LabNation SmartScope USB 'scope/etc

[Andy Peters]

Early last year I kicked in for the Lab Nation SmartScope, which promised to be a USB 'scope/logic analyzer/digital pattern generator/arbitrary waveform generator unit. So nearly a year later, and six months after the original delivery date, the thing showed up today. Part of the delay was that they shifted from a Spartan 3AN FPGA with no external memory buffer to a Spartan 6 to get more storage because more BRAMs. Then they decided to add an SDRAM buffer, original 16 Mb, until they realized that the 64 Mb parts fit in the same footprint and cost the same.

It cost $199, and the price sets the expectation level. Specs are:

• Two-channel 'scope, 100 Ms/s sampling, 8-bit resolution. Bandwidth is claimed to be ~45 MHz, and it comes with two 60 MHz probes (which look to be the same things that Tek puts in their TDS2000-series 'scopes, with switchable attenuation). Input range is +/-35V. Sample buffer length is 4 Ms, which is respectable. It has the usual simple triggering you'd expect, with rising or falling edge and level adjust. It does not have AC coupled trigger mode. It has basic math (add, subtract, multiply, divide trace A with B). It does not have an X-Y mode.
• Eight channels of logic analyzer, at 100 MHz (HP "timing mode" only, no "state mode" sampling synchronous to an external clock input) and a 4 Ms buffer depth. Input range is claimed as "3.3V or 5V," and they talk about using something like an LVC541 as the input device. It's not like an HP where the logic thresholds are programmable (which would require comparator inputs and a DAC). It has diode clamps so hopefully it'll be tough to blow up. They have promised protocol decoders for at least I2C and SPI but the current version of the host software has nothing. Triggering is (at least with current software/firmware) somewhat stupid, a simple pattern match, with no counts and no sequence.
• It has an 8-bit resolution arbitrary waveform generator which runs at 50 MHz. The waveform has max 2048 steps. Right now it does only sine, triangle, square, sawtooth and multi-sine waves. This function does not seem to be implemented yet.
• Finally, it has a four-bit digital pattern generator feature, which is not supported by the software at all yet.

So the main thing right now is that the host software is buggy as all fuck. It will crash and burn while doing absolutely nothing.

Don't order one until the software is usable.