nowhere in the spec the ADC resolution which is most
probably 8 bit. Resolution is a most important part of any ADC spec
& should be included.

Some early test equipment of this type was only 6 bit
& not very useable. Modern Agilent & Tek scopes are 8 bit.
Lecroy are 12 & 16 bit. Seems to me Fluke still uses 6 bit in one
of their portable Scope/DVMs.

If you are doing mostly audio work a better choice would be something
from Pico Technology such as their ADC-100 (12 bit) or ADC-216
(16 bit). That provides 72 or 96 dB of dynamic range. Dynamic
Range of the ADC is 6 dB for each bit of resolution. I have both.
They work very well & easy to use. If your interest is RF
then one of the 8 bit virtual instruments should be OK.

See www.picotech.com
For a wide range of Virtual Instruments.

Good Luck with your search.

John Stewart (ex HP & Rohde & Schwarz sales)