Bitscope Micro - A cautionary tale

[RussellPiBot]

I have spent far too much time trying to find information on how too brighten the grid-lines of my Bitscope Micro DSO so that I can see them clearly. Setup information:

> Bitscope Micro
> DSO 2.6
> MacBook Pro w/ OS X 10.10.2 (Yosemite)

Perhaps my skills using the DSO "Help" drop down menu and user guide are lacking; however, I have given trying to resolve this issue and a number of other Bitscope issues an honest go.

DSO_Virtual_Instruments.png (53.86 KiB) Viewed 1748 times

The unfortunate truth may be that the Bitscope people are not fitted-up to support the home hobbyist market - no user forum and very limited web site troubleshooting / user support information.

I bought the Bitscope micro because it was featured on the Raspberry Pi foundation web site, as well as by the MagPi magazine and was being sold, and I assumed, supported by Adafruit and Element14. So it goes.

I hope forum readers who may be considering purchasing a Bitscope micro find this helpful when making a choise.
Cheers,

[jamesh]

Have you emailed them for help?

[RussellPiBot]

Have you emailed them for help?

Yes - I have emailed Bitscope on this issue and other issues. They have not responded to the gridline brightness issue yet; however, it has only been two days since I sent that email.

On another matter, Bitscope DSO would not work with the latest Raspbian version, it took two emails to get them to say perhaps there is an issue with their software and the new Raspbian release. I have not received any follow-up and I still cannot get the Pi and Bitscope to work together. I have followed the install procedure presented in MagPi to the letter, numerous times, without success. That is why I am using my Macbook Pro instead of the Pi to test the Bitscope DSO.

Also, I am having problems with the Bitscope Mico measuring voltages correctly. Neither the Pi's 5v or 3V3 is measured correctly. Nor are the voltages from my bench variable power supply correctly read by the Bitscope. However, my multimeter reads the voltages on the Pi and bench PS accurately.

I will not alerted Bitscope to voltage reading problem until I verify it is not a Bitscope probe issue. The probes provided with the Bitscope are the cheapest Bitscope could find. Therefore, I will order a BNC probe and an adapter (Bitscope hammer head) and try the voltage test again before contacting Bitscope. Hopefully, I will not be throwing good money after bad.

When I inquired about a user forum Bitscope advised me they were working on that. I am a retired industrial engineer and not new to working with suppliers. However, in this case I guess I should have done more to vet the Bitscope product. So it goes.

Cheers,

[fruit-uk]

Bitscope DSO would not work with the latest Raspbian version, it took two emails to get them to say perhaps there is an issue with their software and the new Raspbian release.

Very odd, my BS10 works OK. I wonder if there is a dependency issue. Do you see anything relevant if you run from command line?

The probes provided with the Bitscope are the cheapest Bitscope could find.

Agreed, but they have worked for me up to now.

[RussellPiBot]

Thank you for sharing your thinking.

Do you see anything relevant if you run from command line?

Whenever possible I run the Pi from the command line, doing so helps me learn and spot problems.

With regard to the Bitscope / Pi operations I have not noticed anything unusual from a cmd line view. In an effort to ensure I was using a proper Raspbian image I purchased a new class 10 SD card, downloaded the latest Noobs release, conducted a Bitsum check, and followed proper procedure for the Noobs install of Raspbian. I then completed cmd-line update and upgrade steps and then executed the startx command. Finally, I followed the steps for installing the Bitscope software outlined in issue #25 of the MagPi. I did this several times, however, I was never able to get the Bitscope to run properly on the Pi.

That said, I am fairly new to Linux (~1 year) and have completed only one proper Linux training course to date; however, being retired I have spent plenty of time online learning Raspbian/Linux and resolving Pi problems using forums and other resources. At best, I am a hardware guy who is learning the software side of electronics/Pi-bonics.

Subject change.
I heard back from the Bitscope people with regard to the gridline brightness issue, their comments follow:

The will soon be updated allowing control over the selection of colours (and brightness) used for various display features including the channels, graticule (aka grid) and digital phosphor.

Previews of this release will be made available for most platforms soon and we have added your email address to the announcement release for this feature so you will be informed when it's ready (planned for June).

I will wait patiently, with hopeful expectations, for the new BitScope DSO software to be released and debugged.

With regard to the voltage measurement issue, given your consistently positive results with the Bitscope spring loaded test probes I have decided to run some additional voltage measurement tests today by swapping out the Bitscope test leads with female-to-female connectors that match up with the Bitscope connector pins and the Pi GPIO pins. Doing so should eliminate any poor connection(s) between the Pi and Bitscope that may be causing a voltage drop, and the consistently low voltage reading from GPIO pins 1 (3V3) and 2 (5V) and pin 6 ground and Bitscope display.

Taking the long view, I believe the Bitscope Micro will become a good addition to my electronics shop. In time, I believe the Bitscope people will adapt to the hobbyist market and hopefully, provide a proper user forum linked to their website. In addition, I expected to become more skilled at using a software based oscilloscope, Linux and the Pi.

I will post the results of today's Bitscope - Pi voltage measurement tests.

Thank you for your advice and guidance - of all the forums I visit the Pi foundation web site is the best by far.

Cheers