The PicoScope 4824 is a low-cost, portable solution for multi-input applications. With 8 high-resolution analog channels you can easily analyze audio, ultrasound, vibration, power, and timing of complex systems.
Despite its compact size, there is no compromise on performance. With a high 12-bit vertical resolution, bandwidth of 20 MHz, 256 MS buffer memory, and a fast sampling rate of 80 MS/s, the PicoScope 4824 has the power and functionality to deliver accurate results. It also features deep memory to analyze multiple serial buses such as UART, I2C, SPI, CAN and LIN plus control and driver signals.
Advanced display
PicoScope software dedicates almost all of the display area to the waveform. This ensures that the maximum amount of data is seen at once. The viewing area is much bigger and of a higher resolution than with a traditional benchtop scope. With a large display area available, you can also create a customizable split-screen display, and view multiple channels or different views of the same signal at the same time. As the example opposite shows, the software can even show both oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer traces at once. Additionally, each waveform shown works with individual zoom, pan, and filter settings for ultimate flexibility.
The PicoScope software can be controlled by mouse, touchscreen or keyboard shortcuts.
High resolution offers 16x more detail
The PicoScope 4824 is a 12 bit oscilloscope that offers 16 times more vertical resolution than traditional 8 bit oscilloscopes (4096 vertical levels vs 256). The example shows how with a 12 bit oscilloscope (blue trace) you can zoom in to reveal details of the signal that are not visible on an 8 bit oscilloscope (black trace).
As well as the high vertical resolution, the 256 million sample buffer memory ensures a high horizontal resolution as well. You can collect long detailed captures without the sampling rate dropping.
Once you have seen high-resolution waveforms on a high-resolution PC monitor you will never want to use a traditional benchtop oscilloscope with its small display again.
As well as improved oscilloscope traces, high resolution offers big benefits when performing spectrum analysis offering an additional 20 dB dynamic range on the spectrum over 8 bit oscilloscopes. Signals that were previously hidden in the noise floor are now clearly visible and the spectrum becomes a powerful tool to track down the causes of noise.
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Arbitrary waveform and function generator
The PicoScope 4262 has a built in 20 kHz function generator (sine, square, triangle, DC voltage, ramp, sinc, Gaussian, half–sine, white noise and PRBS). The function generator offers and outstanding sine wave distortion performance of 102 dB SFDR to match the performance of the oscilloscope / spectrum analyzer.
As well as basic controls to set level, offset and frequency, more advanced controls allow you to sweep over a range of frequencies. Combined with the spectrum peak hold option this makes a powerful tool for testing amplifier and filter responses.
Trigger tools allow one or more cycles of a waveform to be output when various conditions are met such as the scope triggering or a mask limit test failing.
As well as the standard waveforms available from the function generator, custom waveforms can be created using the 16 bit / 192 kS/s arbitrary waveform generator (AWG). AWG waveforms can be created or edited using the built-in editor, imported from oscilloscope traces, or loaded from a spreadsheet.
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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.
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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.
Signal integrity
Most oscilloscopes are built down to a price. PicoScopes are built up to a specification.
Careful front-end design and shielding reduces noise, crosstalk and harmonic distortion. Years of oscilloscope design experience can be seen in improved bandwidth flatness and low distortion.
We are proud of the dynamic performance of our products and, unlike most oscilloscope manufacturers, we publish our specifications in detail. The result is simple: when you probe a circuit, you can trust in the waveform you see on the screen.
High-end features as standard
Buying a PicoScope is not like making a purchase from other oscilloscope companies, where optional extras considerably increase the price. With our scopes, high-end features such as serial decoding, mask limit testing, advanced math channels and segmented memory are all included in the price.
To protect your investment, both the PC software and firmware inside the scope can be updated. Pico Technology have a long history of providing new features for free through software downloads. We deliver on our promises of future enhancements year after year, unlike many other companies in the field. Users of our products reward us by becoming lifelong customers and frequently recommending us to their colleagues.
PicoScope 4824 Features
| Hardware Acceleration Engine (HAL3)
Some oscilloscopes struggle when you enable deep memory; the screen update rate slows and controls become unresponsive. The PicoScope 4824 avoids this limitation with use of a dedicated hardware acceleration engine inside the oscilloscope. Its parallel design effectively creates the waveform image to be displayed on the PC screen. PicoScope oscilloscopes manage deep memory better than competing oscilloscopes, both PC-based and benchtop.
The PicoScope 4824 is fitted with third-generation hardware acceleration (HAL3). This speeds up areas of oscilloscope operation such as allowing waveform update rates in excess of 100,000 waveforms per second and the segmented memory / rapid trigger modes. The hardware acceleration engine ensures that any concerns about the USB connection or PC processor performance being a bottleneck are eliminated.
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| Waveform buffer and navigator
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.
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| 100,000 waveforms per second
An important specification to understand when evaluating oscilloscope performance is the waveform update rate, which is expressed as waveforms per second (wfms/s). While the sample rate indicates how frequently the oscilloscope samples the input signal within one waveform, or cycle, the waveform capture rate refers to how quickly an oscilloscope acquires waveforms.
Oscilloscopes with high waveform capture rates provide better visual insight into signal behavior and dramatically increase the probability that the oscilloscope will quickly capture transient anomalies such as jitter, runt pulses and glitches – that you may not even know exist.
The PicoScope 4824 oscilloscope uses hardware acceleration to achieve up to 100,000 wfms/s.
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| 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.
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| Advanced digital triggers
The majority of digital oscilloscopes still use an analog trigger architecture based on comparators. This causes time and amplitude errors that cannot always be calibrated out and often limits the trigger sensitivity at high bandwidths.
Over 20 years ago Pico first pioneered the use of fully digital triggering using the actual digitized data. This technique reduces trigger errors and allows our oscilloscopes to trigger on the smallest signals, even at the full bandwidth. Trigger levels and hysteresis can be set with high precision and resolution.
The PicoScope 4824 offers an industry-leading set of advanced triggers including pulse width, windowed and dropout.
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| Serial bus decoding and protocol analysis
PicoScope can decode CAN, FlexRay, I²C, I²S, RS-232/UART, SPI, and USB protocol data as standard. Expect this list to grow with future free software upgrades.
In graph format shows the decoded data (in hex, binary, decimal or ASCII) in a data bus timing format, beneath the waveform on a common time axis, with error frames marked in red. These frames can be zoomed to investigate noise or signal integrity issues.
In table format shows a list of the decoded frames, including the data and all flags and identifiers. You can set up filtering conditions to display only the frames you are interested in or search for frames with specified properties. The statistics option reveals more detail about the physical layer such as frame times and voltage levels. PicoScope can also import a spreadsheet to decode the data into user-defined text strings.
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Software for the PicoScope 4824 USB Oscilloscope
Advanced display
PicoScope software dedicates almost all of the display area to the waveform. Using the display of your laptop or desktop the area is much bigger and of a higher resolution than with a traditional benchtop scope. This is a huge advantage when displaying 8 high-resolution channels.
With a large display area available, you can also create a customizable split-screen display, and view multiple channels or different views of the same signal at the same time. As the example opposite shows, the software can even show both oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer traces at once. Additionally, each waveform shown works with individual zoom, pan, and filter settings for ultimate flexibility.
The PicoScope software can be controlled by mouse, touchscreen or keyboard shortcuts.
Math channels and filters
On many oscilloscopes waveform math just means simple calculations such as A + B. With a PicoScope it means much, much more.
With PicoScope 6 you can select simple functions such as addition and inversion, or open the equation editor to create complex functions involving filters (low pass, high pass, band pass and band stop filters), trigonometry, exponentials, logarithms, statistics, integrals and derivatives.
Waveform math also allows you to plot live signals alongside historic peak, averaged or filtered waveforms. You can also use math for example to graph the changing duty cycle or frequency of your signal.
With PicoScope math channels you can display up to eight real or calculated channels in each scope view. If you run out of space, just open another scope view and add more.
Custom probes in PicoScope oscilloscope software
The custom probes feature allows you to correct for gain, attenuation, offsets and nonlinearities in probes, sensors or transducers that you connect to the oscilloscope.
A simple use would be to linearly scale the output of a current probe so that it correctly displays amperes. A more advanced use would be to scale the output of a nonlinear temperature sensor using the table lookup function.
Definitions for standard Pico-supplied oscilloscope probes and current clamps are included. User-created probes may be saved for later use.
Alarms
PicoScope can be programmed to execute actions when certain events occur.
The events that can trigger an alarm include mask limit fails, trigger events and buffers full.
The actions that PicoScope can execute include saving a file, playing a sound, executing a program or triggering the signal generator / AWG.
Alarms, coupled with mask limit testing, help to quickly validate signal quality in electronic system designs.
High-speed data acquisition and digitizing
The software development kit (SDK) allows you to write your own software and includes drivers for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac (OS X) and Linux (including Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone).
Example code shows how to interface to third-party software packages such as Microsoft Excel, National Instruments LabVIEW and MathWorks MATLAB.
The drivers support USB data streaming, a mode which captures gap-free continuous data over USB direct to the PC’s RAM or hard disk at rates of up to 10 MS/s. Capture size is limited only by available PC storage. Sampling rates in streaming mode are subject to PC specifications and application loading.
Powerful tools provide endless options
Your PicoScope is provided with many powerful tools to help you acquire and analyze waveforms. While these tools can be used on their own, the real power of PicoScope lies in the way they have been designed to work together.
As an example, the rapid trigger mode allows you to collect 10,000 waveforms in a few milliseconds with minimal dead time between them. Manually searching through these waveforms would be time consuming, so just pick a waveform you are happy with and let the mask tools scan through for you. When done, the measurements will tell you how many have failed and the buffer navigator allows you to hide the good waveforms and just display the problem ones. This video shows you how.
Perhaps instead you want to plot changing duty cycle as a graph? How about outputting a waveform from the AWG and also automatically saving the waveform to disk when a trigger condition is met? With the power of PicoScope the possibilities are almost endless.