{"id":11267,"date":"2015-11-16T09:15:13","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T17:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.digilentinc.com\/?p=11267"},"modified":"2025-08-18T02:06:41","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T09:06:41","slug":"lab-test-bench-oscilloscopes-and-waveform-generators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/lab-test-bench-oscilloscopes-and-waveform-generators\/","title":{"rendered":"Lab Test Bench&#8211; Oscilloscopes and Waveform Generators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stocking a basic lab for electrical engineering classes is expensive. One piece of equipment can cost hundreds or thousands, and that&#8217;s not always feasible, especially if you&#8217;re trying to stock a personal lab. Keeping this in mind, Instructables user\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.instructables.com\/member\/ionescualexandrumihai\/\" rel=\"author\">ionescualexandrumihai<\/a>\u00a0submitted a project to the Digilent Design Contest that focused on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.instructables.com\/id\/Lab-test-bench-oscilloscopewaveform\/?ALLSTEPS\">implementing both\u00a0hardware and software to build a small, affordable oscilloscope and waveform generator<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11287\" src=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/lab-test-bench-600x233.jpg\" alt=\"lab-test-bench\" width=\"600\" height=\"233\" data-wp-pid=\"11287\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/lab-test-bench-600x233.jpg 600w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/lab-test-bench.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As affordability is the priority of this project, most of the parts listed are generic. You will need a <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/shop\/chipkit-wf32-wifi-enabled-microntroller-board-with-uno-r3-headers\/\">chipKIT WF32<\/a>, a USB A to micro B cable, wires, a <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/shop\/pmodad1-two-12-bit-a-d-inputs\/\">PmodAD1<\/a>, a <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/shop\/pmodda1-four-8-bit-d-a-outputs\/\">PmodDA1<\/a>, a rotary encoder like the <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/shop\/pmodenc-rotary-encoder\/\">PmodENC<\/a>, a 128&#215;64 LCD, and a 4&#215;4 matrix keypad. You&#8217;ll also need some software. <a href=\"http:\/\/chipkit.net\/started\/install-chipkit-software\/\">MPIDE<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.x-io.co.uk\/serial-oscilloscope\/\">oscilloscope software<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/Products\/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,401,499&amp;Prod=PMOD-AD1\">ADC module library<\/a>, and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/Products\/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,401,501&amp;Prod=PMOD-DA1\">DAC module library<\/a> from Digilent are all necessary.<\/p>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve gathered the materials you need, create an MPIDE project. This particular one can be done via one of the examples,\u00a0the\u00a0ADCSPIDemo. Load that and then the DAC demo project under the examples. Then, use two SPI modules for to configure the <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/shop\/products\/mixed-signal-oscilloscopes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">oscilloscope<\/a> and waveform generator with the code provided in the Instructable.<\/p>\n<p>This is a great way to set up your own lab test bench on the cheap. While this project hasn&#8217;t been completed yet in its entirety, we here at Digilent look forward to seeing the final results!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-left'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style6 like-11267 jlk' data-task='like' data-post_id='11267' data-nonce='ac068a413b' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post-pro\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-11267 lc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class='action-unlike'><a class='unlbg-style6 unlike-11267 jlk' data-task='unlike' data-post_id='11267' data-nonce='ac068a413b' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post-pro\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Unlike' \/><span class='unlc-11267 unlc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div> <div class='status-11267 status align-left'>Be the 1st to vote.<\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Find out more about building your own affordable lab test bench.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4323,4312,1561],"tags":[499],"ppma_author":[4464],"class_list":["post-11267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software","category-usb-scopes-analyzers-generators","category-applications","tag-oscilloscope"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":4464,"user_id":7,"is_guest":0,"slug":"amber_mear","display_name":"Amber Mear","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d0fc56ab4035f79884675bde2a948e84c1d14dd33b730b4c142dde6f1a962395?s=96&d=mm&r=g","1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":"","9":"","10":""}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31956,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11267\/revisions\/31956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11267"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}