Pico 2104 PicoScope USB Hand Held PC Oscilloscope, 50MS/s.

Power and performance in your hand

PicoScope handheld oscilloscopes convert your laptop or desktop PC into a powerful oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer without the need for additional probes or power supplies. Keep one in your laptop bag or toolkit so you always have a scope to hand when you need it.

The PicoScope 2105 has a 100 megasample per second real-time sampling rate. For repetitive signals the sampling rate can be increased to 2 gigasamples per second using digital equivalent-time sampling. These high sampling rates combined with a 24,000 sample buffer memory and 25 MHz analog bandwidth make the PicoScope 2105 suitable for a wide range of troubleshooting tasks on both analog and digital circuits. The entry-level PicoScope 2104 is also available for use in less demanding applications.

"Easy to use" just got easier

Using your PicoScope handheld oscilloscope could not be easier: plug-and-play technology allows you to simply plug the oscilloscope into a USB port and start using it straight away. No need for power supplies, additional oscilloscope probes or complex installation procedures.

Designed for single-handed operation, the oscilloscope can be controlled using a button located on the top of the scope. Press the button to start the oscilloscope; the button will flash green to indicate the scope is running. A beam of light will illuminate the tip of the scope so you can clearly see the area being probed. Once you’ve captured your signal, press the button again. The button will glow red to indicate the scope has stopped.

To make your oscilloscope even easier to use you can activate PicoScope’s powerful autosetup function by simply holding down the button. The autosetup function will automatically set up the timebase and trigger level to display the signal that PicoScope finds on the scope’s input.

FFT spectrum analyzer

Unlike the oscilloscope views which display amplitude vs time, the spectrum view reveals new detail by plotting amplitude vs frequency. The spectrum view is ideal for finding the cause of noise or crosstalk in a signal which often looks random in the time domain. It is also often the best mode for testing distortion, frequency response and stability of amplifiers, filters and oscillators. The spectrum analyzer in PicoScope is of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) type which, unlike a traditional swept spectrum analyzer, has the ability to display the spectrum of a single, non-repeating waveform.

PicoScope oscilloscopes have low-noise, low-distortion front-end designs and our high-resolution scopes offer exceptional levels of dynamic range (> 100 dB SFDR for the PicoScope 4262). This makes them capable of revealing signal details that other scope and dedicated analyzers miss.

A full range of settings gives you control over the number of spectrum bands (FFT bins), window types, scaling (linear, log, log/log) and display modes (instantaneous, average, or peak-hold).

You can display multiple spectrum views with different channel selections and zoom factors, and place these alongside oscilloscope views of the same data. A comprehensive set of automatic frequency-domain measurements can be added to the display, including THD, THD+N, SNR, SINAD and IMD.

A mask limit test can be applied to a spectrum for automated tests and you can even use the AWG and spectrum mode together to perform swept scalar network analysis.

Waveform buffer

PicoScope oscilloscope software has the ability to store more than one waveform in its waveform buffer. Depending on the settings you have chosen, PicoScope can store from 1 to 10,000 waveforms in its buffer.

When you click the Start button or change a capture setting, PicoScope clears the buffer and then adds a new waveform to it every time the oscilloscope captures data. This continues until the buffer is full or you click the Stop button. Once you have stopped capturing data, you can then review each captured waveform to find the event you want. You can also save the whole buffer and examine it at a later date.

Mask limit testing

Mask limit testing is a feature that tells you when a waveform or spectrum goes outside a specified area, called a mask.

This feature is specially designed for production and debugging environments. Capture a signal from a known working system, and PicoScope will draw a mask around it with your specified tolerance. Connect the system under test, and PicoScope will highlight any parts of the waveform that fall outside the mask area. The highlighted details persist on the display, allowing the scope to catch intermittent glitches while you work on something else. The measurements window counts the number of failures, and can display other measurements and statistics at the same time.

Digital persistence modes

Advanced display modes allow you to overlay thousands of waveforms. New or more frequent data can be displayed in a brighter color or shade. This makes it easy to see glitches and dropouts and to estimate their relative frequency. Choose between analog persistence, digital color or custom display modes.