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Home » Electronics » Home Audio » Speaker Wires » How to Use Your Sound Card
as an Oscilloscope
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more » How to Use Your Sound Card as an Oscilloscope
By Amanda Morin, eHow Contributor
updated: July 31, 2010

I want to do this! What's This? An oscilloscope graphs the waveforms of

electrical signals.
waveform 20 image by chrisharvey from Fotolia.com An expensive piece of test
equipment used to analyze and graph the waveforms of electric signals (AC and
DC), an oscilloscope may be out of the price range of most hobbyists. You can,
however, simulate an oscilloscope with the sound card on your PC.Difficulty:
Moderately ChallengingInstructionsThings You'll Need:
Sound card oscilloscope software
Old headphone cable (1/8-inch jack)
Soldering iron
Solid core wire
DC power supply
Voltmeter
Resistors or potentiometer
1Download PC sound card oscilloscope software. Some of the more commonly used
programs include Zelscope, Audiotester and Scope, which can all be downloaded
at little or no charge.
2Configure your PC to record sound via the microphone or line-in port. Though
you may not actually be recording any of the signals you'll be capturing, the
PC sound card oscilloscope software uses the same interface used to record
sound. Double-click on the volume icon in the system tray and be sure both the
Line Volume and Microphone Volume levels are turned up and not muted.
3Make a set of probes This requires an old headphone cable with a 1/8-inch
phono jack, a soldering iron and some solid core wire. Cut off a long section
of the wire and strip the ends opposite of the phono jack. There should be
three wires if the phono jack is stereo, only two if the phono jack is mono.
4Solder solid core wire to the ends of each wire. Solid core wire can be
plugged directly into breadboards or used as probes. If you want, you could
solder banana clips, alligator clips or any type of connector or probe to the
ends of the wires.
5Make a voltage divider. A voltage divider is required because your sound card
was intended to be used with low-power audio devices. The maximum voltage from
your circuit should be around 1.7v. The sound card should be protected against
some voltage spikes, but anything above 5v may permanently damage your sound
card. A voltage divider can be created with resistors or a potentiometer.
6Test the voltage divider. Since the voltage divider may be the only thing
protecting your sound card from the higher-voltage circuit, supply a DC
voltage of the maximum voltage your circuit can output. Measure the output of
the voltage divider. Remember, you're aiming for an output voltage peaking at
1.7v or lower.
7Start the PC oscilloscope software. Once it has started, you'll see an
oscilloscope-like interface. You may also want to turn down the volume of your
speakers, since many waveforms can be very loud or even damage your speakers.
8Test your circuit with the probes. Though you won't be able to probe the
circuit as freely as you would with a real oscilloscope, you will at least be
able to get some information about what's happening in your circuit.
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Photo Credit
waveform 20 image by chrisharvey from Fotolia.com
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Comments Post a Comment TestGuru saidFlag This Comment This comment has been
flagged.
on 5/16/2008 Good article. Just to add: a good sound card based oscilloscope,
spectrum analyzer, and signal generator can be downloaded at:
www.multi-instrument.com
It also has a dedicated sound card oscilloscope probe.
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